Professor Paul G. Cassell, is a Professor of Law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah where he teaches, writes, and litigates on issues related to crime victims’ rights and criminal justice reform.
Professor Cassell graduated with honors from Stanford University in 1981, and from Stanford Law School in 1984. While at Stanford, he was elected to Order of the Coif (top ten percent of the class) and served as President of the Stanford Law Review. After graduation, Cassell served as a law clerk to then-Judge Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (1984-85) and Chief Justice Warren E. Burger of the U.S. Supreme Court (1985-86). Cassell then moved to the U.S. Justice Department, serving as Associate Deputy Attorney General (1986-88) and an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (1988-91). While an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Cassell handled a variety of criminal cases, including more than a dozen felony jury trials.
In 1992, Professor Cassell moved to Utah to teach criminal procedure and other subjects at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah. Cassell published widely on subjects including crime victims’ rights in journals such as the Stanford Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, the BYU Law Review, and the Utah Law Review. While a professor at the University of Utah, Cassell also handled pro bono litigation on crime victims’ issues in courts around the country, including arguing for victims in the Oklahoma City bombing case and arguing for modifying the Miranda rules in an appearance before the United States Supreme Court.
After becoming a judge in 2002, Judge Cassell published a number of widely-cited opinions. In 2004, he published the first decision in the country declaring the Federal Sentencing Guidelines unconstitutional. After the Supreme Court reached the same result in 2005, Judge Cassell published the first decision in the country explaining how the Guidelines continued to retain advisory force. In the summer of 2005, Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Judge Cassell to the be the Chair of the Judicial Conference?s Criminal Law Committee. In November 2007, Judge Cassell resigned his judicial position.
Professor Cassell's recent publications include: Beloof, Cassell & Twist, Victims in Criminal Procedure (Carolina Academic Press 2d ed. 2006); The Crime Victim's Right to Attend the Trial: The Reascendant National Consensus" 9 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 481 (Fall 2005) (co-authored with Professor Doug Beloof), Recognizing Victims in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure: Proposed Amendments in Light of the Crime Victims' Rights Act, 2005 B.Y.U.L.Rev. 835 (2005).
