Media
EXTRA MINUTES | EXTENDED INTERVIEW | Legal academic Emma Cunliffe.
Watch an extended interview with Legal academic Emma Cunliffe discussing Kathleen Folbigg's case.
Kathleen Folbigg: Australia's Worst Female Serial Killer
Australian Story, Australian Broadcasting Commission, October 30, 2018Television
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAcEQpGiV5w
Story considers the review application in respect of Australian mother Kathleen Folbigg's conviction for killing four children.
Extra Minutes: Interview with Legal Academic Emma Cunliffe
60 Minutes Australia, July 14, 2013Television
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCepNX-yDPA
Interview regarding the conviction of Australian mother Kathleen Folbigg for killing four children. Interview based on Emma Cunliffe, Murder, Medicine and Motherhood (2011).
Trinity Western's Misplaced Rights
Vancouver Sun, May 5, 2014Print
URL: https://www.pressreader.com/
Op-ed considers the Ontario and Nova Scotia Law Societies' decisions to deny accreditation to a law school proposed by Trinity Western University. The Op-ed traces the chilling effect of the covenant on the rights and freedoms of those who may wish to study at TWU but do not share TWU's beliefs about the immorality of same sex relationships. It recommends that TWU reconsider the compulsory covenant.
Too Many Indigenous Women are in Prison - but Sentencing Flexibility will Help
Maclean's Magazine, June 7, 2018Print
Op-ed considers the impact of mandatory minimum sentences on the rate of incarceration of Indigenous women in Canada, and argues that a Bill introduced by Senator Kim Pate will ameliorate the effect of those sentences but will not address other drivers of over-incarceration.
Let's Not Whitewash Racism in the Justice System
Edmonton Journal, October 24, 2018Print
Op-ed considers the case of R v Barton, regarding the death of Cindy Gladue. Op-ed was republished in numerous outlets across Canada.
A leak exposed a judge's bid for the Supreme Court. A legal expert says that's dangerous
A dated academic freedom statement permits hate speech on campus. How should it change?
How Islamic State’s destruction of ancient Palmyra played out on Arabic-language Twitter – new study
The Forensic Failures of the Stanley Trial
Policy Options, September 27, 2018Online
URL: http://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/september-2018/the-forensic-failures-of-the-stanley-trial/
Op-ed considers the inadequate police investigation in the death of Colten Boushie, and the impact of those inadequacies on the subsequent murder trial of Gerald Stanley.
Biography
Dr. Emma Cunliffe is an Associate Professor in the Allard School of Law. She studies how courts decide the facts of contested cases. She is particularly interested in expert evidence, the operation of implicit bias, and legal processes regarding interpersonal violence. She is a member of the evidence-based forensic initiative, which is based at the University of New South Wales (where she is a senior visiting fellow). With funding from SSHRC, Cunliffe is presently analyzing Canadian trials, inquests, and commissions of inquiry that engage with gendered violence, including violence against Indigenous people. In this project, she is investigating whether expert knowledge (such as forensic medicine and psychiatric testing) operates as a Trojan horse by which discriminatory knowledge and beliefs reinforce implicit and structural biases within the legal system. She is also studying examples of legal processes in which discriminatory beliefs are successfully countered.
Cunliffe's major work in progress is a monograph, Judging Experts. This book explores examples of judicial engagement with expert evidence to assess how effectively Canadian legal processes ensure that expert witnesses provide independent and reliable expert testimony. Her work is predicated on a careful analysis of trial transcripts and court records such as expert reports. She also compares experts’ work in legal cases against the research base of fields such as forensic pathology. She is regularly invited to speak to judges, experts, lawyers and government about the implications of her research.
Cunliffe supervises graduate students in the fields of evidence and the criminalization of women. She presently has little capacity to accept new graduate students, however if you are specifically interested in researching expert testimony in Canadian legal processes, please get in touch by email with a brief research proposal. At UBC, she teaches criminal law, evidence, jurisprudence and seminars in factual reasoning and research methodologies. She has won a UBC Killam Research Fellowship (2014), the Killam Award for Teaching Excellence (2010) and the George Curtis Memorial Award for Teaching (2010).