Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has responded to the crescendo of outrage by appointing former FBI director Robert Mueller as special...
Marjorie Cohn
Emeritus Faculty
J.D., Santa Clara University School of Law;
B.A., Stanford University, with departmental honors
in Social Thought and Institutions
E-mail: marjorie@tjsl.edu
Professor Cohn is a former president of the National Lawyers Guild. She lectures throughout the world on international human rights and U.S. foreign policy. She has been a news consultant for CBS News and a legal analyst for Court TV, and has also provided legal and political commentary on BBC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR, and Pacifica Radio. In 2010, Professor Cohn was invited to debate the legality of the war in Afghanistan at the prestigious Oxford Union.
In addition, Professor Cohn is the author of Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law and co-author of Cameras in the Courtroom: Television and the Pursuit of Justice, and Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent. She is editor and contributor to The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration and Abuse, and Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues.
Her articles have appeared in numerous journals such as Fordham Law Review, Hastings Law Journal and Virginia Journal of International Law, as well as The National Law Journal, Christian Science Monitor and Chicago Tribune. Professor Cohn is a contributing editor to Jurist and National Lawyers Guild Review, and her frequent columns appear on Huffington Post, Truthout, CommonDreams, Counterpunch, OpedNews, ZNet, and GlobalResearch, and are archived at http://www.marjoriecohn.com.
She has been a criminal defense attorney at the trial and appellate levels for many years, and was staff counsel to the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board. Professor Cohn is the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the Association of American Jurists and is deputy secretary general of the Bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers.
The recipient of the San Diego County Bar Association's 2005 Service to Legal Education Award, Professor Cohn was recognized as one of San Diego's Top Attorneys in Academics for 2006, 2008 and 2009, and was given the 2007 Bernard E. Witkin, Esq. Award for Excellence in the Teaching of the Law by the San Diego Law Library Justice Foundation. She received the 2008 Peace Scholar of the Year Award from the Peace and Justice Studies Association, the 2009 Amnesty International-San Diego Digna Ochoa Human Rights Defender Award, and the 2010 Alumni Achievement Award from the Santa Clara University School of Law.
Professor Cohn sits on the board of directors of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign, the advisory board of Veterans for Peace, and she is a civilian member of the board of GI Voice. She is also a member of the Advisory Board for the American Constitution Society – San Diego Chapter. Professor Cohn testified in 2008 about government torture policy before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, and she has testified at military courts-martial about the illegality of the wars, the duty to obey lawful orders, and the duty to disobey unlawful orders. She was a legal observer in Iran on behalf of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers in 1978 and she has participated in delegations to Cuba, China and Yugoslavia.
She lived in Mexico and is fluent in Spanish. Professor Cohn has taught at Thomas Jefferson since 1991.
Visit Professor Cohn's website
Courses include:
Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, International Human Rights Law.
