The John E. Sullivan Lecture

46th Annual John E. Sullivan Lecture

Thursday, March 12, 2026 - 4 p.m. - Columbus Museum of Art

Pleading the Fifth in the Supreme Court

Tracey Maclin

Raymond & Miriam Ehrlich Chair in U.S. Constitutional Law
University of Florida Levin College of Law

Historically, the Supreme Court has used grandiose rhetoric to describe the importance of the Fifth Amendment’s Self-Incrimination Clause in our legal system. However, over the years and in most of its cases, the praise has proven to be hollow. The admiration professed for the Fifth is merely window dressing for the public. After all, although the Court has described the Fifth as an essential and fundamental freedom since the late nineteenth century, it did not enforce the amendment against state officials until 1964. Today, we enjoy less protection under the Fifth than we did “under the common law of the eighteenth century or the Court’s own decisions of the nineteenth.”

As with most institutions, in the Court, actions speak louder than words. What matters is not what the Justices say, but what they do. And what the Court has done for the last one hundred and twenty-five years is not just to narrowly interpret, but at times to eliminate, the protection provided by the Fifth. In certain contexts, the Fifth is not a second-class right, but no right at all. Like the eminent Evidence scholar John Henry Wigmore, who openly disdained the amendment, the Court’s view of the Fifth is driven by antipathy toward the provision. And as Wigmore recommended, the Court frequently interprets the Fifth “within limits the strictest possible.” But Professor Donald Dripps, also no fan of the Fifth, was dead-on when he remarked the Justices have “no commission to restrict” the scope of the Fifth Amendment because they “think it is a mistake.” Of course, the Justices would never admit this is what they are doing, but the results speak for themselves. This Lecture details the Court’s actions.

The Lecture will feature commentary from

Alan C. Michaels
Dean Emeritus and Edwin M. Cooperman Chair in Law
The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law

Andrew D. Leipold
Edwin M. Adams Professor of Law
Director, Program in Criminal Law and Procedure
University of Illinois College of Law

Commentary and Q&A moderated by

The Honorable Elizabeth A. Preston Deavers
Magistrate Judge
United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio

This course is approved by the Supreme Court of Ohio Commission on Continuing Legal Education for 2.00 total CLE hours.

History

Lecture History

The John E. Sullivan Lecture was established in honor of Professor Emeritus John Edward Sullivan, a dedicated teacher and scholar who was appointed to the Law School faculty in 1953 and who also served as acting dean and academic dean during his tenure. The Sullivan Lecture is presented each academic year by a distinguished legal scholar who addresses a matter of significance to the Law School and to the greater legal community.

The Sullivan Lecture Series is made possible through an endowment established by Herbert and Margith Kunmann, friends and benefactors of Capital University Law School. Their son, Edmond J. Kunmann, is a 1985 graduate of Capital Law School.

The endowed lecture has attracted some of the nation’s leading legal scholars and practitioners, including Erwin Chemerinsky, Robert M. Cover, Lee C. Bollinger, Owen M. Fiss, Paul Carrington, Eleanor Holmes Norton, The Hon. Louis H. Pollak, Elizabeth Bartholet, G. Edward White, and Randy Barnett.

Past Lecturers

2025 - Richard H. Pildes, Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law, New York University School of Law
2023 - Robert J. Cottrol, Harold Paul Green Research Professor of Law, The George Washington University Law School
2022 - Nadine Strossen, John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law, Emerita, New York Law School
2021 - Donald F. McGahn II, Practice Leader Government Regulation, Jones Day & Former White House Counsel
2019 - Hugh Collins, Vinerian Professor of English Law, Emeritus, University of Oxford Faculty of Law
2018 - Emily Bazelon, Staff Writer at The New York Times Magazine and Truman Capote Fellow for Creative Writing and Law at Yale Law School
2017 - William N. Eskridge, Jr., John A. Garver Professor of Jurisprudence, Yale Law School
2016 - William P. Marshall, William Rand Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law, University of North Carolina School of Law
2015 - Dorothy Roberts, George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology and the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights, University of Pennsylvania Law School
2014 - David Cole, The Hon. George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy, Georgetown University Law Center
2013 - The Honorable Jeffrey S. Sutton, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
2013 - The Honorable Alex Kozinski, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
2011 - Richard A. Epstein, James Parker Hall Distinguished Professor, Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School and Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at the New York University
2010 - Margaret Jane Radin, Henry King Ransom Professor of Law at the University of Michigan
2009 - Vincent A. Blasi, Corliss Lamont Professor of Civil Liberties at Columbia Law School and the James Madison Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia
2008 - Akhil Reed Amar, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University
2007 - Gerald Torres, Bryant Smith Chair, University of Texas at Austin School of Law
2006 - Randy Barnett, Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Legal Theory, Georgetown University Law Center
2005 - Erwin Chemerinsky, Alston & Bird Professor of Law, Duke University
2004 - Barbara Bennett-Woodhouse, Director for the Center on Children and Families and the David H. Levin Chair in Family Law, University of Florida Levin College of Law
2003 - Thomas D. Morgan, Oppenheim Professor of Antitrust and Trade Regulation Law, The George Washington University Law School
2002 - The Honorable Diane P. Wood, Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
2001 - Michael H. Shapiro, Dorothy W. Nelson Professor of Law, University of Southern California Law School
2000 - Paul Carrington, Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law
1999 - Richard B. Stewart, Emily Kempin Professor of Law, New York University School of Law
1998 - Elizabeth Bartholet, Morris Wasserstein Public Interest Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
1997 - Julius L. Chambers, Chancellor, North Carolina Central University
1996 - Jesse H. Choper, Earl Warren Professor of Public Law, University of California at Berkeley School of Law
1995 - The Honorable Louis H. Pollak, Senior Judge, United States District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania
1994 - Owen M. Fiss, Sterling Professor of Law, Yale Law School
1993 - The Honorable Nathanial R. Jones, Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
1992 - The Honorable Edward R. Becker, Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
1991 - Robert M. O'Neil, Director, Thomas Jefferson Center for Free Expression and Professor University of Virginia School of Law
1990 - Michael J. Perry, Howard J. Trienens Chair in Law, Northwestern University School of Law
1989 - Eleanor Holmes Norton, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
1988 - Lee C. Bollinger, Professor of Law, University of Michigan
1987 - G. Edward White, John Barbee Minor Professor of Law and History, University of Virginia School of Law
1986 - Willard H. Pedrick, Professor of Law Emeritus, Arizona State University
1985 - The Rev. Peter Newman Brooks, Professor, Cambridge University
1984 - Robert M. Cover, Professor of Law, Yale Law School
1983 - John W. Wade, Dean and Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Vanderbilt University School of Law
1982 - Thomas L. Shaffer, Professor of Law, Washington and Lee University School of Law
1981 - The Honorable Ruggero J. Aldisert, Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
1980 - Robert B. McKay, Director, Program on Justice, Society and the Individual for the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies
1979 - William Stringfellow, Theologian and Attorney