Article. Abstract:
This comment picks up on a section of Justice
Ginsburg's dissent from the impactful 2011 decision in Connick v.
Thompson that criticized the majority for assuming that law schools
teach prosecutors all they need to know about criminal procedure and,
specifically, compliance with the Brady doctrine. By testing this claim
empirically through a survey of ABA-accredited law school curriculum,
the author determines that only a quarter of schools make criminal
procedure a graduation requirement. Similarly, most criminal procedure
textbooks provide only cursory treatment of the Brady doctrine, making
the point that even law schools that require criminal procedure may not
address that specific topic in sufficient detail. Concluding that law
school does not provide enough training in criminal procedure, despite
the Supreme Court majority's claims, the author proceeds to identify a
number of proposals -- legislative, executive, and judicial -- that
would help train new prosecutors and/or increase accountability for
offices' failures to train after the Court eliminated civil liability as
a possibility in Connick.