James Acker

Distinguished Teaching Professor
School of Criminal Justice
Department: Criminal Justice

Expertise:
The death penalty; history of capital punishment in the United States and New York

Campus phone: (518) 442-5317
Campus email: [email protected]

Biography:

James R. Acker has extensive scholarship in areas of death penalty law and the judicial uses of social science research, one of the most bitterly disputed issues facing legislators and appellate courts across the U.S.

He has co-authored a series of articles examining capital punishment legislation, which appeared in the Criminal Law Bulletin, and co-authored, with Robert M. Bohm and Charles S. Lanier, America's Experiment With Capital Punishment (Carolina Academic Press, 1998).

Acker, a Distinguished Teaching Professor in UAlbany's School of Criminal Justice, helped establish in 2005 the National Death Penalty Archive (NDPA), a national repository of archival material devoted solely to the death penalty. It is located at the University's M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives.