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Tel: 215.746.2297
Email: sbibas@law.upenn.edu
Expertise
- Law and Criminal Justice
- Law and Social Sciences
- Legal Process and Dispute Resolution
Bio
Stephanos Bibas, who joined Penn Law in 2006, brings an ex-prosecutor’s eye to the study of criminal procedure.
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Stephanos Bibas, who joined Penn Law in 2006, brings an ex-prosecutor’s eye to the study of criminal procedure. One theme of his work explores how procedural rules written for the idealized world of jury trials have unintended consequences in the real world, where 95% of defendants plead guilty. A related strand explores the powers, incentives, information, and psychology that shape how prosecutors, defense counsel, defendants, and judges actually behave. He has argued, for example, that jury-trial rights wind up having counterintuitive effects on plea-bargaining dynamics, and that structural and psychological impediments keep plea bargains from tracking expected trial outcomes. A third strand of his work explores the divorce between criminal procedure’s narrow focus on efficiency, accuracy, and procedural fairness and substantive criminal law’s moral aims and interest in healing victims, defendants, and communities. In this vein, he has written about and is beginning a book on how criminal justice should do more to encourage acceptance of responsibility, remorse, apology, and forgiveness. As a federal prosecutor, Bibas successfully prosecuted the world’s leading expert in Tiffany stained glass, J. Alastair Duncan, for hiring a grave robber to steal priceless Tiffany windows from cemeteries. Bibas consults with and advises states whose criminal-procedure cases are going to be reviewed by the Supreme Court of the United States. His work was cited and played a central role in the debate between the Supreme Court’s majority and dissenters in the landmark case of Blakely v. Washington.
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Representative Professional Positions
Penn Law – Professor (2006-)
University of Iowa – Associate Professor (2001-06)
Visiting Associate Professor – University of Chicago (winter / spring 2006), Penn Law (fall 2005)
Yale Law School – Research Fellow (2000-01)
United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York – Assistant U. S. Attorney (1998-2000)
Law clerk to Hon. Anthony Kennedy, Supreme Court of the United States (1997-98)
Representative Publications
The Rehnquist Court's Fifth Amendment Incrementalism, 74 GEO. WASH. L. REV. (forthcoming 2006).
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Transparency and Participation in Criminal Procedure, 81 N.Y.U. L. REV. (June 2006).
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The Story of Brady v. Maryland: From Adversarial Gamesmanship Toward the Search for Innocence?, in CRIMINAL PROCEDURE STORIES (Carol Steiker ed., 2005)
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Originalism and Formalism in Criminal Procedure: The Triumph of Justice Scalia, the Unlikely Friend of Criminal Defendants?, 94 GEO. L.J. 183 (2005).
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Regulating Local Variations in Federal Sentencing, 58 STAN. L. REV. 137 (2005).
Integrating Remorse and Apology into Criminal Procedure (with Richard A. Bierschbach) 114 YALE L.J. 85 (2004).
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Plea Bargaining Outside the Shadow of Trial, 117 HARV. L. REV. 2463 (2004).
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Pleas’ Progress (book review), 102 MICH. L. REV.1024 (2004).
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Bringing Moral Values into a Flawed Plea Bargaining System, 88 CORNELL L. REV. 1425 (2003).
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Using Plea Procedures to Combat Denial and Minimization, in JUDGING IN A THERAPEUTIC KEY (Bruce J. Winick & David B. Wexler eds., 2003).
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Apprendi in the States: The Virtues of Federalism as a Structural Limit on Errors, 94 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINOLOGY 1 (Fall 2003).
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Harmonizing Substantive-Criminal-Law Values and Criminal Procedure: The Case of Alford and Nolo Contendere Pleas, 88 CORNELL L. REV. 1361 (2003).
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The Real-World Shift in Criminal Procedure, 93 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINOLOGY 789 (2003) (book review).
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Apprendi and the Dynamics of Guilty Pleas, 54 STAN. L. REV. 311 (2001).
Judicial Fact-Finding and Sentence Enhancements in a World of Guilty Pleas, 110 YALE L.J. 1097 (2001).
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For additional publications, please consult
Current & Recent Research
Representative Professional Activities
Testimony before the United States Sentencing Commission, The Future of Federal Sentencing Guidelines after Blakely v. Washington.
(11/16/2004)
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