Steven Drizin
Steve Drizin (Photo: Jennifer Linzer)
Steven Drizin, a clinical professor of law at Northwestern University School of Law, assistant director of its Bluhm Legal Clinic, and leading authority on police interrogations, coerced confessions and the juvenile death penalty, succeeded Lawrence C. Marshall as legal director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions in 2005.
A 1986 graduate of the Northwestern law school, Drizin joined the clinical faculty in 1991 and two years later became a supervising attorney the its Children and Family Justice Center, where he represented children in delinquency and criminal cases in trial and appellate courts, school disciplinary proceedings, parole and clemency hearings, and political asylum proceedings. In that capacity, he became widely recognized for his efforts to secure greater protections for children, including mandatory videotaping of police interrogations, parental presence, and the right to counsel for youth. Drizin, clinical professor of law at Northwestern and assistant director of the Bluhm clinic, succeeds Professor Lawrence C. Marshall as the Center's legal director.
Drizin's national leadership on police interrogations and false confessions led to collaboration with attorneys at the Center on Wrongful Conviction on related cases and on legal reform initiatives. In his efforts to get the juvenile death penalty abolished in the United States, he recently has been working with a number of organizations, including the American Bar Association, the Juvenile Law Center and Amnesty International.
