Daniel Epps

American law professor

Daniel Epps is a professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. Epps teaches first-year criminal law, constitutional law, upper-level courses in criminal procedure, and a seminar on public law theory. His scholarship has appeared in the Harvard Law Review,^[1] the Yale Law Journal,^[2] the Michigan Law Review,^[3] and the NYU Law Review,^[4] and his writing for popular audiences has appeared in the New York Times,^[5] the Washington Post,^[6] Vox,^[7] and The Atlantic.^[8] His and Ganesh Sitaraman's proposal to expand the size of the Supreme Court was endorsed by Mayor Pete Buttigieg during his run for the 2020 Democratic Presidential nomination.^[9] His and William Ortman's proposal to create a "Defender General" for criminal defendants at the Supreme Court was the subject of an article in the New York Times.^[10]

Supreme Court Experience

Epps is a nationally recognized expert on the Supreme Court. An experienced Supreme Court litigator, he served as co-counsel for the defendant in Ocasio v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 1423 (2016), which addressed the scope of criminal conspiracy liability for public-sector extortion. His other notable prior work includes the successful petition for certiorari and merits briefing in Walden v. Fiore, 133 S. Ct. 1493 (2014); a brief for the Court-appointed amicus curiae in Millbrook v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 1441 (2013); and an amicus brief for criminal law and procedure scholars in United States v. Davila, 133 S. Ct. 2139 (2013). He also served as co-counsel on the brief of Prof. Stephen E. Sachs as amicus curiae in Atlantic Marine Construction Co. v. U.S. District Court, 134 S. Ct. 568 (2013) (with Jeffrey S. Bucholtz & Stephen E. Sachs), which The Green Bag Almanac & Reader included on its list of “Exemplary Legal Writing” for 2013.^[8]

Publications

Articles & Essays

• "Designing Supreme Court Term Limits," 95 Southern California Law Review__(forthcoming) (with Adam Chilton, Kyle Rozema & Maya Sen)
• "Checks and Balances in the Criminal Law," 73 Vanderbilt Law Review 1 (2021)
• "The Defender General," 168 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1469 (2020) (with William Ortman)
• "How to Save the Supreme Court," 129 Yale Law Journal (2019) (with Ganesh Sitaraman)^[2]
• "Harmless Errors and Substantial Rights," 131 Harvard Law Review 2117 (2018)^[1]
• "The Lottery Docket," 116 Michigan Law Review 705 (2018) (with William Ortman)^[3]
• "Adversarial Asymmetry in the Criminal Process," 91 New York University Law Review 762 (2016)
• "One Last Word on the Blackstone Principle," 101 Virginia Law Review Online 34 (2016)
• "The Consequences of Error in Criminal Justice," 128 Harvard Law Review 1065 (2015)^[1]
• Note, "Mechanisms of Secrecy," 121 Harvard Law Review 1556 (2008)^[1]

Selected Commentary

• "The Supreme Court is Leaking. That's a Good Thing." 'Washington Post' (Aug. 3, 2020)
• "Abolishing Qualified Immunity Is Unlikely to Alter Police Behavior," 'New York Times (June 16, 2020)
• "One Change That Could Make American Criminal Justice Fairer," 'The Atlantic' (Mar. 16, 2020) (with William Ortman)
• "How to Save the Supreme Court," Vox (Oct. 10, 2018) (with Ganesh Sitaraman)^[11]
• "Police Officers Are Bypassing Juries to Face Judges," Washington Post (Sept. 21, 2017)
• Contributor, “An Annotated Constitution," New York Times Magazine (July 2, 2017)
• "In Health Care Ruling, Roberts Steals a Move from John Marshall’s Playbook," The Atlantic (June 28, 2012)^[8]

Podcasts

Epps co-hosts Divided Argument with law professor William Baude on which they discuss recent Supreme Court decisions.^[12]

Epps previously co-hosted First Mondays with law professor Ian Samuel on which they discussed events at the Supreme Court.^[13]

Awards and honors

• Honorable Mention, Scholarly Papers Competition, American Association of Law Schools (2018) (for The Lottery Docket)
• Finalist, Junior Scholars Paper Competition, Criminal Justice Section, American Association of Law Schools (2016) (for Adversarial Asymmetry in the Criminal Process)
• Exemplary Legal Writing, The Green Bag Almanac & Reader (2013) (for Brief of Professor Stephen E. Sachs as Amicus Curiae, Atlantic Marine Construction Co. v. U.S. District Court, 134 S. Ct. 568 (2013) (as co-counsel with Jeffrey S. Bucholtz & Stephen E. Sachs)^[14]

References

1. "Harvard Law - Daniel Epps".
2. Entman, Liz (25 March 2019). "Depoliticizing the Supreme Court may mean radically overhauling it: Law professor". Vanderbilt University. Retrieved 2019-08-02.
3. Epps, Daniel; Ortman, William (2018-03-01). "The Lottery Docket". Michigan Law Review. 116 (5): 705–757. doi:10.36644/mlr.116.5.lottery. ISSN 0026-2234. S2CID 29662721.
4. "Daniel Epps | Take Care". takecareblog.com. Retrieved 2019-08-02.
5. Epps, Daniel (2012-06-16). "Opinion | Abolishing Qualified Immunity Is Unlikely to Alter Police Behavior". The New York Times. Retrieved 2021-07-01.
6. "'If it wasn't the Roberts court already, it is the Roberts court now'". The Washington Post.
7. Epps, Daniel (2018-09-06). "How to save the Supreme Court". Vox. Retrieved 2019-08-02.
8. "Daniel Epps". WashULaw. Retrieved 2019-08-02.
9. Lederman, Josh (January 3, 2019). "Inside Pete Buttigieg's plan to overhaul the Supreme Court". NBC News. Archived from the original on 2019-06-03. Retrieved June 1, 2021.
10. Liptak, Adam (January 27, 2020). "A Proposal to Offset Prosecutors' Power: The 'Defender General'". New York Times. Archived from the original on 2020-01-27. Retrieved July 1, 2021.
11. Epps, Daniel; Sitaraman, Ganesh (30 October 2019). "How to Save the Supreme Court". doi:10.2139/ssrn.3288958. SSRN 3288958. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
12. "Home". dividedargument.com.
13. "First Mondays". SCOTUSblog. Retrieved 2022-10-05.
14. "Daniel Epps CV" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-08-02.