John Q. Barrett is a Professor of Law at St.
John's University in New York City, where he teaches
constitutional law, criminal procedure and legal
history, and he is the Elizabeth S. Lenna Fellow at
the Robert H. Jackson
Center in Jamestown, New York. He has in the past been
named a "Professor of the Year" by St. John's law students and this
year received a Faculty Outstanding Achievement Medal from the
University. Professor Barrett is a graduate of
Georgetown University (1983) and Harvard Law School (1986).
Justice Robert H. Jackson: Professor
Barrett is writing a biography of the late U.S.
Supreme Court Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor
Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954). This work will
include the first inside account of Justice Jackson's service,
by appointment of President Truman, as the chief
prosecutor at Nuremberg, Germany, of the principal surviving
Nazi leaders during 1945 and 1946.
The Jackson List: Professor Barrett
sends periodic emails to over 13,000 subscribers who are
interested in Justice Jackson and related
topics. To read archived copies of
some Jackson List posts,
click here. To join the Jackson List, which does not
display recipient identities or email addresses, send a
"subscribe" note to barrettj@stjohns.edu.
That Man: An Insider's Portrait of Franklin
D. Roosevelt. Professor Barrett discovered and
edited Justice Jackson's previously unknown, never
published, now acclaimed book
That Man: An Insider's Portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt
(Oxford University Press).
That Man, Jackson's intimate, eloquent memoir of FDR from their
first meeting as young men in 1911 through their very
close working relationship and friendship during the New Deal
years and World War II, is available
in paperback in bookstores and on line,
including through
Amazon.Com.
That Man, a Main Selection of the
Book of the Month Club and the
History Book Club and a Choice Outstanding Academic
title, was reviewed prominently in many publications,
including
The New York Times Book Review,
The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times,
The Wall Street Journal,
The Washington Monthly,
The New Republic and Legal Times, and the book is
regularly quoted and discussed in venues throughout the world
(e.g., in
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates's September 19th speech at
Oxford Analyica). Professor Barrett has discussed
That Man in major media and public venues throughout
the United States, including on
NPR's "All Things Considered".
Recent Activities: Professor
Barrett appears in the new documentary, "Legacy of War," which
currently is airing nationwide on PBS. On June 11,
Professor Barrett delivered, at the invitation of Attorney General
Eric Holder, a lecture in the Attorney General's conference room on
former AG Jackson and Nuremberg. On Inauguration Day, the New
York Times published Professor Barrett's letter on FDR, the New
Deal and Ronald Reagan--
click here. In December, Barrett delivered a lecture
on Nuremberg and Raphael Lemkin at a Genocide Convention 60th
anniversary conference in Marburg, Germany. At the 2d annual
International Humanitarian Law Dialog last August, Professor
Barrett moderated a panel of former Nuremberg prosecutors.
Last July, he introduced author Jeffrey Toobin, who
delivered Chautauqua Institution's 4th annual Robert H.
Jackson Lecture on the Supreme Court of the United States--
click here for streaming video. Professor Barrett also
delivered a July 4th lecture at Chautauqua Institution on
Justice Jackson and spoke at the Jackson Center's annual
Jackson Society summer meeting about Jackson and Thurgood Marshall
(born 1908). Barrett''s article, A Rehnquist Ode on
the Vinson Court (circa Summer
1953), published in Spring 2008 in The Green Bag 2d,
is available for downloading through the Social Science Research
Network (SSRN): click
here. In November 2008, Professor Barrett
helped to organize and participated as a panelist in the Presidential
Libraries/National Archives conference, "The Presidency &
the Supreme Court," at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential
Library--
click here for video and transcripts.
During 2005-2007, Professor
Barrett was a principal speaker at numerous conferences
commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trial,
including conferences in Nuremberg itself, at the Russian Academy
of Sciences in Moscow and, in the United States, at locations
including Harvard University and the Truman Presidential
Library. He appears in the film
Hitler's Courts: Betrayal of the Rule of Law in Nazi
Germany and in the PBS/WGBH American
Experience documentary, The Nuremberg Trials. His chapter
"One Good Man": The Jacksonian Shape of Nuremberg,
is in The
Nuremberg Trials: International Criminal Law Since 1945
(K.G. Saur, München, 2006), and his chapter Terry v.
Ohio: The Fourth Amendment Reasonableness of Police Stops and
Frisks Based on Less Than Probable Cause, appears in
Criminal Procedure Stories (Foundation Press
2006).
Before joining the St. John's faculty, Professor Barrett was
Counselor during 1994-1995 to U.S. Department of
Justice Inspector General Michael R. Bromwich. From
1988-1993, Barrett was Associate Counsel in the Office of
Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh (Iran/Contra). From
1986-1988, Barrett served as a law clerk to Judge A. Leon
Higginbotham, Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the
Third Circuit in Philadelphia.
In addition to teaching Constitutional Law
and Criminal Procedure, Professor
Barrett has taught legal history seminars
on American Judicial Biography, the Hughes and Stone
Courts (1930-46), and the Nuremberg Trial, Introduction
to Law & the Legal Profession, Professional
Responsibility, and White Collar Crime. Professor
Barrett also has taught Constitutional Law modules in St.
John's Summer Prep Program for College Students and a
course, "Nuremberg, International Human Rights &
Humanitarian Law," in Touro Law Center's summer
program at the
University of Potsdam Law School in Germany.
Professor Barrett speaks regularly on the Supreme
Court, Justice Jackson, Nuremberg, Franklin D. Roosevelt,
That Man and other legal and historical topics
in public venues and to community, campus, corporate and other
audiences and groups throughout the United States and abroad.
Professor Barrett also is a regular national media
commentator on legal and historical issues.
Professor Barrett is a member of the Supreme Court Historical
Society, serves on The Roosevelt
Institution advisory board, is a member New York City Bar Association
and its Legal History Committee, and is a supporter of The Parent-Child Home
Program and the National
Association for Urban Debate Leagues.
Last updated 6/19/2009.