Release date: Feb. 27, 2008

Memorial Service Celebrates Law Professor Melvin Gutterman's Life, Works

Contact: Tim Hussey, 404-712-8404, tim.hussey@emory.edu
Contact: Elaine Justice, 404-727-0643 or elaine.justice@emory.edu

Emory University School of Law will host a memorial service to celebrate the life and work of Professor Melvin Gutterman, Sunday, March 2, at 2:30 p.m., in the school’s Tull Auditorium.

Gutterman, a law professor whose legal scholarship spanned more than four decades, died Jan. 28, 2008. He was 70. His career ranged from serving as the chief of staff of then Governor Jimmy Carter’s Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals to developing innovative courses using the latest technology.

Emory Law professors Nat Gozansky, Frank Vandall and Morgan Cloud are scheduled to give remarks at the memorial service, along with Gutterman’s wife, children and former students.

Gutterman joined the faculty of Emory Law in 1969, after teaching at Michigan State University and Pennsylvania State University. He taught thousands of students in his nearly 40 years at Emory, and his dedication to teaching was widely appreciated by his students. Gutterman was a two-time recipient of Emory Law’s Most Outstanding Professor Award, chosen by the graduating class each year, and in 1995, he received the Ben F. Johnson Excellence in Teaching Award, a tribute for his contribution to teaching and overall service to Emory Law.

“He will always be remembered as one of the greatest teachers at Emory Law,” Dean David Partlett said.

The professor’s course offerings focused on criminal law jurisprudence and prisoners’ rights. The issue of prisoner’s rights became a lifelong concern and a focus for his research and scholarship, which included a sabbatical in France and a trip to Germany to learn about and lecture on the subject. Gutterman believed he could make a real contribution to an issue studied by very few scholars at the time.

In the late 1990s, Gutterman developed an interdisciplinary course on criminal justice and film. Realizing that legal theory failed to recognize the images of law depicted in movies as a legitimate and important subject for academic review, he urged the introduction of a course that would give a new perspective.

Emory University (www.emory.edu) is one of the nation’s leading private research universities and a member of the Association of American Universities. Known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate college of arts and sciences, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art research facilities, Emory is ranked as one of the country's top 20 national universities by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to its nine schools, the university encompasses The Carter Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, the state's largest and most comprehensive health care system.

Subscribe to News@Emory RSS feeds for automatic updates of the latest news at Emory.

Back