kronick headshot

Katie Kronick

Assistant Professor of Law, University of Baltimore
Chapter Member: Maryland-Washington, D.C. SSN
Areas of Expertise:

Connect with Katie

(410) 837-4717
Faculty Page

About Katie

Kronick’s scholarship derives from her experiences as a clinician and former public defender, focusing on criminal law and procedure, forensic science, post-conviction litigation, sentencing, and intellectual disability. Kronick’s research examines practical issues facing the criminal legal system through theoretical lenses that underpin the system. In addition to teaching constitutional criminal procedure, Kronick directs the University of Baltimore Criminal Defense and Advocacy Clinic.

Contributions | No Jargon Podcast | In the News | Publications

Contributions

We Would Vote for People With Felonies—Well, Not All of Them

Commentary,

In the News

Opinion: "The Criminal Legal System Is Failing People With Intellectual Disabilities," Katie Kronick, The Baltimore Sun, June 28, 2024.
Quoted by Rachel Konieczny in "MD Lawyers Seek to Use Landmark Supreme Court Gun Ruling to Overturn Firearms Convictions," The Daily Record, May 28, 2024.
Quoted by Dylan Segelbaum in "A Judge Questioned the Credibility of a Baltimore Police Detective. What Does That Mean for His Cases?," The Baltimore Banner, May 24, 2023.
Quoted by Nicholas Florko in "‘Worse Than What We Thought’: New Data Reveals Deeper Problems With the Bureau of Prisons’ COVID Response," STAT News, May 23, 2023.
Quoted by Alex Mann & Jessica Anderson in "Baltimore Police Cellphone Search Warrants on Hold, as Law Enforcement Agencies Seek to Adhere to Maryland High Court’s Consequential Ruling," The Baltimore Sun, September 2, 2022.

Publications

"Intellectual Disability, Mitigation and Punishment" Boston College Law Review 65, no. 5 (2024): 1561-1623.

Discusses how individuals with intellectual disabilities in the criminal legal system face objectively worse outcomes than others, including more wrongful convictions, longer detentions before trial, unfair plea deals, and harsher sentences. Examines the reasons for these inequitable and negative experiences, and proposes a categorical rule where intellectual disability is always considered mitigating in sentencing, advocating for courts to explicitly state how and why it affects the sentence.

"Left Behind, Again: Intellectual Disability and the Resentencing Movement" North Carolina Law Review 101, no. 4 (2023).

Examines the exclusion of individuals with intellectual disability from much of the current resentencing movement. Proposes legal and legislative strategies to ensure that individuals with intellectual disabilities are properly considered in resentencing initiatives.

"Forensic Science and the Judicial Conformity Problem" Seton Hall Law Review 51, no. 3 (2021).

Examines why judges in criminal matters continue to allow expert testimony on forensic science that has largely been discredited. Suggests that this continued admission is due, at least in part, to a desire to conform with other judges.