Bio
Professor Evan Lee graduated from University of California, Berkeley, A.B. (1982) and Yale Law School, J.D. (1985). After law school, he clerked for the Hon. William H. Orrick, Jr., United States District Judge for the Northern District of California in 1985 to 1986. The third-year class voted him “Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year” in 1997, 2002, and 2007. In 2006, the student body voted him “Professor of the Year,” and in 2005 he won the Rutter Group Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Every July, Professor Lee joins Professors Erwin Chemerinsky, Laurie Levenson, and Suzanna Sherry as faculty for the Federal Judicial Center’s “Supreme Court Term in Review,” a television program produced for federal district judges and their clerks to keep them abreast of the Supreme Court’s most recent decisions.
Professor Lee has published leading articles on federal courts law in the UC Law SF Journal, Southern California Law Review, Harvard Law Review, Washington University Law Quarterly, Vanderbilt Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the Supreme Court Review. In 2011, his book Judicial Restraint in America: How the Ageless Wisdom of Federal Courts Was Invented was published by Oxford University Press. In 2007 to 2008, he occupied the Harry and Lillian UC Law SF Research Chair.
In 2015, Professor Lee published an article In the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly called “Why California’s Second-Degree Felony-Murder Rule is Now Void for Vagueness.” Multiple parties are now preparing to use the argument outlined in this article to challenge their convictions in the California Supreme Court.
Scholarship
Books
Federal Courts: A Contemporary Approach (West 5th ed. 2013) (with Donald L. Doernberg).
Judicial Restraint in America: How the Ageless Wisdom of the Federal Courts Was Invented (Oxford Univ. Press 2010).
Journal Articles
Calvin Massey, Gentleman Farmer, 15 U. N.H. L. Rev. 321 (2017). FULLTEXT URL
Why Deporting Immigrants for “Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude” is Now Unconstitutional, 13 Duke J. Const. L. Pub. Pol’y 47 (2017) (with Lindsay M. Kornegay). FULLTEXT URL
Mathis v. US and the Future of the Categorical Approach, 101 Minn. L. Rev. Headnotes 263 (2016). URL
Why California’s Second-Degree Felony-Murder Rule is Now Void for Vagueness, 43 Hastings Const. L.Q. 1 (2015). FULLTEXT SSRN
Which Felonies Pose a “Serious Potential Risk of Injury” Under the ACCA Residual Clause?, 26 Fed. Sent. R. 118 (2013) (with Lynn A. Addington & Stephen Rushin). FULLTEXT
The Standing Doctrine’s Dirty Little Secret, 107 Nw. U. L. Rev. 169 (2012) (with Josephine Mason Ellis). FULLTEXT SSRN
The Trouble With City of Boerne, and Why It Matters for the Voting Rights Act, 90 Denv. U. L. Rev. 483 (2012). FULLTEXT
Federal Jurisdiction According to Professor Frankfurter, 53 St. Louis U. L.J. 779 (2009). FULLTEXT SSRN
Does Warrantless Wiretapping Violate Moral Rights?, 44 San Diego L. Rev. 723 (2007). FULLTEXT SSRN
Should the ALI Take a Position on Capital Punishment?, 18 Fed. Sent. R. 187 (2006). FULLTEXT
The Legality of the NSA Wiretapping Program, 12 Tex. J. C.L. & C.R. 1 (2006). FULLTEXT
Section 2254(d) of the Federal Habeas Statute: Is It Beyond Reason?, 56 Hastings L.J. 283 (2004). FULLTEXT
The Dubious Concept of Jurisdiction, 54 Hastings L.J. 1613 (2003). FULLTEXT SSRN
The Politics of Bush v. Gore, 3 J. App. Prac. & Process 461 (2001). FULLTEXT
On the Received Wisdom in Federal Courts, 147 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1111 (1999). FULLTEXT
Section 2254(d) of the New Habeas Statute: An (Opinionated) User’s Manual, 51 Vand. L. Rev. 103 (1998). FULLTEXT
The McCleskey Puzzle: Remedying Prosecutorial Discrimination Against Black Victims in Capital Sentencing, 1998 Sup. Ct. Rev. 145 (1998) (with Ashutosh Bhagwat). FULLTEXT
Cancelling Crime, 30 Conn. L. Rev. 117 (1997). FULLTEXT
Foreword, Interpretive Methodologies: Perspectives on Constitutional Theory, 24 Hastings Const. L.Q. 281 (1997). FULLTEXT
Is There Such a Thing as Extraconstitutionality? The Puzzling Case of Dalton v. Specter, 27 Ariz. St. L.J. 845 (1995) (with Larry Alexander). FULLTEXT
The Theories of Federal Habeas Corpus, 72 Wash. U. L.Q. 151 (1994). FULLTEXT
Deconstitutionalizing Justiciability: The Example of Mootness, 105 Harv. L. Rev. 603 (1992). FULLTEXT
Principled Decision Making and the Proper Role of Federal Appellate Courts: The Mixed Questions Conflict, 64 S. Cal. L. Rev. 235 (1991). FULLTEXT
The Dual Sovereignty Exception to Double Jeopardy: In the Wake of Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 22 New Eng. L. Rev. 31 (1987). FULLTEXT
Chapters In Books
Bivens: The New Normal, in Section 1983 Civil Rights Litigation 2013: New Developments & Strategies 475 (Erwin Chemerinsky ed., Practicing Law Institute 2013).
Book Reviews
Book Review, 30 Cal. Law. 38 (Jan. 2010) (reviewing Joan Biskupic, American Original: The Life and Constitution of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (2009)).
Book Review, 17 Const. Comment. 417 (2000) (reviewing Leon Trakman & Sean Gatien, Rights and Responsibilities (1999)).
Epstein’s Premises, 31 San Diego L. Rev. 203 (1994) (reviewing Richard Epstein, Forbidden Grounds (1992)).
Relativism and Normative Choice in the Legitimation of Transnational Coercion, 26 San Diego L. Rev. 347 (1989) (reviewing Lea Brilmayer, Justifying International Acts (1989)).
Education
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Yale Law School
J.D., Law 1985 -
University of California, Berkeley
A.B., Undergraduate Studies 1982
Accomplishments
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Professor of the Year
Awarded by the student body of UC Law SF College of the Law. 2006 -
Award for Excellence in Teaching
Awarded by the Rutter Group. 2005 -
Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year
Awarded by the third-year class of UC Law SF College of the Law in 1997, 2002 and 2007. 1997
