News & Notes

Gibson-Banks Center News

  • October 2023 – The Gibson-Banks Center announced as a member organization of the Maryland Equitable Justice Collaborative, a joint initiative between the Maryland Office of the Attorney General and the Maryland Office of the Public Defender focused on addressing mass incarceration in Maryland. 

  • January 2024 - Professor Michael Pinard (Faculty Director, Gibson-Banks Center), receives the Michael A. Olivas Award for Outstanding Leadership in Diversity in the Legal Academy at the Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting. 

  • February 2024 – Gibson-Banks Center signs on to amicus brief filed in Ninth Circuit arguing for recognition of intersectional race-and-gender groups as a protected class under Batson v. Kentucky.  

  • February 2024 – Brandon Miller, Erek L. Barron Fellow, submits testimony in favor of Maryland House and Senate bills seeking to establish Correctional Ombudsman Unit (subsequently passed and signed into law). 

  • February 2024- Brandon Miller, Erek L. Barron Fellow, submits testimony in favor of Maryland House and Senate bills seeking to broaden investigatory authority of local police accountability boards, and testifies before the Maryland General Assembly House Judiciary Committee in favor of the House bill (testimony begins at the 11:00 mark).    

  • June 2024 – Gibson-Banks Center signs on to amicus brief filed in Fifth Circuit urging Court to grant Motion for Certificate of Appealability because defense counsel argued at sentencing that his own client, a Black man subsequently sentenced to death, was biologically predisposed toward violence.