Dr. Robert Norris

Dr. Robert J. Norris joined the Department of Government and Justice Studies in 2015. He earned his B.A. in sociology with a history minor at UNC-Greensboro, and earned his M.A. and Ph.D. from the School of Criminal Justice at the University at Albany (SUNY). His research and teaching areas include law and society, social change and policy reform, the legal system, and decision-making in criminal justice. Much of his research focuses specifically on wrongful convictions.

There are 6 included publications by Dr. Robert Norris :

TitleDateViewsBrief Description
Advancing Wrongful Conviction Scholarship: Toward New Conceptual Frameworks 2015 2478 As wrongful conviction scholarship grows, some scholars have suggested that existing research on miscarriages of justice lacks theoretical grounding and methodological sophistication, arguing that the use of social science theory may help to better u...
Assessing Compensation Statutes For The Wrongly Convicted 2012 3110 As the discovery of wrongful convictions grows, so does concern in the legal community and public sphere about actual innocence. Though research on miscarriages of justice has grown tremendously, most has focused on the factors contributing to wrongf...
An Explicit Test Of Plea Bargaining In The “Shadow Of The Trial” 2014 3105 Bargaining in the “shadow of the trial,” which hinges on the expectations of trial outcomes, is the primary theory used by noncriminologists to explain variation in the plea discount given to defendants who plead guilty. This study develops a formal ...
Framing DNA: Social Movement Theory And The Foundations Of The Innocence Movement 2017 1095 The “innocence movement” has often been mentioned, but rarely explored in depth. In particular, scholars have yet to study the beginning of the movement thoroughly. This article explores the early history of the innocence movement, referred to as the...
Plea Decision-Making By Attorneys And Judges 2017 2786 Objectives: Approximately 95 % of convictions in the United States are the result of guilty pleas. Surprisingly little is known about the factors which judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys consider in these decisions. To examine the legal and e...
Preventing Wrongful Convictions: An Analysis Of State Investigation Reforms 2017 8735 As more innocents are exonerated and researchers learn more about the causes of wrongful convictions, criminal justice practices have been altered to reduce the number of erroneous convictions, although reforms have varied widely in scope and substan...