Samuel Raymond Gross (born 1946) is an American

lawyer A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters. The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as w ...

and the Thomas and Mabel Long Professor of Law at the

University of Michigan Law School The University of Michigan Law School (branded as Michigan Law) is the law school of the University of Michigan, a public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Founded in 1859, the school offers Master of Laws (LLM), Master of Comparati ...

. Gross is best known for his work in

false conviction A miscarriage of justice occurs when an unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Innocent p ...

s and

exoneration Exoneration occurs when the conviction for a crime is reversed, either through demonstration of innocence, a flaw in the conviction, or otherwise. Attempts to exonerate individuals are particularly controversial in death penalty cases, especial ...

s, notably the Larry Griffin

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

case. Gross is the editor of the

National Registry of Exonerations The National Registry of Exonerations is a project of the University of Michigan Law School, Michigan State University College of Law and the University of California Irvine Newkirk Center for Science and Society. The Registry was co-founded in 2012 ...

project. Samuel Gross has been leading a team of lawyers in

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...

and in law, which determined the likely number of unjust convictions of prisoners on

death row Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting executio ...

. The study determined that at least 4% of people on death row were and are innocent. The research was

peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (:wiktionary:peer#Etymology 2, peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the ...

ed with the ''

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of Scie ...

'' which later published it. Gross has stated that he firmly believes some innocent people have been executed.

Background

Before coming to Michigan Law, Gross served as an attorney for the United Farm Workers Union in California and the Wounded Knee Legal Defense Committee in Nebraska and South Dakota. He came to

Michigan Law The law of Michigan consists of several levels, including constitutional, statutory, regulatory and case law. The ''Michigan Compiled Laws'' form the general statutory law. Sources The Constitution of Michigan is the foremost source of state la ...

from the faculty at

Stanford Law School Stanford Law School (SLS) is the Law school in the United States, law school of Stanford University, a Private university, private research university near Palo Alto, California. Established in 1893, Stanford Law had an acceptance rate of 6.28% i ...

and was previously a visiting professor at

Yale Law School Yale Law School (YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824. The 2020–21 acceptance rate was 4%, the lowest of any law school in the United ...

. He graduated from Columbia College in 1968 and earned a J.D. from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

in 1973. Gross argued ''Lockhart v. McCree'' before the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

Career

Gross led a team that investigated exonerations in the United States from 1989 to 2003. They determined that during that 15-year period, 340 exonerations were given, of which 144 were cleared by DNA evidence. 80% of the exonerated individuals had been imprisoned for at least 5 years.

References

External links

The Griffin ReportExonerations in the United States, 1989 through 2003.
*Eckholm, Eric (February 24, 1995). Studies Find Death Penalty Tied to Race Of the Victims. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' *Liptak, Adam (April 19, 2004).
Study Suspects Thousands of False Convictions
" ''The New York Times'' 1946 births Living people American legal scholars University of Michigan Law School faculty Columbia College (New York) alumni UC Berkeley School of Law alumni Place of birth missing (living people) {{US-legal-academic-bio-stub

Background

Career

See also

References

External links