Law

"Read It While You Can: Challenging the New Censorship and Celebrating Free Speech" will be the first program in the Celebration of the Book series, a new initiative of the University at Buffalo's Humanities Institute exploring the richness of Buffalo's thriving community of independent writers and small presses.

When trying to lie your way through any situation, keep a tight rein on your zygo maticus major and your orbicularis oculi. They'll give you away faster than a snitch. So says a University at Buffalo social psychologist, whose revolutionary research on human facial expressions in situations of high stakes deception debunks myths that have permeated police and security training for decades.

The risk of violence is a reality for most social workers in practice today, says a nationally regarded social work educator who will present a workshop sponsored by the University at Buffalo School of Social Work titled "Risk Assessment, Violent Clients and Practitioner Safety" on May 12 in the Holiday Inn Amherst.

Five graduates of the University at Buffalo Law School will receive Distinguished Alumni Awards for their valuable contributions to the legal profession and community at the 44th annual UB Law Alumni Association meeting and dinner to be held at 6 p.m. May 10 in the Hyatt Regency Buffalo.

University a Buffalo Law School alumni Denise E. O'Donnell, a partner in the Buffalo-based law firm Hodgson Russ LLP, and Robert C. Schwenkel, a partner in the New York City-based law firm Fried Frank Harris Shriver and Jacobson, will be honored at the 17th annual Buffalo Law Review dinner on April 27 in The Buffalo Club.

With the recent debates and protests over U.S. immigration policy as a backdrop, the University at Buffalo Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy on April 28 and 29 will present a conference "Merging Immigration and Crime Control," featuring commentary and analysis from leading international experts on the social and economic impact of immigration.

The growing prevalence of detention as a policy within the U.S. immigration system is strikingly similar to policies of criminal sanctions and mass incarceration used to fight the "war on drugs" in the 1980s, according to University at Buffalo Law School Professor Teresa A. Miller, who studies the U.S. prison system and teaches immigration law.

Lawyers involved in four highly publicized death-row cases, including the clemency plea of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, will participate in a panel discussion on "Executive Clemency in Capital Cases," organized by the Capital Advocacy Project in the University at Buffalo Law School.

Buffalo is fast becoming a center for research, education and new practices in cybersecurity and computer forensics, according to the hosts of a workshop on these topics to be held March 31 in the Center for Tomorrow on the University at Buffalo North (Amherst) Campus.

In the quiet of his office in the University at Buffalo Law School, Makau Mutua contemplates his role in exposing an elaborate scheme of government fraud in his native Kenya, where high-ranking officials have resigned in recent weeks, rocking the country's ruling government headed by President Mwai Kibaki.