Carissa Hessick

Evelyn Haydee Cruz

Professors Carissa Hessick and Evelyn Haydee Cruz, Director of the College of Law’s Immigration Law & Policy Clinic, recently were quoted in the East Valley Tribune on the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on SB 1070.

In the June 27 article by reporter Garin Groff, Hessick said the effect of the ruling remains to be seen.

“We’ve seen the legal battle over the abstract principle at stake and over the balance between the federal and state powers, but I don’t think we have a good sense over what SB 1070 will mean on the ground,” Hessick told the Tribune.

Cruz said she expects the battle to wage for years in court, and that many other provisions of the law may be challenged, and that police may face lawsuits over racial profiling.

“I really feel for the police departments because they’re caught in a hard place,” Cruz said.

Read the article here.

Hessick teaches Criminal Procedure, Criminal Law, and Federal Crimes. Her research focuses on aggravation and mitigation in criminal sentencing, the criminalization and punishment associated with child pornography, and other political and doctrinal issues associated with sentencing. She recently published an article in the California Law Review on the constitutionality of common sentencing factors. She has also published articles on whether military service and other good works ought to be treated as mitigating sentencing factors and on the severity of sentences associated with the possession of child pornography.

Cruz teaches Immigration Law and Comprehensive Law Practice, and she directs the College’s Immigration Law & Policy Clinic, which represents unaccompanied minors in immigration removal proceedings and received the 2007 President’s Medal for Social Embeddedness at ASU. Cruz writes articles about immigration law, clinical education and therapeutic jurisprudence, and has co-authored several immigration law manuals used by immigration practitioners and pro-se detainees at Immigration Detention Centers throughout the country.