Carissa Byrne Hessick
Criminal law professor at the University of North Carolina
Director of the Prosecutors and Politics Project
Author of Punishment Without Trial: Why Plea Bargaining is a Bad Deal
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickUSSG name checks Sam Bray! (He should be name checked in any serious discussion about nationwide injunction practices.) 36/
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickCan't wait until Trump's DHS spokespeople start trying to convince us this American toddler is actually a wife beating human trafficker
- NEW: A federal judge raised alarm Friday that the Trump administration appeared to have deported a 2-year-old U.S. citizen to Honduras with "no meaningful process" — even as her father was fighting to keep her in the country. Details w/ @joshgerstein.bsky.social www.politico.com/news/2025/04...
- Trump is putting 100% of the responsibility and blame for Garcia’s release on “his lawyers” in DOJ Also, the implication of these comments is either that the lawyers are lying to Trump or that he can’t understand what they’re telling him.
- Trump on the 9-0 Supreme Court order time.com/7280114/dona...
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickI think if Jack Lowden is going to play Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice it’s only right that Gary Oldman should play Mr Bennet and Kristin Scott Thomas should play Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickIf you’ve received a text claiming you owe unpaid tolls, you’re not alone.
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickI argued before Judge Wilkinson as an assistant federal defender. It generally didn’t go well for my clients. His opinion today is a credit to him and an indictment of everyone in the administration who brought us to this moment.
- That is not what this clip says. It says a bunch of awful and divisive stuff. But it doesn’t suggest criminally charging people who call for due process. Come on people—what this administration is doing and saying is bad enough. There’s no reason to invent fictional bad things.
- I am of the firm belief that law professors should not publish op eps on important legal issues until AFTER they’ve done the hard work required to produce a publishable article on a topic. The op ed is only getting published because the status of the prof is an implicit claim to expertise.
- The man told them he was an attorney, and that his email contained privileged information. Nonetheless, government agents insisted on looking through his phone, exploiting their power to search at the border. This is something that all attorneys need to address immediately.
- "After nearly five hours, he and his wife were released. They are now pursuing legal action. "It's not about the immigrants," his sister, told NBC10 Boston. "It's coming to us Americans, and it's going to go after all of us." www.nbcboston.com/news/politic...
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickI want everyone to have due process rights, because I believe in the constitution and the rule of law. But sometimes a small part of me wants everyone to have the same due process rights that they advocate for others. Wonder how JD Vance would like being sent to prison without a hearing?
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickIt's genuinely hard to express to sort of normal not politically plugged in non-lawyers *how* lawless the Trump administration is, and I think that's some part of the problem. You sound like you're hyperventilating, but it's just a flat description of what is going on.
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickRead and follow @cbhessick.bsky.social to learn how proliferating plea bargains damaged our criminal justice system and why they should not be used to prohibit any exoneration claims. And read and follow @robertmannbooks.com, too.
- An excellent essay here from @alanrozenshtein.com on the presumption of regularity. Highly recommended reading for those who are paying attention to the Trump administration’s defiance of the courts. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/what...
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickWell, El Salvador let Kristi Noem film a commercial inside the dang prison so maybe she could go there and escort him out.
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickThere are the grand and ancient constitutional principles at stake, but the concrete practical reason you put things like levying taxes and major economic policy decisions in the legislature is even when they get it wrong (and they do!) it doesn't change day to day based on one man's erratic whims.
- Rupar isn’t the only active poster who does this with regularity—posts a video with a misleadingly incomplete or just flat out false caption. It’s terrible behavior.
- Don’t make the mistake I made; watch the videos Aaron Rupar shares, don’t just accept his characterization. In this video, Lutnick argues for US-based automated manufacturing of iPhones (a bad idea), not armies of Americans fastening iPhone screws by hand (worse). The actual policies are bad enough!
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne Hessick-concentration camps -zero free speech -mass executions -complete repression of all ethnic and social minorities -one party state with no elections in which it’s illegal to criticize the government
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne Hessick*taps sign*
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickCanadians are pissed off. Cory Booker is pissed off. It's revenge of the nice people out here
- Bondi’s statement says that this man *firebombed* a Tesla dealership. Reasonable people can disagree about whether 20 years is too much for that crime. But I don’t think that “vandalizing” is a fair way to characterize her statement.
- Maybe I am misunderstanding the email that this group sent to law students, but it looks like they’re telling students that they have to preserve their personal statements to the law review in perpetuity. I’m no civ pro expert, but forever seems like a long time to have to preserve something.
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickGood for Clement, standing up for BigLaw, even when BigLaw didn't stand up for him.
JUST IN: My old firm WilmerHale sues to challenge Trump’s order against them, represented by the best conservative lawyer in the country, former Solicitor General Paul Clement. THE TIDE IS STARTING TO TURN 👊🇺🇸🔥 assets.bwbx.io/documents/us...
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickWe have had nearly two decades of panic about Free Speech on Campus and not a single case, not even the ones they made up, were as bad as what's happening now
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickCongratulations to @mrparsh.bsky.social and @cbhessick.bsky.social on the forthcoming publication of their article "The Nuances of Prosecutorial Nonenforcement" in the William & Mary Law Review! You can check out the abstract below. #WomenAlsoKnowLaw
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickThe deans at WV and UNC--both public schools in states w GOP governors who have ALREADY targeted those universities--signed the letter. Which makes the silence of the top-most law schools--almost all privates in deep blue states--all the more unacceptable.
- The letter restoring the grant includes a statement that reserves the right to unilaterally cancel it in the future, and yet Lake appears to be arguing that the case should be dismissed as moot. It’s been a while since I took Federal Courts, but that looks like voluntary cessation to me!
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickKeep an eye out for @cbhessick.bsky.social and @mrparsh.bsky.social’s article ,“The Nuances of Prosecutorial Nonenforcement,” forthcoming in Volume 67 of the William & Mary Law Review!
- Glad to see this statement by Roberts.
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickI am happy to announce that my new article, The Nuances of Prosecutorial Nonenforcement (co-authored with @cbhessick.bsky.social), is forthcoming in Volume 67 of the William & Mary Law Review! After nearly two years of research and writing, I am so glad that this piece has such a wonderful home!
- I’d be curious if this rings true to other law professors. This particular essay aside, it strikes me that there are plenty of relatively rude folks in the academy—including some of the most respected folks in some fields.
- I was so excited to find @oldfatherc.bsky.social ‘s new book in my mailbox this morning. I’m a big fan of his previous work, and I’ve been looking forward to reading this book ever since I heard he was writing it!
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickAn independent judiciary is the cornerstone of the rule of law.
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne Hessickcan't believe it's 2025 and i'm stressed about tariffs and measles, like am i a character in an american girl book
- I totally agree with Evan. And I’ll add that I have long been dismayed by the popularity of “It takes a theory . . .” in the field of law, given that the origins of American law are incremental decision-making and inductive reasoning.
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickI feel like America got so bored being the world’s superpower it just chose chaotic self-destruction. Like a rich, idle kid getting hooked on heroin.
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickTruth sandwich The President does not have power to ignore the courts. John Yoo and Robert Delahunty essay recently invoked Cambodia case claiming Pentagon "ignored" a court order. The legendary Burt Neuborne sets the record straight in this brilliant essay. (Burt argued the case in 1973.)
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickPeople’s reactions to these stories tend to be of the leopards-eating-faces variety but this is a great piece of reporting in part about how voters very disconnected from politics make their choices. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickEmphasizing again that anyone who responds to "that's illegal" with some variant of "lol all law is meaningless you're a sucker for thinking that matters" is actively doing PR for Trump and helping him. Nihilism about the law is the best way to make sure that the rule of law dies a quicker death.
- Reposted by Carissa Byrne HessickYou don’t impeach judges because you disagree with their decisions; you appeal the decisions.
