Michael J.Z. Mannheimer

Michael J.Z. Mannheimer - Chase College of Law

Associate Professor of Law

"Learning the law is not really about learning legal rules and standards. It is primarily about learning to make connections - distinctions, analogies, comparisons, and contrasts - between and among cases and doctrines. The biggest thrill I get as a teacher is seeing that light bulb go on in a student's head when he or she makes one of these connections. And sometimes, it is something that even I did not see before."

  • Education

  • JD, Columbia Law School

  • Courses Taught

  • Criminal Law
  • Criminal Procedure
  • Death Penalty
  • Evidence
  • Kentucky Innocence Project

Profile

Professor Mannheimer received his JD in 1994 from Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar all three years and served as Writing & Research Editor of the Columbia Law Review. After a brief stint as a staff attorney with the Criminal Appeals Bureau of the Legal Aid Society in New York City, he clerked for the Hon. Sidney H. Stein of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and then for the Hon. Robert E. Cowen of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

From 1997 to 1999, he worked as a litigation associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York City, where he spent much of his time representing a medical device manufacturer in several putative class actions raising product liability claims. He also practiced general commercial litigation and arbitration encompassing such diverse areas as antitrust, breach of contract, business torts, employment discrimination, ERISA, false advertising, and civil RICO. He also assisted the late Hon. A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. with his testimony before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee with regard to the proposed Articles of Impeachment against then-President Clinton in 1998, on the issue of whether the commission of perjury in all instances constitutes a “high crime and misdemeanor” within the meaning of the U.S. Constitution.

For the five years before coming to Chase, Professor Mannheimer served as Appellate Counsel and then Senior Appellate Counsel at the Center for Appellate Litigation in New York City, where he represented indigent criminal defendants on appeal from their convictions and in related collateral proceedings. He has briefed and/or argued over forty appeals in the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, the New York Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He has represented clients at every level of the state and federal judiciaries, from handling sentencing proceedings, motions, and hearings in the New York trial courts to filing a petition for a writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Professor Mannheimer has published articles on the federal death penalty, coerced confessions, and the Establishment, Free Speech, and Self-Incrimination Clauses. His current research interests include the provocation defense and the textual and doctrinal parallels between the Self-Incrimination and Confrontation Clauses.

Latest Publications

The Impact of Information Overload on the Capital Jury's Ability to Assess Aggravating and Mitigating Factors, 17 Wm. & Mary Bill of Rights J. 1089 (2009) (co-authored with Katie Morgan)

Toward a Unified Theory of Testimonial Evidence Under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, 80 Temple L. Rev. 1135 (2008)

When the Federal Death Penalty Is 'Cruel and Unusual' , 74 U. Cin. L. Rev. 819 (2006)

Ripeness of Self-Incrimination Clause Disputes, 95 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 1261 (2005)

Coerced Confessions and the Fourth Amendment, 30 Hastings Const. L.Q. 57 (2002)

[view more publications]

Public Service

Co-counsel on petition for writ of certiorari in Leon v. New York, 128 S.Ct. 2976 (2008) (pro bono).

Contributing Editor, CrimProf Blog, http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/crimprof_blog/

Volunteer attorney, Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Executive Committee of the Criminal Justice Section of the Association of American Law Schools.