William J. Stuntz

1958 - 2011

Professor William J. Stuntz was one of the most influential legal scholars in recent American history, whose insights into the structural and moral failings of the American criminal justice system remain relevant, illuminating, and urgent today. Throughout his distinguished career, Professor Stuntz was deeply committed to unearthing and understanding the inequities perpetuated by the U.S. criminal justice system, especially as they affected marginalized communities, and advocating for a system that mirrored Christian ideals of justice. In both his scholarship and personal life, Professor Stuntz epitomized the values he championed, making him a figure of lasting inspiration within the legal community and beyond.

Born in 1958 in Washington, D.C., Professor Stuntz’s journey was marked by an early commitment to learning and a deep interest in the law. He attended the College of William & Mary as an undergraduate, majoring in English and History, and then proceeded to the University of Virginia School of Law, where he graduated first in his class in 1984. He subsequently completed clerkships for a federal district court judge in Pennsylvania as well as for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., which equipped him with valuable insights into the mechanics of the legal system and set the stage for his career as a legal scholar.

William Stuntz joined the University of Virginia School of Law as a professor in 1986, eventually moving to Harvard Law School (HLS) in 2000. At HLS, he served as the Vice-Dean for Intellectual Life and was the recipient of the 2004 Sacks-Freund Award for teaching. In 2007, he was appointed Henry J. Friendly Professor of Law by HLS Dean Elena Kagan. At both the University of Virginia School of Law and HLS, Professor Stuntz was broadly admired by his students and peers for his intelligence, humility, and dedication to justice. He was particularly known for his interdisciplinary approach, merging legal history with empirical research to identify and explore systemic biases in the U.S. criminal justice system. Professor Stuntz’s Christian faith was integral to his work, influencing his focus on the dignity of every person and the importance of grace and mercy as guiding principles in law.

Professor Stuntz’s magnum opus, The Collapse of American Criminal Justice, published posthumously in 2011, represents the culmination of his life’s work. In this landmark book, he argued that the U.S. criminal justice system had become overly punitive, leading to mass incarceration and widespread inequalities. He emphasized that the system disproportionately harmed the poor and racial minorities and reflected a departure from ideals of fairness and justice. He proposed a more compassionate, locally controlled system aligned with Christian principles of restorative justice, which would reflect the circumstances of the marginalized and recognize the potential for redemption and transformation.

Professor Stuntz’s final years were marked by chronic pain and a battle with cancer, yet he continued to write, teach, and mentor students. His resilience and unwavering commitment to his work demonstrated the depth of his Christian faith and his belief in the value of serving others through scholarship. Colleagues and students admired him not only for his intellectual contributions but also for his humility, kindness, and genuine care for those around him – a reflection of his Christian beliefs lived out in daily practice.

William J. Stuntz’s legacy continues to inspire many within the academic, legal, and criminal justice communities. His work serves as a reminder that law, at its best, should reflect justice tempered with mercy, a commitment to the vulnerable, and a respect for human dignity. His vision of a more compassionate and just system challenges those in law, politics, and society to pursue justice not as a means of retribution, but as a pathway toward healing and restoration. In both his life and his scholarship, Professor Stuntz embodied the belief that law is a tool for serving humanity and promoting the common good – an enduring message for generations to come.

“Remembering Bill”

A Reflection by Professor David Skeel

Read Now →

Reflections on Prof. Stuntz

“Bill was extraordinary; his wisdom and compassion touched our lives in so many ways, large and small. His gifts to society through his scholarship and teaching on criminal law and justice changed and improved academic inquiry and policies on the ground. His scholarship and teaching of Christian legal theory and of confronting life’s burdens inspire people in our community and well beyond it. He imbued his work and his life with a vision of mercy and compassion. The Harvard Law School, the larger community of scholars, and the communities connected through Bill’s writings are better, wiser, kinder because of Bill.”

Professor Martha Minow
University Professor & Former Dean, Harvard Law School

“When I was a law student at the University of Virginia, Bill Stuntz was a larger-than-life figure among students and faculty. For that reason, I was more than a little anxious to learn that he would be the editor of my Law Review Note. As it turns out, my anxiety was unnecessary. Bill was the perfect mentor. His insights and edits not only improved my Note by orders of magnitude, but he was kind and patient with me in a way that gave me confidence. I count working with Bill on that project among the best learning experiences of my life. Fortunately for me, that was the beginning of a decades-long friendship in which Bill tutored me about the law and, more importantly, about how a life in the law can be, and should be, a vocation in which the life of the mind and the life of the spirit work in tandem for the benefit of those on the margins of our society. Bill Stuntz’s life was a testament to that ideal and a worthy example for all who make the study and the practice of the law their life’s work.”

The Honorable Thomas Griffith, Retired
Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School

“Students—you should know that my dad adored teaching you, and that he spoke to us of your accomplishments as though they were more important than his own. His most treasured accolade was the teaching award he received from the students at Harvard, because it meant that you had enjoyed your time with him as much as he had enjoyed his time with you.”

Sarah Stuntz
Daughter of William J. Stuntz

“One of the things that’s striking about Bill was that he was in many ways a bundle of contradictions. . . He was really successful, and yet extraordinarily humble. He was more conservative than many on the faculty, and also more radical in his views. His contradictions didn’t cancel each other out; they added up to make him really what people mean when they say ‘a true original.’ He’s someone who, I think, is truly irreplaceable. There are a lot of wonderful people, but there really isn’t anyone like him.”

Professor Carol Steiker
Henry J. Friendly Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

“I had the privilege of co-authoring several articles and a blog with Bill. I say privilege, but it didn’t always feel that way. I felt somewhat like the composer Salieri must have felt in the wonderful movie ‘Amadeus’ when he was helping Mozart with one of his last compositions. . . I would keep up with him for a while, and sometimes even anticipate where the ideas were going; but then he would take the analysis to some new level, leaving me way behind. Bill could make connections that no one else saw, often demonstrating that the conventional wisdom has things exactly backwards.”

Professor David Skeel
S. Samuel Arsht Professor of Corporate Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School

“It’s 2006, and I’m in Professor Stuntz’s office... I didn’t know much about evangelical Christians, but I thought it was safe to assume that what made them different from other. Christians was the fact that they evangelized. . . So I sat across from Professor Stuntz and hesitantly broached the subject: ‘So you may have noticed. . . that I am not quite Christian. I just wanted to know. . . is that ok?’. . . Then Professor Stuntz leaned forward conspiratorially and whispered, ‘Can I tell you a secret? I’m so glad you’re different from me. If everybody thought the way I did, life would be so damn boring.”

Tejinder Singh
Harvard Law School Graduate 2008, Partner, Sparacino PLLC

“From when I first met Bill as a fellow student at the University of Virginia School of Law to the last time I visited him at Harvard, his core was unchanged, despite all of the difficult circumstances he battled. He was unfailingly kind, and conveyed that kindness in a wry smile, a warm chuckle, a gleam in his eyes, and an inquisitive mind. Of course he was inquisitive -- he was, after all, an academic. But what always struck me was how inquisitive he was about the person who sat in front of him. He cared deeply not just about ideas, but also about people, and it showed. He saw in each person the image of God, and his deep-seated faith compelled him to treat every moment as a holy one.”

David Leitch
Lecturer, University of Virginia School of Law

“Bill Stuntz was, to borrow a baseball analogy, the ultimate five-tool law professor: he was an inspiring teacher, a pathbreaking scholar, a fabulous colleague, an extraordinary institutional citizen, and an outstanding person.”

Professor Michael J. Klarman
Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History, Harvard Law School

“Ever since I met Bill in 1985—when I drafted dissents for Justice Marshall to the criminal majorities Bill drafted for Justice Powell—Bill was a towering intellectual presence, an academic colleague without peer, and a friend whose dry wit, sense of humor, and scorn at façades and pretense made my life (and I’ll bet the lives of so many others) more fun, rewarding, and just plain better.”

Professor David Richman
Paul J. Kellner Professor of Law, Columbia Law School

“When he refuted legal orthodoxies in his quest to return mercy to criminal justice, literally redefining the field, he was living his faith. On many of America’s leading legal thinkers his influence was more profound. He reaffirmed for them the alliance between faith and reason and, finally, between knowledge and goodness.”

Lincoln Caplan
Lecturer, Yale University

“Among his many gifts to us was the grace with which he lived his life. In knowing Bill, we couldn’t help but be reminded to live life as our better selves. Bill once wrote, ‘We understand that the world is not what it should be, and that our own capacities to understand it are severely limited.’ He described and lived his life in recognition of the need for humility and also for judgment and work to repair what we find around us.”

Professor Martha Minow
University Professor & Former Dean, Harvard Law School

Bill Stuntz was the most extraordinary member of our class. He not only had the highest grades by far, but was sensible, sensitive, and humble. His genuine humility seemed odd because he had a lot to be proud about. I can’t tell you the number of times I asked him a difficult question, he’d spend thirty or forty minutes discussing it with me, and then apologize for having taken up so much of my time. I understand that habit continued when he was a law professor. He proactively organized lunches and events, reaching out to others when we should have been reaching out to him. He was a devoted Christian, but didn’t wear his religion on his sleeve. He was willing to question his assumptions. After explaining how his religious tradition focused on grace to produce good works, he wondered out loud whether it wouldn’t have been more effective to focus on works to develop a full appreciation for grace. He suffered for years with chronic pain. But rather than pretend it didn’t exist or wallow in self-pity, he confronted it, tried to understand it and started writing a book so others could understand it. He never completed that book before his great life was cut short, and we are the worse for it. His wife Ruth had a lot to do with the person he was and became. I’m certain she hasn’t received as much credit as she deserves. I’m grateful Harvard Law School has seen fit to organize the Bill Stuntz Legacy Project. Bill’s penetrating thoughts about law and religion need to be preserved and studied, however imperfectly, through his collected works and conferences devoted to illuminating his insights.

Randy Guynn
‍UVa Law School, Class of 1984

Quotes About Stuntz

– Professor Martha Minow

— Professor Martha Minow

“One of the things that’s striking about Bill was that he was in many ways a bundle ofcontradictions. . . He was really successful, and yet extraordinarily humble. He was more conservative than many on the faculty, and also more radical in his views. His contradictions didn’t cancel each other out; they added up to make him really what people mean when they say ‘a true original.’ He’s someone who, I think, is truly irreplaceable. There are a lot of wonderful people, but there really isn’t anyone like him.’”

— Professor Carol Steiker

I had the privilege of co-authoring several articles and a blog with Bill. I say privilege, but it didn’t always feel that way. I felt somewhat like the composer Salieri must have felt in the wonderful movie ‘Amadeus’ when he was helping Mozart with one of his last compositions. . . I would keep up with him for a while, and sometimes even anticipate where the ideas were going; but then he would take the analysis to some new level, leaving me way behind. Bill could make connections that no one else saw, often demonstrating that the conventional wisdom has things exactly backwards.

— Professor David Skeel

It’s 2006, and I’m in Professor Stuntz’s office. . . I didn’t know much about evangelical Christians, but I thought it was safe to assume that what made them different from other Christians was the fact that they evangelized. . . So I sat across from Professor Stuntz and hesitantly broached the subject: ‘So you may have noticed. . . that I am not quite Christian. I just wanted to know. . . is that ok?’ Then Professor Stuntz leaned forward conspiratorially and whispered, ‘Can I tell you a secret? I’m so glad you’re different from me. If everybody thought the way I did, life would be so damn boring.

— Tejinder Singh

— Professor Michael J. Klarman

Bill Stuntz was, to borrow a baseball analogy, the ultimate five-tool law professor: he was an inspiring teacher, a pathbreaking scholar, a fabulous colleague, an extraordinary institutional citizen, and an outstanding person.

— Professor Michael J. Klarman

Ever since I met Bill in 1985—when I drafted dissents for Justice Marshall to the criminal majorities Bill drafted for Justice Powell—Bill was a towering intellectual presence, an academic colleague without peer, and a friend whose dry wit, sense of humor, and scorn at façades and pretense made my life (and I’ll bet the lives of so many others) more fun, rewarding, and just plain better.

— Professor David Richman

When he refuted legal orthodoxies in his quest to return mercy to criminal justice, literally redefining the field, he was living his faith. On many of America’s leading legal thinkers his influence was more profound. He reaffirmed for them the alliance between faith and reason and, finally, between knowledge and goodness.

— Lincoln Caplan

Students—you should know that my dad adored teaching you, and that he spoke to us of your accomplishments as though they were more important than his own. His most treasured accolade was the teaching award he received from the students at Harvard, because it meant that you had enjoyed your time with him as much as he had enjoyed his time with you.”

— Sarah Stuntz

William J. Stuntz

“Remembering Bill”

Reflections on Prof. Stuntz

Professor William J. Stuntz Legacy Project

Continuing the Legacy of Justice and Faith