Biography

Faculty Co-Director, Stanford Criminal Justice Center

Robert Weisberg ’79 works primarily in the field of criminal justice, writing and teaching in the areas of criminal law, criminal procedure, white collar crime, and sentencing policy. He also founded and now serves as faculty co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center (SCJC), which promotes and coordinates research and public policy programs on criminal law and the criminal justice system, including institutional examination of the police and correctional systems. Professor Weisberg was a consulting attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the California Appellate Project, where he worked on death penalty litigation in the state and federal courts. In addition, he served as a law clerk to Justice Potter Stewart of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge J. Skelly Wright of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In 1979, Professor Weisberg received his JD from Stanford Law School, where he served as President of the Stanford Law Review. Professor Weisberg is a two-time winner of the law school’s John Bingham Hurlbut Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1981, Professor Weisberg received a PhD in English at Harvard and was a tenured English professor at Skidmore College. Drawing on that background, he is one of the nation’s leading scholars on the intersection of law and literature and co-author of the highly praised book Literary Criticisms of Law.

Key Works

• Robert Weisberg. With John Kaplan and Guyora Binder, Criminal Law: Cases and Materials, 5th ed., New York: Aspen, 2004.
• Robert Weisberg, Norms and Criminal Law, and the Norms of Criminal Law Scholarship, 93 The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology 467-592 (Winter & Spring 2003).
• Robert Weisberg, Values, Violence, and the Second Amendment: American Character, Constitutionalism, and Crime, 39 Houston Law Review 1-51 (April 2002).
• Robert Weisberg and Guyora Binder, Literary Criticisms of Law, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000. 544 pages.
• Robert Weisberg, Commercial Morality, the Merchant Character, and the History of the Voidable Preference, 39 Stanford Law Review 1 (1986).
• Robert Weisberg, Deregulating Death, 1983 Supreme Court Review 305 (1983).

In the News

• Imprisoned For Life, Part III
  KALW Radio News - The Informant, February 03, 2012
• Solano Saw Big Increase In Homicides During 2010
  Times Herald (Vallejo, Califonia), December 07, 2011
• Yolo Judge Dismisses Death Penalty Juror
  Sacramento Bee, November 15, 2011
• Stanford Law Review Goes Online
  The Stanford Daily, November 11, 2011
• Prison Realignment Plan May Include Those Convicted Of Serious Crimes
  San Jose Mercury News, October 04, 2011

Courses & Programs

Courses

• Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure: Adjudication
• Criminal Procedure: Investigation

Programs

• Stanford Criminal Justice Center (SCJC), Edwin E. Huddleson, Jr. Professor of Law

Publications & Cases

Recent Publications View All

• Robert Weisberg, Approaches to Assessing the Effects of Marijuana Criminal Law Repeal in California, 43 McGeorge Law Review 1 (2012).
• Robert Weisberg, California's De Facto Sentencing Commissions, 64 Stanford Law Review Online 1 (2011).
• Robert Weisberg, The Unlucky Psychopath as Death Penalty Prototype, in Who Deserves to Die: Constructing the Executable Subject, Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011.
• Robert Weisberg, Debbie A. Mukamal and Jordan D. Segall, Life in Limbo: An Examination of Parole Release for Prisoners Serving Life Sentences with the Possibility of Parole in California, Stanford, CA: Stanford Criminal Justice Center, 2011.
• Robert Weisberg, Right-Wing Propaganda, Stanford Magazine, May/June 2011.
• Joan Petersilia and Robert Weisberg, The Dangers of Pyrrhic Victories Against Mass Incarceration, 130 Daedelus 124 (2010)
• Robert Weisberg, High Court Reinforces Fifth Amendment Doctrine Against Lower Courts, Daily Journal, June 11, 2010, p. 6.
• Robert Weisberg, Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), in Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States, David S. Tanenhaus, ed., New York: Gale Cengage Learning, 2009.
• Robert Weisberg, Capital Punishment, in Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States, David S. Tanenhaus, ed., New York: Gale Cengage Learning, 2009.
• Robert Weisberg, Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), in Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States, David S. Tanenhaus, ed., New York: Gale Cengage Learning, 2009.

Affiliations & Honors

Professional Affiliations

• Affiliated Faculty, Program in Modern Thought and Literature

Honors and Awards

• Recipient, John Bingham Hurlbut Award for Excellence in Teaching, Stanford, 1985, 2005