Dr. Eric Rise

Associate Chair, Professor

Sociology and Criminal Justice

342 Smith Hall
University of Delaware
Newark, DE 19716
Phone: 302-831-8679
FAX: 302-831-0688

Email Dr. Rise

(Ph.D., University of Florida)

Eric Rise, associate professor and associate chair, specializes in American constitutional and legal history. His research focuses on two general areas: the development of civil rights and civil liberties in the United States and the history of courts and judicial institutions. He has written books and articles on the federal courts, the Supreme Court of Florida, and racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. He is now writing a history of freedom of expression in the United States. In addition, he is an associate editor American Journal of Legal History. He has been at the University of Delaware since 1992, teaching courses in constitutional history, the history of crime and criminal justice, criminal procedure, and the criminal court process.

Representative Publications:

The Supreme Court of Florida and Its Predecessor Courts, 1819-1917. (With Walter Manley and Canter Brown, Jr.). Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998.

The Martinsville Seven: Race, Rape, and Capital Punishment. Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 1995.

From Local Courts to National Tribunals: The Federal District Courts of Florida, 1821-1989. (With Kermit L. Hall). Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson Publishing Company, 1991.

"Race, Rape, and Radicalism: The Case of the Martinsville Seven, 1949-1951," The Journal of Southern History 63 (August 1992): 461-490.

"Red Menaces and Drinking Buddies: Student Activism at the University of Florida, 1936-1939," The Historian 48 (August 1986): 559-571.


Courses Regularly Taught:

CRJU 202: Problems of the Criminal Judiciary

This course provides an overview of the role of trial and appellate courts in the American criminal justice system. In addition to reviewing the basic legal concepts and procedural stages that underlie the criminal courts, students will examine research findings on the behavior of judges, juries, prosecutors, defense attorneys, defendants, victims, and other key actors in the judicial process.

CRJU/HIST 312: Crime and Punishment in American History

This course examines the social, institutional, and legal development of crime and criminal justice in the United States from colonial times to the present. It investigates the varieties of human behavior that have been defined as "criminal" at various points in this nation's history, and it considers how changing cultural assumptions about crime have shaped the legal and institutional responses to the problem of crime. It also asks students to ponder whether historical analysis can contribute to our understanding of contemporary issues of crime and criminal justice policy.

CRJU/HIST 324: American Constitutional History

This course examines the development of American constitutionalism since Reconstruction. It emphasizes the efforts of a variety of institutions and constituencies--the Supreme Court, Congress and the presidency, state courts and legislatures, lawyers, legal theorists, and special interest groups--to shape the Constitution to accommodate the changing needs of an urban, industrial, multicultural society. Among the themes that we examine are the growth of the Supreme Court's power of judicial review; the rise of executive authority and regulatory bureaucracy; the emergence of "rights consciousness" among individuals and groups in the twentieth century; and the limits of the Court's power to effect social change.

CRJU 375: Criminal Procedure

This course provides an overview of the constitutional law governing the criminal process from arrest through trial, with an emphasis on search and seizure, self-incrimination, right to counsel, right to confrontation, and right to jury trial. It aims to familiarize students with the theoretical principles, historical developments, and policy debates that have shaped the interpretation and application of the guarantees of the Bill of Rights concerning criminal defendants.

LEST/CRJU 301: Introduction to Legal Studies

This course is designed to introduce students to the interdisciplinary study of law and legal institutions. Its purpose is to expose students to the ways in which scholars and writers in a variety of fields--anthropology, economics, history, literature, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology--have examined law-related phenomena to help them understand broader social and cultural issues. Topics include jurisprudence, legal reasoning, the rule of law, legal education, law and social change, trial by jury, and the litigation "explosion."

SOCI 637: Law and Society in Historical Perspective

This course is a graduate seminar examining the social history of law, crime, and legal institutions in the United States from colonial times to the present. It focuses on the role that law has historically played in allocating resources, structuring social relationships, and distributing political power. It also examines the ways in which legal rules and institutions have changed in response to social, political, and economic transformations