top of page

About

David McCord

Professor of Law, Drake University Law School



Education:

 

  • J.D. Harvard Law School, 1978, cum laude;
  • B.A. Illinois Wesleyan University, 1975, summa cum laude.

Employment:



  • 1991-present: Professor of Law, Drake Law School (visiting at Suffolk Law School, 1992-93).
  • June 2004-August 2006: I served as the inaugural Director of the National Jury Center of the American Judicature Society (AJS), while also maintaining my position as a Professor at Drake Law School.  I served through the summer of 2006, at which time I voluntarily stepped down to focus once again full-time on my professorial duties.
  • Aug. 2001-June 2004: Associate Dean, Drake Law School. 
  • 1984-91:  Associate Professor of Law, Drake Law School.
  • 1981-84:  Associate, Wentworth & Lundin, Phoenix, Arizona—civil litigation. 
  • 1978-81:  Assistant Attorney General, State of Arizona—criminal prosecution.

​

Honors/Memberships:

​

  • Elected member of the American Law Institute, May, 2006.
  • Committee on Sections and Annual Meeting, American Association of Law Schools, 2005-2007.
  • Twice voted Professor of the Year by the graduating students.
  • Madeleine Levitt Distinguished Community Service Award from Drake University, 2010.
  • Iowa Governor’s Public Service Award, 2009.
  • Member of Board of Directors of the Midwest Legal Immigration Project since its inception about a decade ago.

    
Publications

​

1.  Death Penalty-Related:



     Books:



  • Death Penalty Cases, 3rd Ed. (2010), co-author with Barry Latzer. (With Teachers’ Manual created solely by McCord).

    Articles:



  • “Sociology, I’d Like You to Meet the Death Penalty,” Book Review of David Garland’s Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition (publication pending—solicited by Crim. Justice Ethics to appear in 2012 issue).
  • Lethal Connection: The “War on Drugs” and Death Sentencing, 15 J. Race, Gender & Just. 1 (2012) (invited symposium paper).
  • What’s Messing with Texas Death Sentences? 43 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 601 (2010).
  • Should Commission of a Contemporaneous Arson, Burglary, Kidnapping, Rape, or Robbery Be Sufficient to Make a Murderer Eligible for a Death Sentence?—An Empirical and Normative Analysis, 49 Santa Clara L. Rev. 1-50 (2008).
  • “Capital Punishment: History and Politics” entry in the Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties, Paul Finkelman, Ed., (2006), at 238-242.
  • Editor of Judicature magazine symposium issue “The Effects of Capital Punishment on the Administration of Justice (March/April 2006); wrote the Introduction and the Afterword.
  • Lightning Still Strikes: Evidence from the Popular Press that Death Sentencing Continues to Be Unconstitutionally Arbitrary More than Three Decades after Furman, 71 Brooklyn L. Rev. 797-927 (2005).
  • Switching Juries in Mid-Stream: The Perplexities of Penalty Phase-Only Retrials (solicited by this peer-reviewed journal) 2 Ohio St. J. Crim. L. 215-259 (2004).
  • A Year in the Life of Death: Murders and Capital Sentences in South Carolina, 1998, 53 S. C. L. Rev. 249-360 (2002)
  • An Open Letter to Governor George Ryan Concerning How To Fix the Death Penalty System, 32 Loy. U. Chi. L. J. 451-469 (2001).
  • State Death Sentencing For Felony Murder Accomplices Under the Enmund and Tison Standards, 32 Ariz. St. L. J. 843-896 (2000).
  • Is Death "Different" for Harmless Error Analysis?  Should It Be?: An Analysis of United States and Louisiana Supreme Court Case Law, 59 La. L. Rev.1105-1167(1999).
  • Imagining a Retributivist Alternative to Capital Punishment.  50 Fla. L. Rev. 1-143 (1998).
  • Judging the Effectiveness of the Supreme Court's Death Penalty Jurisprudence According to the Court's Own Goals:  Mild Success or Major Failure? 24 Fla. St. L. Rev. 545-603 (1997).

2.  Other Criminal Law-Related:



  • The "Trial"/"Structural" Error Dichotomy: Erroneous, and Not Harmless, 45 U. Kan. L. Rev. 1401-1461 (1997).
  • Visions of Habeas, 1994 B. Y. U. L. Rev. 735-840.
  • Supplement to Chapter 44, (Habeas Corpus) Massachusetts Criminal Defenses (1994) (with Eric D. Blumenson).
  • Moral Reasoning and the Criminal Law:  The Example of Self Defense.  30 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 97-160 (1992) (with Sandra K. Lyons).
  • The English and American History of Voluntary Intoxication to Negate Mens Rea, 11 J. Legal Hist. 372-395 (1990).
  • Chapter 3 (The Prosecution and Defense of Forcible Sex Crimes) in The Prosecution and Defense of Sex Crimes (1989) (182 pages).
  • Bargaining with Bad Guys:  Is the Government Bound to Fulfill Promises Made to Secure the Release of Hostages?  11 U. Ark. Little Rock L.J. 435-456 (1988-89).



3.  Evidence-Related:



  • "But Perry Mason Made It Look So Easy!": The Admissibility of Evidence Offered by a Criminal Defendant To Suggest that Someone Else Is Guilty, 63 Tenn. L. Rev. 917-986 (1996).
  • A Primer for the Non-Mathematically Inclined on Probabilistic Evidence in Criminal Cases:  People v. Collins and Beyond, 47 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 741-817 (1990).
  • Syndromes, Profiles, and Other Mental Exotica:  A New Approach to the Admissibility of Nontraditional Psychological Evidence in Criminal Cases, 66 Or. L. Rev. 19-108 (1987).
  • Expert Psychological Testimony About Child Complainants in Sexual Abuse Prosecutions:  A Foray into the Admissibility of Novel Psychological Evidence, 77 J. Crim. L. and Criminology 1-68 (1986).
  • The Admissibility of Expert Testimony Regarding Rape Trauma Syndrome in Rape Prosecutions, 26 B.C.L. Rev. 1143-1213 (1985).

 
4.  Civil Procedure-Related:



  • Why Do We Teach So Much About So Little in the Jurisdictional Component of Civil Procedure?  (Or:  The Shoe Doesn't Fit—We've Been Railroaded!).  41 Drake L. Rev. 263-283 (1992).

5.  Property Law-Related:



  • Chapter 79F (Eminent Domain) in Powell on Real Property (1991) (176 pages).  A portion of this Chapter  appears in shorter form as Chapter 17 in The American Law of Real Property (1991) (56 pages).

6.  Website Created:





Subjects Taught:

​

The number of times I will have taught each course by the end of the 2011-2012 academic year is in parentheses; courses in my current teaching repertoire are indicated by asterisks:

​

  • *Criminal Law (30)
  • *Criminal Procedure I (10)
  • *Criminal Procedure II (7)
  • *Death Penalty (20)
  • *Evidentiary Suppression Motions (1)     
  • Evidence (23)    
  • Post-Conviction Remedies (7)
  • Habeas Corpus Practicum 1)   
  • Trial Advocacy (11)   
  • Civil Procedure I (4)
  • Civil Procedure II (1)     
  • Property (8)
  • Securities Regulation (3)
  • Wills and Trusts (2)
  • Practical Trial Evidence (2)
  • Interviewing and Counseling (2)
  • Negotiation and ADR (1)
  • Clinic (1)

 

bottom of page