Harry R. Chadwick, Sr. Professor of Law
Professor Robert P. Mosteller teaches Evidence and Criminal Procedure (Police Investigation). From time to time, he teaches an advanced seminar involving evidentiary issues as they apply to children as witnesses and victims. He was born in Vale, North Carolina on May 25, 1948. He is married to S. Elizabeth Gibson, a law professor at UNC Law School, and they have two children, one in college and the other a recent law graduate.
Mosteller holds a B.A. in History from the University of North Carolina (1970), a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard (1975), and a J.D. from Yale (1975). After clerking on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit with Judge J. Braxton Craven, Jr., he worked for seven years with the Washington, D.C. Public Defender Service where he was Director of Training and Chief of the Trial Division.
He is a co-author of the McCormick evidence treatise, North Carolina Evidence Foundations, and an evidence casebook and problem book. Recent articles have dealt with the new Supreme Court treatment of the Confrontation Clause (Crawford v. Washington & Davis v. Washington), the impact of deceptive statements on the validity of Miranda waiver, admissibility of scientific evidence, the future of evidence law, and evidentiary privileges.
He interested in the death penalty, serving as a co-reporter for the Death Penalty Initiative of the Constitution Project and having served as President and a member of the Board of the North Carolina Center for Death Penalty Litigation.
He has also written articles opposing a proposal to add a victims' rights amendment to the United States Constitution. He opposes the so-called victims' rights amendment because its effect will be to take from defendants hard won rights that, unlike rights protections for victims, cannot be guaranteed by the normal political process. He has testified before the Senate and House Judiciary Committees in opposition to the proposed amendment.
Professor Mosteller has taught at Duke Law School since 1983. In 2001, he was named Harry R. Chadwick Sr. Professor of Law. He served as Chair of the University's Academic Council from 1998 to 2000 and was Chair of the Evidence Section of the Association of American Law Schools in 2000.