Brandon L. Garrett

Garrett teaches law at the Duke University School of Law, where he has been the L. Neil Williams, Jr. Professor of Law since 2018.  Previously, he was the Justice Thurgood Marshall Distinguished Professor of Law and White Burkett Miller Professor of Law and Public Affairs at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he taught beginning in 2005. His research on our criminal justice system has ranged from the lessons to be learned from cases where innocent people were exonerated by DNA tests, to research on false confessions, forensics, and eyewitness memory, to the difficult compromises that prosecutors reach when targeting the largest corporations in the world. Garrett founded and directs the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law, which conducts criminal justice research and policy work.

Garrett’s forthcoming book, Defending Due Process: Why Fairness Matters in a Polarized World, will be published by Polity Press in February 2025.

Garrett's last book, Autopsy of a Crime Lab: Exposing the Flaws in Forensics, was published by University of California Press in Spring 2021. His book, “End of its Rope: How Killing the Death Penalty Can Revive Criminal Justice,” examining the implications of the decline of the death penalty, was published in Fall 2017 by Harvard University Press. Garrett's book examining corporate prosecutions, titled “Too Big to Jail: How Prosecutors Compromise with Corporations,” was published by Harvard University Press in Fall 2014. In 2011, Harvard University Press published Garrett's book, "Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong," examining the cases of the first 250 people to be exonerated by DNA testing. In 2013, Foundation Press published a casebook, “Federal Habeas Corpus: Executive Detention and Post-Conviction Litigation,” co-authored with Lee Kovarsky, and now in its second edition.  These books have translations completed or pending in China, Japan, Korea, Spain, and Taiwan. Garrett's law review articles can be downloaded on SSRN.  

Garrett's work has been cited by courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, lower federal courts, state supreme courts, and courts in other countries. Garrett also frequently speak about criminal justice matters before legislative and policymaking bodies, groups of practicing lawyers, law enforcement, and to local and national media.  Garrett attended Columbia Law School, where he was an articles editor of the Columbia Law Review and a Kent Scholar. After graduating, he clerked for the Hon. Pierre N. Leval of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He then worked as an associate at Neufeld, Scheck & Brustin LLP in New York City.  A more detailed bio is available here.  

Garrett lives in Durham, North Carolina with his wonderful family.  In his spare time, he loves to do many things, including painting.