About

Gabriel "Jack" Chin is the Edward L. Barrett Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of Clinical Legal Education at UC Davis School of Law. He is a teacher and scholar specializing in Immigration Law, Criminal Procedure, and Race and Law. His scholarship has been published in prominent law reviews including Penn, UCLA, Cornell, Harvard, Yale, Duke, and Georgetown. The U.S. Supreme Court has cited his work on collateral consequences of criminal convictions in cases such as Chaidez v. United States and Padilla v. Kentucky, with the Court recognizing his Cornell Law Review article as "the principal scholarly article on the subject." Justice Sotomayor also cited his Penn Law Review article in her dissent in Utah v. Strieff. Professor Chin teaches courses in Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, and Immigration, and works closely with students on professional projects. His efforts include successful campaigns to repeal Jim Crow laws still on the books and anti-Asian alien land laws in several states. He earned a B.A. from Wesleyan, a J.D. from Michigan, and an LL.M. from Yale. His professional background includes clerking for U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch, practicing at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and The Legal Aid Society of New York, and teaching at Arizona, Cincinnati, NYU, and Western New England law schools before joining UC Davis. His service includes acting as Reporter for the Uniform Collateral Consequences of Conviction Act and the ABA Standards for Criminal Justice: Collateral Sanctions and Discretionary Disqualification of Convicted Persons. He is a founding board member of the Collateral Consequences Resource Center and a member of the American Law Institute. Notable projects include successfully obtaining posthumous admission to the California Bar for Hong Yen Chang, the first Chinese American lawyer in the U.S., and researching discriminatory efforts against Chinese restaurants in the U.S., which was published in the Duke Law Journal and discussed widely in the media.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Law
• Sociology
• Gender studies
• Public administration

Selected publications

• Trump found guilty: 5 key aspects of the trial explained by a law professor

  2024-05-30 · 1 citations

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• Trump reconnu coupable : cinq aspects clés du procès expliqués par un professeur de droit

  2024-05-31

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• The New CJA Form 24: Protecting Indigent Criminal Appellants' Rights

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

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  Beginning in the 1950s, the Supreme Court held in a series of cases that indigent defendants and appellants were entitled to appointed counsel and provision of necessary transcripts without charge. Nevertheless, as we wrote in an earlier paper (Gabriel J. Chin & Hannah Bogen, Warren Court Incrementalism and Indigent Criminal Appellants' Right to Trial Transcripts, 51 U. PAC. L. REV 667 (2020) the federal judicial system required special permission for an indigent appellant to obtain certain parts of a trial transcript in a direct criminal appeal. As a result, indigent appellants might not, as of right, have the opportunity to review all parts of a trial where reversible error might be found. We contended that this was contrary to the rights of defendants and the duties of counsel as set forth by the Supreme Court and other courts. In this postscript, we explain how we petitioned the Judicial Conference of the United States to change its policy, and they did so in March, 2024. Now, the policy for transcript access matches the constitutional law set out by the Supreme Court.

  PublisherDOI

• Qué le espera a Donald Trump tras ser declarado culpable de 34 delitos

  2024-05-31

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• Race and Citizenship in U.S. Law

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
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• Still a Nation of White Immigrants? Notes on the Present Debate

  Public Affairs Quarterly · 2023-07-01

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  Abstract Recent years have generated an unprecedented popular decision about US racial identity. Before this, popular sentiment and legal policy clearly and congruently promoted immigration of white noncitizens, while severely restricting others. Until the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965, the US law reflected Justice Grier's statement in Smith v. Turner, 48 U.S. 283, 461 (1849): “It is the cherished policy of the general government to encourage and invite Christian foreigners of our own race to seek an asylum within our borders, and to . . . add to the wealth, population, and power of the nation.” However, the 1965 reform and its successors diversified the immigrant stream and the nation, and current polls indicate that the majority of the US population now supports a generous and non-discriminatory immigration policy.

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• What is a target letter? 3 things to know about how the Justice Department notifies suspects, like Donald Trump, ahead of possible charges

  2023-07-18

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• Trump’s trial will soon be underway in Florida – here’s why prosecutors had little choice in selecting any other courthouse location

  2023-06-21

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• Commentary, <i>Padilla v. Kentucky</i>, 559 U.S. 356 (2010)

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2023-10-18

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  This volume, part of the Feminist Judgment Series, shows how feminist legal theory along with critical race theory and intersectional modes of critique might transform immigration law. Here, a diverse collection of scholars and lawyers bring critical feminist, race and intersectional insights to Supreme Court opinions that deal with the source of the power to regulate immigration, state and local regulation of immigration, citizenship law, racial discrimination, employment law, access to public education, the rights of criminal defendants, the detention of noncitizens, and more. Feminist reasoning values the perspectives of outsiders, exposes the deep-rooted bias in the legal opinions of courts, and illuminates the effects of ostensibly neutral policies that create and maintain oppression and hierarchy. One by one, the chapters in this book reimagine the norms that drive immigration policies and practices. In place of discrimination and subordination, the authors here demand welcome and equality. Where current law omits the voice and stories of noncitizens, the authors here center their lives and experiences. Collectively, they reveal how a feminist vision of immigration law could center a commitment to equality and justice and foster a country where diverse newcomers readily flourish with dignity.

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• La imputación más grave de Trump hasta la fecha: ‘deshonestidad, fraude y engaño’ para aferrarse al poder

  2023-08-02

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Frequent coauthors

• Lea S. VanderVelde

  University of Iowa

  8 shared

• Rose Cuison Villazor

  Rutgers Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

  5 shared

• Leticia M. Saucedo

  4 shared

• Giovanni Peri

  4 shared

• Atticus Lee

  4 shared

• Jeannette Money

  University of California, Davis

  4 shared

• Kevin R. Johnson

  Texas Tech University

  4 shared

• Valerie Francisco

  4 shared

Education

• LL.M.

  Yale University Yale Law School

  1995

• J.D., School of Law

  University of Michigan

  1988

• B.A., History

  Wesleyan University

  1985

Awards & honors

• A Magazine named him one of the “25 Most Notable Asians in A…