James Q. Whitman, Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law at Yale Law School

This is a time when there is a widespread sense of crisis about the harshness of American criminal justice.  Many figures--not least among them President Obama--are calling for a practice of justice more attuned to the values of mercy.  In this talk, Professor Whitman, drawing on his book The Origins of Reasonable Doubt, will discuss the conception of mercy to be found in Augustinian theology, and plead for a shift in American attitudes.  The talk will also turn on the arguments he offers in his recent article "Presumption of Innocence or Presumption of Mercy?”