Introduction
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Michael Benza, Visiting Associate Professor, Case Western Reserve University School of Law |
Main Speaker
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Professor Jon Hanson, Harvard Law School |
Friday February 11, 2011, 8:45 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
Sponsored by An Interdisciplinary Symposium funded in part by the Arthur W. Fiske Memorial Lectureship Fund at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law
There has always been some tension between the ethical, legal, and professional obligations of professionals and the requirements of military service. This tension has been increased by the War on Terror. Physicians, mental health professionals, lawyers, and law enforcement/corrections officers serving in the military have been placed in situations in which their professional ethics, obligations, and legal duties may contradict military necessity or directives, or even place the role of professional in direct conflict with the role of military personnel.
As the management of armed conflict, the law of war, and the professionalization of the military has increased, this tension has similarly increased. Military professionals have been asked to bring their expertise, skills, and professional talents to the prosecution of military action not just as military personnel but as doctors, mental health professionals, lawyers, and law enforcement/corrections officers. Doctors and mental health professionals are charged with supervising and controlling interrogations, lawyers are asked to provide legal opinions and advise on the treatment of prisoners, and law enforcement and corrections officers must guard and control prisoners. While performing these duties military necessity can impose conflicting duties and concerns. The need for information, validation, or security may require different loyalties and focus than the professional duty. The need for information about an upcoming attack that could save the lives of comrades may directly contradict the need for care or treatment of a prisoner.
This symposium brings together professionals, ethicists, theorists and practitioners from medicine, mental health care, the law, law enforcement, and the military to explore these complicated and timely issues in an open and frank discussion.
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Additional Information About Our Guest…
Michael Benza is a Visiting Associate Professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. He received his Bachelor of Arts (1986) and law degrees (1992) from Case Western Reserve University. He also received a Master of Arts degree in Clinical Psychology (1988) from Pepperdine University. He was the 1992 Biskind Fellow from Case School of Law and spent a year working for the Legal Resources Centre, a civil and human rights law firm in South Africa. Upon returning to the States, he spent four years in the Capital Defense Unit at the Office of the Ohio Public Defender. He was assistant counsel at the Cleveland Bar Association working with the Certified Grievance Committee as well as other committees. Professor Benza teaches Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure I, Death Penalty Issues, and the Death Penalty Lab, and coached the Mock Trial team. The Student Bar Association selected Professor Benza as the Professor of the Year in 2007, 2008 and 2009. In 2009 Professor Benza was elected as an alumni member to the Society of Benchers. Professor Benza continues to represent death row inmates in state courts and federal habeas proceedings. He has litigated capital cases in state trial courts, state appellate and post-conviction courts, and federal courts including arguing Smith v. Spisak before the Supreme Court of the United States.
Jon Hanson is the Alfred Smart Professor of Law and the Director of The Project on Law and Mind Sciences (www.lawandmind.com) at Harvard Law School. Professor Hanson graduated from Yale Law School in 1990, clerked for Judge José A. Cabranes, spent one year as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Yale Law School, and then joined the faculty at Harvard Law School in 1992. His teaching and scholarship melds social psychology, social cognition, economics, history, and law. His publications include: The Blame Frame: Justifying (Racial) Oppression in America, 41 HARV. C.R.-C.L. L. REV. 413 (2006) (with Kathleen Hanson); The Illusion of Law: The Legitimating Schemas of Modern Policy and Corporate Law, 103 U. MICH. L. REV. 1 (2004) (with Ron Chen); The Situation: An Introduction to the Situational Character, Critical Realism, Power Economics, & Deep Capture, 152 U. PENN. L. REV. 129 (2003) (with David Yosifon); and Taking Behavioralism Seriously: Some Evidence of Market Manipulation, 112 HARV. L. REV. 1420 (1999) (with Doug Kysar). Professor Hanson is currently editing a book, titled Ideology, Psychology, and Law (Oxford University Press) and conducting empirical research examining implicit policy attitudes and motives.