Southwestern Commentator

March 2008

On January 25th, students, faculty, and many distinguished guests gathered in the Bullocks Wilshire building to take part in a symposium entitled “Abandoning the Inquisitor: Latin America’s Criminal Procedure Revolution.” The symposium was organized by SW’s Journal of Law and Trade in the Americas (Law Journal), and focused on the changing criminal procedure process in Latin America.

For many years the criminal procedure process in Latin America gave tremendous power to judges. Much of the process was kept secret -- decisions were based largely on written documents by court officials, and lawyers were mostly kept out of the loop. Since 1991, however, 14 Latin American countries have begun to reform their criminal procedure systems by incorporating oral trials, like we have in the United States, and giving lawyers more control within the process.

The criminal procedure “revolution” in Latin America is a hot topic in the legal arena, which is why Law Journal decided to conduct this symposium. “The topic directly relates to Law Journal’s international focus, and is extremely relevant to the Latin American legal community,” said 3L Alexis Amber, Managing Editor for Law Journal.

Not only is the topic relevant to the Latin American legal community, but also to Law Journal as a publication focused on legal issues in the Americas.  “As a journal, we try to publish quality work, and this is an important topic in our sphere of interest,” said SW Professor Jonathan Miller.  Professor Miller serves as a faculty advisor to Law Journal and was also a commentator at the symposium, which he helped organize.

Part of the purpose of the symposium was to get participants from countries further along in the reform process, such as Chile and Colombia, to interact with participants in countries just starting to reform, like Mexico. “The most important thing is the opportunity for key Mexican legal actors to exchange opinions and hear opinions from other countries about criminal procedure reform,” said Professor Miller.

Professor Miller was also pleased about the event’s “spectacular turnout.” Besides SW students and faculty, the attendees included judges, professors, and prosecutors from around the U.S. and several Latin American countries. Among other reasons, Professor Miller suggests that turnout was so great because many of the attendees are involved in reform projects in Latin America themselves, so the topic is even more relevant to them.

Amber points out that perhaps the biggest message of the symposium was that reform is a good thing, but it is nowhere near complete.  “Change needs to happen, and while the reform going on now is a good first step, it’s definitely not the last step.”

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