EXPERT ADVISORY

NEW YORK, NY (February 11, 2002) - New York Law School Professor Robert Blecker, nationally known retributivist advocate of the death penalty, is available to offer expert commentary on the new Liebman study released Monday, February 11. The study by Columbia Law Professor James Liebman prefers abolition but allows for the death penalty in the 'worst of the worst” cases – exceedingly vicious and callous killers – a conclusion that Professor Blecker has long advocated based on his 13 years interviewing convicted killers. Professor Blecker makes a powerful case for the death penalty as retribution, but only for the worst of the worst.

Professor Blecker was the subject of a front-page essay in The Washington Post, Outlook Section (December 3, 2000), and of a profile in the The New York Times.  Blecker has appeared on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer on PBS, Court TV, CNN, and other national media outlets. His forthcoming book, The Worst of the Worst: Who Deserves to Die (Basic Books, 2003), will be the first book since 1979 to advocate the death penalty.

Professor Blecker teaches Criminal Law, Constitutional History, Criminals and Our Urge to Punish Them, and Sentencing at New York Law School. A former anti-corruption prosecutor, Harvard Fellow in Law and Humanities, and playwright, Professor Blecker's publications include: 'Haven or Hell? Inside Lorton Prison,” Stanford Law Review, as well as articles in Penthouse, the National Law Journal, and The Nation. In fall 2000, Prof. Blecker co-taught a course, Death Penalty, at New York Law School with Marty McClain, a prominent capital defender.  His play "Vote NO!,” an anti-federalist case against adopting the Constitution, premiered in 1987 at the Kennedy Center in Washington. Prof. Blecker is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Tufts University.

Professor Blecker can be reached at work at (212) 431-2873 or at home at (516) 365-7180.  In the alternative, please contact Alta Levat in the Office of Public Affairs at New York Law School, (212)

431-2325, alevat@nyls.edu.

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