Doug Colbert is First Washburn Advocacy Scholar-in-Residence
The Center for Excellence in Advocacy hosted Professor Doug Colbert as the first Washburn Advocacy Scholar-In-Residence, March 15-17, 2004. Professor Colbert teaches at the University of Maryland School of Law.
Students and faculty had numerous opportunities to visit with Professor Colbert while he was at Washburn Law. Throughout his visit, Professor Colbert was in the halls of the law school talking with students and faculty. Students also joined him at breakfast each morning. Colbert lectured and participated in several classes, including Constitutional Law with Professor David Ryan, Professor Bill Rich's Constitutional Litigation Seminar, and Clinic classes and Trial Advocacy Workshops. Prior to his public lecture on Monday evening, student leaders from NALSA, HALSA and AALSA dined with Professor Colbert.
In addition to his activities at the law school Professor Colbert visited the Kansas legislature and heard testimony by Professor Bill Rich about prison mental health. Senator Jim Barone introduced Professor Colbert on the Senate floor where he met the sponsors of a bail reform bill having to do with bondsmen's practices of tracking down people who jump bail. As a lifelong fighter for civil rights, Professor Colbert was especially moved by his experience running with Washburn law student Geoffrey Fogus along the route traversed by Linda Brown and his visit to the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site.
Professor Colbert gave a public lecture Monday, March 15, 2004, entitled "The Badges & Incidents of Slavery: How the Thirteenth Amendment Can Be Used to Understand Today's Racially Discriminatory Practices." His lecture connected the past discrimination of slavery with current forms of discrimination and covered such topics as voir dire, sentencing trends, education, and employment discrimination. Colbert discussed the history of the 13th amendment and how it has been applied by the courts. He explained how denying justice to African Americans in violation of the 13th Amendment is one of the badges of slavery, and how the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was enacted to counter this violation. Professor Colbert also discussed the 1968 case Jones v. Mayer and how African American property interests rested on the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 13th Amendment. His lecture closed with a discussion of Brown v. Board of Education and its impact on the rights of African Americans.
Professor Doug Colbert teaches Criminal and Constitutional law, Evidence, and Race and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland School of Law. He directs Maryland’s Access to Justice Clinic. Professor Colbert has written extensively about a variety of criminal and civil rights topics, including the right to counsel, bail reform, the Thirteenth Amendment, race discrimination, jury selection, affirmative action, police misconduct, political trials, professional ethics, and legal scholarship.
Since 1998 Professor Colbert's scholarly activities have focused on reforming states’ pretrial release and bail systems. He succeeded in convincing the American Bar Association and Maryland State Bar to guarantee counsel to indigent defendants at bail, and led a statewide effort to pass legislation at legislative and judicial hearings. As part of this endeavor, Professor Colbert founded and directed the Lawyers at Bail Project, which represented 4,000 indigent defendants at Baltimore City bail hearings. Currently he serves on the Board of Directors of the Public Justice Center and the Maryland Criminal Defense Attorneys Association, and is a past chair of the Maryland State Bar Association’s Section on Correctional Reform. Professor Colbert has received numerous honors, including receiving the Maryland State Bar Association’s prestigious achievement award for Legal Excellence in the Advancement of Unpopular Causes.
