Faculty Profile

Jody L. Madeira

Associate Professor of Law

In the News

"What we want from the Marathon bombing trial"Boston Globe (sub. req.),  April  26,  2013

"Bill targets harassment of school personnel"The Herald-Times (Bloomington, Ind.),  February  11,  2013

"From Jim Crow to Timothy McVeigh: The best 2012 books about justice"The Atlantic,  December  14,  2012

"IU researchers discuss fresh food access, sex and IVF, smoke-free workplaces and more at APHA"Bioscience Technology,  October  30,  2012

"McVeigh's execution, 11 years later"Huffington Post,  June  11,  2012

"Timothy McVeigh and the myth of closure"The Atlantic,  June  11,  2012

"A 21st century expression of the law"Indiana Lawyer,  May  25,  2012

"No medium, no message, no closure?"Huffington Post,  May  2,  2012

"Closure and September 11"Bax and O'Brien (WAQY Radio, Springfield, MA),  September  9,  2011

"Indiana teen sentenced to life without parole for killing younger brother"Cincinnati.Com (Cincinnati Enquirer),  October  15,  2010

"Death penalty's death knell?"WIBC,  June  26,  2008

"IU law professors agree with Supreme Court child rape decision."WBIW,  June  26,  2008

Biography

Professor Madeira joined the Indiana Law faculty in the fall of 2007. Her scholarly interests primarily involve the intersection of law and emotion in criminal and family law. Madeira's new book, Killing McVeigh: The Death Penalty and the Myth of Closure , applies collective memory to criminal prosecution and sentencing, exploring the ways in which victims' families and survivors came to comprehend and cope with the Oklahoma City bombing through membership in community groups as well as through attendance and participation in Timothy McVeigh's prosecution and execution. She is also actively involved in empirical research projects assessing patient decision making and informed consent in assisted reproductive technology (ART).

Additionally, Madeira investigates the effects of legal proceedings, verdicts, and sentences upon victims' families; the role of empathy in personal injury litigation; and the impact of recent developments in capital victims' services upon the relationship between victims' families and the criminal justice system.

After graduating from law school, Professor Madeira clerked for the Hon. Richard D. Cudahy at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She then came to Harvard as a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer in Law, where she taught legal research and writing as well as a seminar on the cultural life of capital punishment. Madeira also recently served as a Research Associate at the Capital Punishment Research Initiative at the School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany, State University of New York.

Selected Works

• Killing McVeigh: The Death Penalty and the Myth of Closure (NYU Press, June 2012)
• "Woman Scorned?: Resurrecting Infertile Women's Decision-Making Autonomy," 71 MD. L. REV. 339 (2012)
• "The Family Capital of Capital Families: Investigating Empathic Connections Between Jurors and Defendants' Families in Death Penalty Cases" ___ MICH. ST. L. REV. (2012).
• "The Visibly Offensive Offender: A Semiotic Phenomenology of an Execution," LAW, CULTURE, AND VISUAL STUDIES (Richard Sherwin & Anne Wagner eds.) (Springer, forthcoming 2012).
• "Conceivable Changes: Effectuating Infertile Couples' Emotional Ties to Frozen Embryos Through New Disposition Options," 79 U. MO. KANSAS CITY L. REV. 315 (2010) (invited contribution to the Global Issues in Family Law Symposium at University of Missouri, Kansas City Law School).
• "Why Rebottle the Genie?": Capitalizing on 'Closure' in the Capital Punishment Context, 85 IND. L. J. 1477 (2010).
• When It's So Hard to Relate: Can the Legal System Mitigate the Trauma of Victim-Offender Relationships?, 46 HOUSTON L. REV. 401 (2009)
• Blood Relations: Collective Memory, Cultural Trauma, and the Prosecution and Execution of Timothy McVeigh, 45 STUDIES IN LAW, POLITICS AND SOCIETY 75 (2008)
• Recognizing Odysseus' Scar: Reconceptualizing Pain and Its Empathic Role in Civil Adjudication, 34 FLA. ST. U. L. REV. 41 (2006)
• Lashing Reason to the Mast: Understanding Judicial Constraints on Emotion in Personal Injury Litigation, 40 UC DAVIS L. REV. 137 (2006)
• Pained Sympathy for Sympathy Pains: The Reasoned Morality of Empathy in Adjudicating Suffering, 58 S.C. L. REV. 415 (2006)
• The Execution as Sacrifice, in EVIL, LAW, AND THE STATE: PERSPECTIVES ON STATE POWER AND VIOLENCE (John T. Parry, ed., 2006)
• A Constructed Peace: Narratives of Suture in the News Media, CANADIAN JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY 19:2 (2004) (peer-reviewed)

Related Links

• Curriculum Vitae
• SSRN