The Cockefair Chair was established in 1964 to honor Carolyn Benton Cockefair, an exceptional teacher who devoted her life to education. The chair’s activities continue as a monument to Mrs. Cockefair’s belief that a community needs “open and responsive minds” if it is to be politically and socially healthy, and serves those goals by bringing scholars, writers, and public intellectuals to UMKC in a continuing education program.
In Fall 2021, the Cockefair Chair presents three fascinating courses.
Just Mercy in the Era of Mass Incarceration
Before joining the UMKC Law faculty, Professor O’Brien devoted his career to representing poor people facing life in prison or the death penalty in courts across America and in the United States Supreme Court. This course will discuss the current state of the right to counsel, examining actual cases in which poor criminal defendants were sentenced to death or life imprisonment in spite of innocence, youth, severe mental impairment, or other extenuating factors that juries and judges wish they had known when they decided the case in the first instance. Why do juries not always get the full story, and what stands in the way of justice when new evidence surfaces? Come explore these and other questions about the criminal justice system.
- Sean O’Brien, Professor
- School of Law
- Thursdays, 10:30 – noon
- October 14, 21, and 28
- This presentation will be in-person with a synchronous zoom option
- $40
Registration and location information will be provided at a later date.
See additional Cockefair Courses on The State of the Media and Stellar Adventures
