Ian P Farrell
Assistant Professor
LLM Harvard
MA University of Texas at Austin
LLB University of Wollongong
BMath University of Wollongong
Ian P. Farrell is a Visiting Assistant Professor and Fellow in the Emerging Scholars Program. He teaches criminal law and procedure, constitutional law, and the philosophy of law. Professor Farrell is also an Honorary Fellow of the University of Wollongong School of Law, Australia.
Professor Farrell received his undergraduate degree and LL.B. from the University of Wollongong. After working for a law firm in Sydney, he completed an LL.M. at Harvard Law School on a Fulbright Scholarship. He subsequently clerked for Judge Benjamin Kaplan on the Massachusetts Appeals Court before obtaining a Masters in Philosophy at the University of Texas. He then taught at the University of Wollongong Faculty of Law, before returning to the University of Texas.
Professor Farrell's research focuses on the intersection between criminal law, constitutional law, and philosophy. In HLA Hart and the Methodology of Jurisprudence, 84 Tex, L. Rev. 983 (2006), he defends a modest role for conceptual analysis in the methodology of analytical jurisprudence. In Gilbert & Sullivan and Scalia: Philosophy, Proportionality, and the Eighth Amendment (forthcoming in the Villanova Law Review), he addresses Justice Scalia's position that the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause contains no requirement of proportionality, and shows that it is based upon a mistaken understanding of theories of punishment. In the recently completed Provocation as Partial Justification and Partial Excuse, Farrell and his co-author Professor Mitchell Berman argue that, contrary to the orthodox view, the concepts of partial excuse and partial justification are necessary and sufficient conditions for provocation manslaughter. From this they draw forth implications for how the sentencing ranges for murder and for manslaughter should be related.
