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Kay L. Levine

Associate Dean for Research, Professor of Law

Areas of Expertise

Criminal Procedure, Criminal Law, Regulation of Sexuality


Courses

Colloquium Series Workshop, Constitutional Criminal Procedure: Investigations, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure: Adjudication, Victimless Crimes


Biography

Kay Levine is an empirical scholar who examines how criminal law works in the real world, with an emphasis on state courts in the United States. Her research focuses in particular on how prosecutors make decisions in their cases; how criminal attorneys interpret ethical rules; and the structure of relationships between prosecutors, police, victims, judges, and defense attorneys. Her courses and curricular interests include Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure (both Police Investigations and Adjudication), Victimless Crimes, and the Colloquium Series Workshop.

Levine’s current research focuses on prosecutor-initiated sentencing review. She and her co-author are interviewing judges, prosecutors, members of the defense bar, and reentry partners associated with sentence-review initiatives around the country to examine how they are working to help correct for the tragedy wrought by mass incarceration. This work is funded by a grant from the Wilson Center for Science and Justice.

Levine also is researching drug enforcement patterns in Fulton County, Georgia, as part of a multidisciplinary project funded by the National Science Foundation. In that project, titled Race, Place and Discretion, the authors are exploring various legal actors’ understanding of, and willingness to use, drug-free zone laws to impact drug selling activity in the county. The project includes review of thousands of court cases, as well as interviews with prosecutors, defense attorneys, police officers, judges, and active offenders in the criminal court community.

She has a forthcoming publication in the Yale Law Review, and a recent piece, “The Public Voice of the Defender," was just published in volume 75 of the Alabama Law Review. She regularly contributes to local and international media coverage of criminal cases.

Levine’s prior research about prosecutorial behavior has appeared in numerous law reviews and peer-reviewed journals, including the Emory Law Journal, the Wake Forest University Law Review, Law and Social Inquiry, the Fordham Urban Law Journal, the Arizona Law Review, and Studies in Law, Politics and Society. It has also appeared in specialty criminal law journals such as The Stanford Journal of Criminal Law and Policy, the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, The American Criminal Law Review, the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, and the Virginia Journal of Criminal Law

She joined the Emory faculty in 2003. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Duke University and received her JD from the University of California-Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, where she served as an editor on the Berkeley Women’s Law Journal. She later earned both a master’s degree and a PhD in jurisprudence and social policy from UC Berkeley. Before joining Emory, Levine served as a law clerk for the Honorable David Alan Ezra, US District Court, District of Hawaii; as a deputy district attorney in Riverside County, California; as a criminal defense consultant; and as an adjunct faculty member of Boalt Hall. Since joining Emory, she has earned both the Most Outstanding Professor Award and the Emory Williams Teaching Award.

Education: JD, 1993, MA, 1999, PhD, 2003, UC-Berkeley; AB, Duke University, 1990