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Making a murderer

from left to right: Jerry Buting, Kirsty Brimelow QC and Prof Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos

Defense attorney Jerry Buting from cult Netflix series ‘Making a Murderer’ took part in a live Q&A event with our Head of Law, Prof Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos, and Visiting Professor Kirsty Brimelow QC

The popular Netflix series has made a huge impact on television audiences worldwide, igniting political debate and bringing the US criminal justice system to the forefront of conversation across an enormous and varied spectrum of viewers. It has rapidly become one of the most important TV series of our time.

Jerry ButingIn what proved a very thought-provoking event, that was brought to Goldsmiths by the Student Union with the support of our department of Law, conversation focused on analysis of the Steven Avery case; the systematic failures of the American criminal justice system that it has brought to the surface; comparisons with miscarriages of justice and suspects’ rights in the UK criminal justice system.

Professor Giannoulopoulos, whose cross-cultural research centres on defendants’ rights, and whose recent monograph explored in detail judicial remedies for violations of suspects’ rights at the police station, moderated the discussion.

Spotlight on our team: Dr Alex Dymock

We are always delighted to showcase the research of our academics in this blog. This time, the spotlight is on Dr Alex Dymock’s recent work.

Alex’s work is primarily concerned with gender, sexuality and crime and her latest publication is a chapter on defending pornography in the criminal courts for the Research Handbook in Gender, Sexuality and Law. The Handbook explores current debates in the area of gender, sexuality and the law, and points the way for future socio-legal research and scholarship.

Book: Gender, sexuality and the Law

Alex has also been busy disseminating findings from her project, Pharmacosexuality: the Past, Present and Future of Sex on Drugs, at conferences as far afield as San Francisco, USA and Johannesburg in South Africa.

She has also been invited to present her work at Public Health England, and been interviewed for the second season of the Drug Science podcast, which regularly attracts a global audience of over 250,000 listeners (her episode on sex and drugs will be part of season 2, released April 2020).

She was also recently invited to attend the first national conference on chemsex and criminal justice hosted by the Metropolitan Police.