Nathan Goetting, MA, JD
Director, George Romney Institute for Law and Public Policy
Department Chair, Sociology and Criminal Justice
Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice and Jurisprudence
ngoetting@adrian.edu
Jones 209, 517-264-3261

Education
Juris Doctor (Constitutional Law & Civil Rights Concentration),
Thomas M. Cooley Law School
Master of Arts, Philosophy
Western Michigan University

Experience
Professor Goetting taught philosophy at Grand Valley State University from 2003-2008 while earning his law degree from Thomas M. Cooley Law School with a Concentration in Constitutional Law & Civil Rights.  While in law school he completed (and eventually published) a directed study (supervised by Prof. Philip J. Prygoski) on the First Amendment jurisprudence of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes titled “A Fate Too Horrible to Contemplate: Justice Holmes and the Perpetual Conviction of Eugene Victor Debs.”

Prof. Goetting's experience with government, law and public policy is not limited to the classroom. While in his last year of law school he worked as an intern in The Innocence Project, whose purpose is to apply the latest DNA testing to evidence that may exonerate wrongfully incarcerated inmates in Michigan prisons. In this program he worked on eight rape and/or murder cases of the most involved and sophisticated kind, studying police and medical reports, drafting legal documents, visiting incarcerated clients, and otherwise immersing himself in the details of this charged political and social justice issue. More than just working to set innocent prisoners free, this experience allowed him to consider up close how, even in an enlightened system of justice like our own, people can sometimes be convicted of crimes they have not committed.

Prof. Goetting has also worked as a teacher inside the Michigan Corrections System. While a part of The Community Working Classics program at the Muskegon Correctional Facility he and a group of professors of various disciplines from Grand Valley State University introduced a new model of prison reform that sought to reduce criminal recidivism by bringing a classical liberal arts education to inmates convicted of violent crimes. Through it he has taught Plato, Dostoyevsky, classic films and other great works to convicts who, despite their condition, have expressed a willingness to improve themselves.

Research Interests
Legal theory, fundamental rights and civil liberties.

He has a particular interest in the history of the Supreme Court and has published numerous writings on this subject.  He also enjoys studying the interplay between moral theory and jurisprudence—how moral commandments become codified in law-and the extent to which it is possible for morality and legality to function harmoniously in our criminal justice system.

Recent Scholarship
Prof. Goetting has published more than a dozen writings on legal issues, most of which have centered on constitutional law and civil liberties.  His 2010 essay “On the Torture Lawyers,” is a moral meditation and legal assessment of the attorneys who drafted and signed the famous 2002 memos regarding interrogation techniques used in the global “war on terror.” 

Recently his scholarship has focused on the constitutional rights of tribal American Indians.  In 2009 he presented an article he published titled “Red Cloud’s Mark: When Peace Treaties Become Weapons of Mass Destruction” at the National Association of Native American Studies conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  He followed this in 2010 with an article published in Indigenous Policy Review titled “The Marshall Trilogy and the Constitutional Dehumanization of American Indians.”   This article examines the impact of the three landmark 19th century U.S. Supreme Court Cases which precipitated the notorious marches along the “Trail of Tears” and still largely define the status of Native American tribes under the U.S. Constitution. Later this year he will again visit the National Association of Native American Studies to present his third writing in this area, "On White Scholars Teaching Federal Indian Law," which is an exploration of cross-racial dynamics in the classroom.  

Memberships
American Bar Association (Associate Member)
Society of American Law Teachers
Midwest Association of Pre-Law Advisors
National Lawyers Guild
American Constitution Society