Study
Explore criminal law, criminal procedure, trial advocacy, juvenile law and related areas through UH Law Center courses and programs.
University of Houston Law Center
Criminal Justice Institute
The Criminal Justice Institute (CJI) brings together nationally-recognized scholars, top criminal law practitioners, judges and students through a variety of programs designed to enhance the study and practice of criminal law. The Institute includes such established programs as the Texas Innocence Network, the Criminal Justice Clinic, and the Criminal Trial Advocacy training program. The Institute also offers opportunities for educational and practice programs, a dual degree in law and criminology, and conferences and symposia. All of the activities of the Institute aim to enhance the practice of criminal law at the local, national, and international levels.
Contact CJICriminal Justice Institute highlights
Practice
Build practical skills through clinics, externships, advocacy training and student work connected to real criminal justice issues.
Serve
Support scholarship, public programming and service initiatives that strengthen justice locally, nationally and internationally.
Director
David Kwok
Director, Criminal Justice Institute
Contact
Criminal Justice Institute
University of Houston Law Center
4170 Martin Luther King Blvd
Houston, TX 77204-6060
E-mail: CJI@uh.edu
Criminal Justice and Criminology B.S.
Free and Low-Cost Legal Services—click here.
Programs and opportunities
Learn by doing
Texas Innocence Network
Created in 2000, the Texas Innocence Network, based at the University of Houston Law Center, is Texas’ oldest innocence network.
Capital Division
The Capital Division represents death-sentenced inmates in their state and federal habeas appeals. TIN attorneys rely largely on student interns to conduct the exhaustive investigations necessary to develop the claims raised in these proceedings. The Capital Division also responds to requests from inmates who have been denied relief in their habeas proceedings and for whom an execution date is imminent. In these “crisis cases,” TIN attorneys and interns work tirelessly to identify and develop potential claims in an attempt to stop the execution. The Capital Division also provides research and investigative support for other attorneys representing Texas death row inmates.
Non-Capital Division
The Non-Capital Division works to exonerate inmates who did not commit the crimes for which they were wrongfully-convicted. In order to fulfill its mission, the Non-Capital Division evaluates, investigates, and litigates claims of actual innocence. Letters from inmates and their agents are initially reviewed to ascertain whether an actual innocence claim that falls within project parameters has been presented. If so, the Non-Capital Division requests additional information to provide a better understanding of the inmate’s case and claim. Upon receipt of this information, the Non-Capital Division reviews the case file to determine whether there is any evidence that indicate that the inmate was wrongfully convicted, then attempts to locate the exonerating evidence. Once evidence of actual innocence has been established, the Non-Capital Division provides post-conviction legal assistance to wrongfully-convicted inmates by filing petitions for a writ of habeas corpus, clemency applications, or both.
Student interns from the University of Houston Law Center (UHLC) are integral to this process. The Non-Capital Division was founded by UHLC Distinguished University Professor David R. Dow in 2000. It started as a student volunteer organization and quickly evolved into a class offered year-round. Consequently, UHLC students constantly work on the literally hundreds of investigations that are open and ongoing at any given time. UHLC students provide invaluable assistance and support, in order to free innocent men and women who are incarcerated for crimes they did not commit.
Prof. David Dow, Director, Texas Innocence Network
Visit the Texas Innocence NetworkBlakely Advocacy Institute
The Blakely Advocacy Institute offers a trial advocacy course in which students learn how to litigate both a civil case and a criminal case. Students play the role of counsel at each stage of the proceedings, including opening statements, direct examinations, cross-examinations, and closing arguments. The course is taught by highly skilled and experienced trial lawyers and judges from the Houston area. The Program also participates each year in several national criminal trial advocacy and moot court competitions which have brought both national championships and recognition to the Law Center.
Visit the Institute
Criminal Justice Clinic and Externship Opportunities
Students in the Criminal Justice Clinic will be assigned misdemeanor cases and be responsible for handling all legal aspects of the case from arraignment to fact investigation to trial. Students will learn the law in a real-life context and develop profession and problem-solving skills. Students will be exposed to a wide range of cases such as assaults, thefts, driving while intoxicated and drug possession. Students will have the opportunity to investigate crime scenes and interview witnesses.
The Judicial Internship/Externship Program offers students the opportunities to earn academic credit and gain invaluable experience as interns for judges in the criminal courts or through externships with law firms. For students interested in pursuing criminal law, externships are available with the Harris County Public Defender’s Office.
Clinical Programs
World-class faculty
Faculty and affiliates
CJI brings together faculty whose teaching and scholarship address criminal law, evidence, professional responsibility, white collar crime, juvenile law, international criminal law, wrongful convictions and related fields.
David Crump
teaches and writes in the areas of criminal law and evidence, among numerous other subjects. Prior to joining the UH Law Center faculty, he served as an Assistant District Attorney of Harris County, Texas, where he tried cases ranging from minor misdemeanors to capital murders. He has also worked as a criminal defense attorney. In addition to numerous articles, he is the author of casebooks in Evidence and Criminal Law, as well as a study guide entitled, EVIDENCE IN A NUTSHELL. He also authored A CAPITAL CASE IN AMERICA (Carolina Academic Press, 2000).
David Dow
is the founder and director of the Texas Innocence Network. Often working with UH Law Center students, he has represented more than one hundred death row inmates in their state and federal appeals. The Texas Innocence Network uses UH law students to investigate claims of actual innocence brought by Texas prisoners. His TED talk on the death penalty has been viewed more than half a million times.
Meredith J. Duncan
joined the faculty in 1998. Two of the courses she teaches are Criminal Law and Professional Responsibility. Professor Duncan has developed a specialty in the intersection of the two areas of law, focusing on the law relating to the liability of criminal defense attorneys. She has also written in the areas of sexual assault and battered women.
David Kwok
joined the faculty in 2013. He teaches and writes in the areas of white collar crime, public policy, and law and the social sciences. His most recent work focuses on government fraud under the False Claims Act.
Ellen Marrus
(Emeritus Faculty) came to the Law Center in 1995 after practicing as a public defender in California. She taught courses in Criminal Procedure as well as Juvenile Law, and her scholarship was focused in the areas of criminal procedure and juvenile law.
Gerry Moohr
(Emeritus Faculty) taught seminars in Criminal Law, White Collar Crime, and Property Crime among other courses. Professor Moohr is a national authority on the federal mail and wire fraud statutes. She also wrote on corporate criminal liability, overcriminalization, and federal criminal law. Her research included crimes of unauthorized use of business information and trade secrets, insider trading, and infringements of copyright. She has written a casebook on intellectual property crime and is coauthor of a criminal law casebook.
Jordan Paust
(Emeritus Faculty) joined the faculty in 1975, after having served as a member of the faculty of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s School, International Law Division. At the UH Law Center, he taught International Criminal Law, among his other courses in international law. Professor Paust distinguished himself as a leader in local, national and international organizations dealing with international law, human rights, laws of war, terrorism, and the use of force. He is one of the most widely cited law professors in the United States. He is the author of several casebooks and treatises on international law and human rights. He also authored Beyond the Law: The Bush Administration’ s Unlawful Responses in the “ War” on Terror (Cambridge University Press 2007).
Sandra Guerra Thompson
has been a member of the faculty since 1990. Before joining the faculty, she worked as a prosecutor in the New York County D.A.’s Office in Manhattan, doing both trial and appellate work. Professor Thompson teaches and writes in the areas of criminal law, criminal procedure, wrongful convictions and evidence. She has authored numerous articles on criminal law topics such as eyewitness identification and wrongful conviction, immigration crimes, jury discrimination, police interrogations, federal sentencing, and asset forfeiture. She is a former chair of the AALS Section on Criminal Justice and a member of the Board of Advisors of the ALI’s drafting project entitled, “Model Penal Code: Sentencing”. In 2012, she was appointed by Houston Mayor Annise Parker as a member of the Board of Directors of the Houston Forensic Science Center. This Board of Directors was charged with creating and overseeing an independent forensic lab and transferring such duties from the Houston Police Department's crime lab. In 2009, she served as the representative of the Texas public law schools on the Timothy Cole Advisory Panel on Wrongful Convictions, a panel created by the legislature to propose statutory reforms to curb wrongful convictions. She co-edited a book entitled American Justice in the Age of Innocence, an anthology about wrongful convictions that includes articles written by her seminar students. She is currently working on a new book on crime labs (forthcoming Carolina Academic Press 2014).
Faculty Affiliate
David Eagleman is a neuroscientist, author, Guggenheim Fellow and and is the founder and director of the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law. He is the writer and presenter of The Brain, an international 6-hour television series that asks what it means to be human from a neuroscientist's point of view. He holds joint appointments in the Departments of Neuroscience and Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Dr. Eagleman’s areas of research include time perception, vision, synesthesia, and the intersection of neuroscience with the legal system. He directs the Laboratory for Perception and Action, He is the author of several neuroscience books, including (1) The Brain: The Story of You, (2) Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain and (3) Wednesday is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia. He has also written an internationally bestselling book of literary fiction, Sum, which has been translated into 28 languages and was named a Best Book of the Year by Barnes and Noble, New Scientist, and the Chicago Tribune. Dr. Eagleman writes for the Atlantic, New York Times, Discover Magazine, Slate, Wired, and New Scientist, and appears regularly on National Public Radio and BBC to discuss both science and literature. He has been a guest on the Colbert Report and profiled in the New Yorker.
Support CJI
Help advance criminal justice education and service
The Criminal Justice Institute is extremely thankful for all of its sponsors and supporters. Please consider supporting the work of CJI with a financial contribution or by volunteering.
For questions about giving to CJI, or about the instructions below, please contact giving@uh.edu
Giving to CJI
Option 1: By Check
- Please make checks payable to the University of Houston Law Foundation. Write CJI clearly in the memo of the check.
- Mail to:
University of Houston Law Center
Criminal Justice Institute
Attn: David Kwok, Director
4170 Martin Luther King Blvd
Houston, TX 77204-6060
Option 2: Online by Credit Card (through UH Law Center)
- Click on this link and type in your contribution.
- IMPORTANT: Select Law Foundation – Other and further designate under Special Instructions after clicking "Add donation"
- When you are finished completing the form, press the “Donate Now” button and continue the rest of the process for credit card processing.
