Levin College of Law
Welcome to UF LAW

Katheryn Russell-Brown

Levin, Mabie & Levin Professor of Law
Professor of Law
Director, Race and Crime Center for Justice

Expertise

Criminal Law  • Race & Crime  • Sociology of Law  • 

About

Katheryn Russell-Brown is the Levin, Mabie & Levin Professor of Law and Director of the Race and Crime Center for Justice at the University of Florida, Levin College of Law. She was director of the UF Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations (CSRRR) for eighteen years. Professor Russell-Brown received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley, her law degree from the University of California, Hastings and her Ph.D. in criminology from the University of Maryland.

Prior to joining the University of Florida law faculty in 2003, Professor Russell-Brown taught in the Criminology and Criminal Justice department at the University of Maryland for 11 years.  She has been a visiting law professor at American University and the City University of New York (CUNY).  She has been a lecturer at Howard University and her first teaching position was at Alabama State University.

Professor Russell-Brown teaches, researches, and writes on issues of race and crime and the sociology of law.  Her article, “The Constitutionality of Jury Override in Alabama Death Penalty Cases,” was cited in the U.S. Supreme Court decision, Harris v. Alabama (1995).

In 2009, Professor Russell-Brown was awarded a Soros Justice Advocacy Fellowship.  Her project focused on ways to integrate criminal justice issues into the elementary education curriculum.

Professor Russell-Brown’s books include Criminal Law  (SAGE, 2015) an undergraduate textbook, The Color of Crime, 2d edition (New York University Press, 2009), Protecting Our Own: Race, Crime and African Americans, Rowman and Littlefield (2006), and Underground Codes: Race, Crime, and Related Fires (New York University Press, 2004).  Her first children’s book is Little Melba and Her Big Trombone, a picture book biography (Lee & Low, 2014).

Education

Ph.D., University of Maryland
J.D., University of California – Hastings
B.A., University of California – Berkeley

Teaching and Scholarship

Race and Crime, Sociology of Law, Criminal Law

Courses

  • Criminal Law
  • Race, Crime, and the Law

Publications

Books

  • The Color of Crime, 3d Ed. (New York University Press 2021)
  • Criminal Law (SAGE Publications, 2015)
  • The Color of Crime, 2d Ed. (New York University Press, 2009)
  • Protecting Our Own: Race, Crime and African Americans (Rowman and Littlefield, 2006)
  • Underground Codes: Race, Crime, and Related Fires (New York University Press, 2004)
  • Petit Apartheid in the US Criminal Justice System: The Dark Figure of Racism (edited with Dragon
  • Milovanovic) (Carolina Academic Press, 2001)

Law Review & Social Science Publications

  • The Soul Savers: A 21st Century Homage to Derrick Bell’s Space Traders or Should Black People Leave America?, 26 MICHIGAN JOURNAL OF RACE AND LAW 49 (2021).
  • Black Lives Matter in Criminology? Let’s Prove It, 11 RACE & JUSTICE 328 (2021).
  • The Dog Walker, the Birdwatcher and Racial Voice: The Manifest Need to Punish Racial Hoaxes, 31 UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA JOURNAL OF LAW AND PUBLIC POLICY 1 (2020)
  • Critical Black Protectionism, Black Lives Matter and Social Media: Building a Bridge to Social Justice (2017) HOWARD LAW JOURNAL, Vol. 67:367.
  • Body Cameras, Police Violence, and Racial Credibility (2016) FLORIDA LAW REVIEW FORUM, Vol. 67:207.
  • Guest Editor, Special Issue on Race and Policing, (2007) JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY & PUBLIC POLICY, Vol. 6(1):1-181.
  • Black Protectionism as a Civil Rights Strategy (2005) BUFFALO LAW REVIEW, Vol. 53:1-64.
  • Racial Profiling: A Status Report of the Legal, Legislative and Empirical Literature (2001) RUTGERS RACE & THE LAW REVIEW, Vol. 3:61-81.
  • Driving While Black: Corollary Phenonmena and Collateral Consequences (1999), BOSTON COLLEGE LAW REVIEW, Vol 40: 717-731.
  • Affirmative (Re)Action: Anything but Race (1996) AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW, Vol. 45: 803-810.
  • The Racial Hoax as Crime: The Law as Affirmation (1996), INDIANA LAW JOURNAL, Vol. 71: 593-621.
  • Thinking, Talking and Teaching on Race: Derrick Bell’s Space Traders (1996) JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE EDUCATION, Vol. 7: 113-119.
  • A Critical View from the Inside: An Application of Critical Legal Studies to Criminal Law (1994) JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL LAW AND CRIMINOLOGY, Vol. 85: 222-240.
  • The Constitutionality of Jury Override in Alabama Death Penalty Cases (1994). ALABAMA LAW REVIEW, Vol. 46: 5-45 (LEAD ARTICLE)
  • The Racial Inequality Hypothesis: A Critical Look at the Research and Offer of an Alternative Hypothesis (1994) LAW AND HUMAN BEHAVIOR, Vol. 18: 305-317.
  • The Argument for Studying Crime and Race (1993) JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE EDUCATION, Vol. 4: 273-289 (co-author G. LaFree).
  • The Development of a Black Criminology and the Role of the Black Criminologist (1992) JUSTICE QUARTERLY, Vol. 9: 667-683.

Book Chapters

  • Black Criminology in the 21st Century (2019) in BUILDING A BLACK CRIMINOLOGY: RACE, THEORY and CRIME 101-123 (J. Unnever, S. Gabbidon & C. Chouhy, eds.) (Routledge)
  • Making Implicit Bias Explicit: Black Men and the Police (2017) in POLICING THE BLACK MAN: ARREST, PROSECUTION, and IMPRISONMENT 135-160 (A. Davis, ed.). Pantheon.
  • Go Ahead and Shoot, the Law Might Have Your Back: Race, Implicit Bias, and Justice in Florida’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ Law in DEADLY INJUSTICE: TRAYVON MARTIN, RACE, and THE CRIMINAL SYSTEM (D. Johnson, et al., eds.). New York University Press [2015]
  • The Myth of Black Crime in DEMYSTIFYING CRIME AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE (2d ed.) (Robert M. Bohm and Jeffrey T. Walker, eds.) (Roxbury Press, 2012)
  • While Visions of Deviance Danced in Their Heads in AFTER THE STORM: BLACK INTELLECTUALS EXPLORE THE MEANING OF HURRICANE KATRINA (David Troutt, ed.) The New Press (2006)
  • The Myth of Race and Crime (2005). DEMYSTIFYING CRIME AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE (R. Bohm & J. Walker, eds.) Roxbury.
  • Racing Crime: Definitions and Dilemmas (2001) in WHAT IS CRIME? (S. Henry & M. Lanier, eds.) Rowman & Littlefield.
  • Racial Hoaxes: Applied Critical Race Theory (2000) in OF CRIME AND CRIMINALITY: THE USE OF THEORY IN EVERYDAY LIFE (S. Simpson, ed.). Pine Forge.
  • What Did I Do to Be So Black and Blue?: Police Violence and the Black Community (2000) in POLICE BRUTALITY (J. Nelson, ed.). W.W. Norton.
  • Critical Race Theory and Social Justice (1998) in SOCIAL JUSTICE/CRIMINAL JUSTICE: THE MATURATION OF CRITICAL THEORY IN LAW, CRIME AND DEVIANCE (B. Arrigo, ed.). Wadsworth Press.
  • Reality Bites: Black Protectionism, White Denial and O.J. (1996) in REPRESENTING O.J.: MURDER, CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND MASS CULTURE (G. Barak, ed.). Harrow and Heston.

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The Florida Constitutional Law Endowment in memory of Justice Ben F. Overton was created by Judge Karen Miller in 2013. This fund supports lectures and presentations by Justices of the Florida Supreme Court at the Fredric G. Levin College of Law.

HISTORY

Justice Overton, who earned his B.S. in 1951 and his Juris Doctor in 1952 from the University of Florida, was the first merit appointment to the Florida Supreme Court. Throughout his career he was active in legal education and served as an Adjunct Professor at the Levin College of Law through December 2012, the month of his death. Although he resided at Oak Hammock at the University of Florida, a continuing care retirement community developed in cooperation with UF, he also considered the Florida Supreme Court “home.” Among the high points of his later years was hosting Justices of the Florida Supreme Court in Gainesville and taking his class to Tallahassee to hear oral arguments at the Florida Supreme Court.
Judge Miller, who earned her B.S. cum laude from New York University in 1974 and her Juris Doctor from New York Law School in 1977, served as Chief Administrative Law Judge of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, New York City’s business regulatory agency, before she retired to Oak Hammock at the University of Florida. Having accompanied Justice Overton on his excursions to Tallahassee and joined him in welcoming guests to Oak Hammock at the University of Florida, she created the endowment in memory of Justice Overton to ensure that the Levin College of Law continues to have the funding necessary to continue and enhance the interaction between its students and the Florida Supreme Court.

 

Judge Miller remembered the event that motivated the endowment.

 

Prior to a dinner at the home of Dean Robert Jerry and Lisa Jerry shortly after Justice Overton’s death, Justice Barbara Pariente and I were discussing a suitable memorial. Justice Pariente, who had been Justice Overton’s colleague on the Florida Supreme Court and who understood the importance to him of the interaction between his students and the Court, suggested the outline of what has become the Overton lectures. Dean Jerry, who has since retired, as has Dean Emeritus Jon Mills, who assumed responsibility for implementing the Overton lectures, were very supportive from the beginning. Since Dean Mills’ retirement, Professor Timothy McClendon, who assisted both Justice Overton and Dean Mills teaching Florida Constitutional Law and who co-authored the recent Florida Constitutional Law casebook, has continued the Overton lectures with the support of Interim Dean Merritt McAlister and CGR director, Professor Danaya Wright.

Justice Overton was a devoted jurist, educator, and ethical leader of the Florida legal profession. The Overton Lecture Series brings Florida Supreme Court Justices to the University of Florida, Levin College of Law, and serves to introduce students to the inner workings of the Court. CGR and the students of the College of Law extend our deepest gratitude to Judge Karen Miller for making the Overton Lectures possible in perpetuity.

You can watch an interview for the Florida Historical Society by Mary Adkins, professor emeritus of the UF Levin College of Law, with Justice Overton here.

Justice Overton was also interviewed for the Samuel Proctor Oral History Project and a transcript of his interview is available at the Smathers Library, and here.
Justice Overton sat on the Constitution Revision Commission of 1977-78 that proposed a right to privacy in the Florida Constitution. Although it failed as part of the Constitution Revision Commission recommendations, it passed in 1980 when proposed by the legislature. The bill was co-sponsored by our very own Jon Mills. The privacy provision prevailed by greater than 60%. Justice Overton then wrote a concurrence in a critical reproductive rights case in 1989 affirming that the privacy provision of the Florida Constitution included the right to obtain an abortion. That decision was overruled in Planned Parenthood of SW and Central Florida v. Florida. You can read about the role of Justice Overton, Jon Mills – director emeritus of CGR, and the history of the 1989 case here.