Brent E. Newton
Practitioner in ResidenceAfter graduating from Columbia University School of Law in 1992, where he was a senior editor of Columbia Law Review, Professor Newton clerked for Judge Carolyn King of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He thereafter worked as a public defender in the state and federal court systems in Texas and Florida, including representing several dozens of death row inmates. He handled both trial and appellate cases and, in 2008, argued a case before the Supreme Court of the United States. In May 2009, Professor Newton was appointed as deputy director of the United States Sentencing Commission, a position he held until January 2019. At the Commission, he worked on several amendments to the sentencing guidelines and was the primary staff author of several Commission publications. Since 2019, he has practiced civil, criminal, and immigration law in Maryland and Texas. Since 2000, he has been a lecturer, adjunct professor, or visiting professor at several other law schools, including American and Georgetown Universities, the University of Houston Law Center, and Seoul National University in South Korea. He has published three books and many articles and book chapters. He was elected as a member of the American Law Institute in 2010. Select Publications by Professor Newton “Incentivizing Ineffective-Assistance-of-Counsel Claims Raised on Direct Appeal: Why Appellate Courts Should Remand “Colorable” Claims for Evidentiary Hearings,” 22 Journal of Appellate Practice & Process 107 (2022) “A Partial Fix of a Broken Guideline: A Proposed Amendment to Section 2G2.2 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines,” 70 Case Western Reserve L. Rev. 1 (2019) “The History of the Original United States Sentencing Commission,” 1985-87, 45 Hofstra L. Rev. 1167 (2017) (co-authored with Dawinder Sidhu) “The Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment Scorecard,” 13 Stanford Journal of Civ. Rts. & Civ. Liberties 1 (2017) “The Real-World Fourth Amendment,” 43 Hastings Const. L. Quarterly 759 (2016) “The Story of Federal Probation,” 53 Amer. Crim. L. Rev. 311 (2016) |
|
717-240-5143
Newton’s Publications
“Incentivizing Ineffective-Assistance-of-Counsel Claims Raised on Direct Appeal: Why Appellate Courts Should Remand “Colorable” Claims for Evidentiary Hearings,” 22 Journal of Appellate Practice & Process 107 (2022)
“A Partial Fix of a Broken Guideline: A Proposed Amendment to Section 2G2.2 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines,” Case Western Reserve Law Review, Volume 70, Issue 1, 2019
“The History of the Original United States Sentencing Commission,” Hofstra Law Review, Vol. 45, 2017
“The Supreme Court's Fourth Amendment Scorecard,” 13 Stanford Journal of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties 1, 2017
“The Story of Federal Probation,” American Criminal Law Review, Vol. 53, 2016
“The Real-World Fourth Amendment,” 43 Hastings Const. L. Q. 759, 2016
“The Ninety-Five Theses: Systemic Reforms of American Legal Education and Licensure,” South Carolina Law Review, Vol. 64, 2012
“Law Review Scholarship in the Eyes of the Twenty-First Century Supreme Court Justices: An Empirical Analysis,” Drexel Law Review, Vol. 4, p. 399, 2012
“Appendix to ‘Law Review Scholarship in the Eyes of the Twenty-First Century Supreme Court Justices,’” Drexel University Law Review, Vol. 10, p. 101, 2012
“Report from South Korea: My Experience Teaching Law at Seoul National University,” Georgetown University Law Center, 2012
“Preaching What They Don’t Practice: Why Law Faculties’ Preoccupation with Impractical Scholarship and Devaluation of Practical Competencies Obstruct Reform in the Legal Academy,” 62 S.C. L. Rev. 105 (Fall 2010).
Penn State Dickinson Law and Penn State Law are reunifying to operate as Penn State University’s single law school, which will be known as Penn State Dickinson Law. While ABA approval for the reunification is pending, both schools are currently fully accredited. We submitted an application for acquiescence to operate as a single law school in July 2024 and plan to enroll a unified class in Fall 2025. Once reunification is complete, the separate faculties of each school will be members of the reunified Penn State Dickinson Law faculty.