CCJ Directory

Davis is an expert in criminal law and procedure with a specific focus on prosecutorial power and racism in the criminal justice system. She previously served as director of the D.C. Public Defender Service, where she began as a staff attorney representing indigent juveniles and adults. Davis also served as executive director of the National Rainbow Coalition and is a former law clerk of the Honorable Theodore R. Newman, the former Chief Judge of the D.C. Court of Appeals.

Davis is the author of Arbitrary Justice: The Power of the American Prosecutor (Oxford University Press 2007). She is the editor of Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution and Imprisonment (Penguin Random House 2017), and co-editor of multiple publications, including Criminal Law (Sage Publications 2015) and Trial Stories (Foundation Press 2007). Davis’ other scholarly publications include articles in the Michigan, Iowa, Fordham, and Hofstra Law Reviews. Davis won the Pauline Ruyle Moore award for Arbitrary Justice: The Power of the American Prosecutor in 2009, and for her Fordham Law Review article, Prosecution and Race: The Power and Privilege of Discretion, in 2000.

Other honors include the D.C. Bar Thurgood Marshall Award in 2018, the ABA Raeder-Taslitz Award in 2016, the American University Scholar/Teacher of the Year Award in 2015, the American University Faculty Award for Outstanding Scholarship, Research, Creative Activity, and Other Professional Contributions in 2009, and the American University Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching in a Full-Time Appointment in 2002. She also was awarded a Soros Senior Justice Fellowship in 2003.

Davis is a member of the American Law Institute, the Board of Trustees of the Frederick Douglas Jordan Scholarship Board, and the Board of Directors of the Sentencing Project. She was a reporter for the ABA Justice Kennedy Commission and a member of the ABA Commission for Effective Criminal Sanctions. Davis also served as a member of the Advisory Board for the Vera Institute of Justice Prosecution and Racial Justice Program. She teaches Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Criminal Justice Ethics:  Prosecution and Defense, and Criminal Defense: Theory and Practice.