Thomas Y. Davies
Elvin E. Overton Distinguished Professor of Law and
National Alumni Association Distinguished Service Professor of Law
B.A., 1969, University of Delaware
M.A., 1975, J.D., 1975, Ph.D. (Political Science), 1980, Northwestern University
Thomas Davies
Courses Taught
- Criminal Procedure
- Criminal Law
- Civil Rights Actions
- Constitutional History
- Administrative Law
About
Professor Davies's special areas of expertise are the investigatory phase of criminal procedure, especially search and seizure law and the related exclusionary rule, and the history of criminal procedure. His research on the effects of the exclusionary rule has been discussed in several U.S. Supreme Court opinions as well as a number of state supreme court opinions. He has appeared of counsel in two Supreme Court search cases and has also been a witness before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on proposed legislation relating to exclusion. His recent research deals with recovering the authentic historical meanings of the provisions of the Bill of Rights that regulate criminal procedure. To date, Professor Davies has published research on the original meaning of the Fourth Amendment, the "due process of law" clause in the Fifth Amendment, the right against self-incrimination in the Fifth Amendment, and the right of confrontation in the Sixth Amendment, as well as framing-era arrest law.
Professor Davies is currently completing research on two other aspects of constitutional history -- how the Marshall court trumped up its famous claim of unconstitutionality in the 1803 ruling in Marbury v. Madison, and how the recharacterization of an officer's unlawful conduct as a form of government illegality enlarged the significance of the Bill of Rights.
Articles by Professor Davies have been published in the American Bar Foundation Research Journal, the Brooklyn Journal of Law and Policy, the Brooklyn Law Review, the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, the Justice System Journal, the Michigan Law Review, Law and Contemporary Problems, the Lewis and Clark Law Review, the Mississippi Law Journal, the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, the Texas Tech Law Review, the Wake Forest Law Review, and the Tennessee Law Review. Before joining the UT faculty in 1986, Professor Davies practiced law as a corporate litigator in the Chicago office of Kirkland & Ellis and was also a researcher at the American Bar Foundation.