Team’s report in October, 2007, noting significant “geographic and racial inconsistencies” in the application of the death penalty throughout the Commonwealth. The Philadelphia Bar Association commended Poulin’s leadership and the team’s work, noting that the report was “comprehensive and well informed.”
The ABA Task Force Report represents only the most recent of Professor Poulin’s contributions. She and co-author VLS Professor Leonard Packel literally wrote the book on Pennsylvania evidence. The first edition of their treatise on evidence was the only comprehensive compilation of Pennsylvania's common law of evidence, and provided a conceptual framework for the eventual codification. Subsequent editions of Packel and Poulin on Evidence grace the shelves and benches of judges and trial lawyers throughout the state - it is considered the source. The Third Circuit tapped her to serve as Co-Reporter for the Committee on Model Criminal Jury Instructions. The Committee has completed a substantial amount of its work and hopes to finish the project this year.
Professor Poulin is not the only faculty member whose scholarly work has influenced the law nationally and internationally. For example, Professor Steve Chanenson testified before the United States Sentencing Commission, advocating that the Commission apply amendments of its guidelines for crack cocaine retroactively. Later that week the Commission did vote to amend the guidelines as Chanenson recommended. Professor Dveera Segal led a committee that presented a proposal to the the Pennsylvania Bar Association endorsing a plan to provide representation for civil litigants, called the civil Gideon proposal.This Fall the PBA House of Delegates overwhelmingly approved the proposal. Professor John Murphy’s work on international terrorism and on the rule of law internationally has illuminated the challenging issues presented by an increasingly globalized world. Professor Michele Pistone’s work on asylum and refugees won her a Fulbright to create an asylum clinic in Malta and to assist that country as it developed a comprehensive asylum law. And Professor Joseph Dellapenna’s expertise in water law and the relevant science has led to his being invited to serve as Rapporteur of the Berlin Rules on Water Resources of the International Law Association. He has served as Director of the Model Water Code Project of the American Society of Civil Engineers, where he led in the drafting of two model water codes and three model interstate water compacts. He has filed amicus briefs in water controversies throughout the nation and he has been cited in some two dozen cases. The Connecticut Supreme Court recently adopted Dellapenna’s innovative concept of a regulated riparianism as the correct understanding of water law in that state.
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