Gary T. Marx  |  Back to Main Page

As an old retired guy enjoying life in the far northwest corner of the US, I had planned on maintaining my lengthy track record of missing yet another Society for the Study of Social Problems annual meeting. However, when Glenn Muschert invited me here I jumped at the chance to express the high regard and deep emotion I feel for Richard Leo. I say this in spite of the fact that when I received an award several years ago, Richard chose not to come and speak. Why wasn't Richard there? — He had to stay home to take care of the kids so his wife could deliver a paper!

Richard is the poster boy for the C. Wright Mills progeny of today — for the independent social scientist dedicated to his craft, reason and social justice. The Richard I first met in Berkeley in 1992 was pale, thin, humble, somewhat self-effacing, be speckled, soft spoken and always asked first what others thought. Only later with reticence would he tell you what he thought. He favored herb tea and white wine, didn't drink coffee, nor like hard liquor and like Joseph Conrad, did not even have English as his first language (he was born in Tuscany — leaving there was one of only a few bad career choices he made!). Who could have known that such an individual would become an intellectual and moral super-person of expanded physical girth, cognitive profundity, a distinguished law school professor, proud bearer of the University of Chicago and Berkeley schools of sociology and a connoisseur of red wine to boot? --A man for all seasons and all reasons!

Richard is a person with an activist's zeal, a southern Italian's passion, and a business person's entrepreneurial energy and vision. I won't speak of his substantive contributions other than to quote from a recommendation letter written by my former student Barry Feld, Univ. of Minn. Law School Professor. His letter is the stuff that academic dreams of passing it on are made of — as those whose lives we touch as teachers, then touch the lives of their colleagues and students in an endless chain.

[T]he Court in Miranda v. Arizona (1966) decried the paucity of empirical research on how police interrogate criminal suspects. After the Yale-New Haven study conducted in 1967, Professor Leo was the next scholar empirically to examine what actually happens when police interrogate offenders. His trilogy of articles in 1996... revealed the inner-workings of the interrogation process, the techniques police use to negotiate a Miranda waiver, and the implications of police practices for policy and law reform. It is very rare that a single criminologist or legal scholar defines and completely dominates any field of law, especially one as central to criminal justice administration as interrogation, false confessions, and wrongful convictions. However, over the past fifteen years Professor Leo has established himself as the leading scholar in the nation, if not the world, across all these domains. Those of us who have taught criminal procedure for several decades generally regard Professor Yale Kamisar, Univ. of Michigan Law School, as the leading Fifth Amendment scholar of his generation. Professor Leo already has established himself as Kamisar's successor for the next generation, except that his work is more important, empirically grounded, policy-oriented, and broad gauged. In the decade and a half since his seminal trio of articles, Professor Leo has published two dozen groundbreaking articles, co-authored an additional two dozen important pieces, and authored or co-authored or edited six books.