Professor Chin Speaks at University of Pennsylvania Sentencing Law Symposium
Professor Gabriel "Jack" Chin recently participated in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review's Symposium "Sentencing Law: Rhetoric & Reality." His presentation proposed that the common law punishment of "civil death" has been restored in the United States through laws and court rulings allowing severe and systematic disadvantages to be imposed on people convicted of crimes. Citing Professor Chin's work, the Supreme Court in Padilla v. Kentucky held in 2010 that people pleading guilty to crimes were entitled to be warned about the possibility of deportation. Building on Padilla, Professor Chin argued that defendants were also entitled to be advised about their loss of legal status in society, including statutory bars to civil rights, employment, licensing, residence, and maintenance of family relationships.
Gabriel "Jack" Chin, who joined the King Hall faculty in 2011, is a prolific and much-cited criminal and immigration law scholar whose work has addressed many of the most pressing social issues of our time.