Carissa Byrne Hessick teaches Criminal Procedure, Criminal Law, and a seminar on sentencing law and policy. Her research focuses on aggravation and mitigation in criminal sentencing, relative crime severity, and other political and doctrinal issues associated with sentencing. She recently published an article in the Boston University Law Review on aggravating and mitigating sentencing factors, as well as an article in the Alabama Law Review on appellate standards of review for federal sentencing decisions. She currently is working on a manuscript about the prosecution and punishment for those who possess child pornography.

Professor Hessick joined the College faculty in 2007 after spending two years teaching at Harvard Law School as a Climenko Fellow. She served as a law clerk for Judge A. Raymond Randolph on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Judge Barbara S. Jones on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Professor Hessick also worked as a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. In law school, she was an editor on the Yale Law Journal, and won the Potter Stewart Prize for best team performance in the Yale Law School moot court competition.