Dr. James M. Binnall

Dr. Binnall is an Associate Professor of Law, Criminology, and Criminal Justice at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB).  He is also a licensed California attorney and a formerly incarcerated person who spent just over 4 years in prison for a DUI Homicide that claimed the life of his close friend. For the past 13 years, Dr. Binnall has maintained a law practice specializing in the representation of law students in the State Bar of California State Moral Character and Fitness Determination process. 

Prior to his appointment at CSULB, Dr. Binnall was an Associate Professor of Law at the Savannah Law School (2014-2015) and a Law Teaching Fellow at the Georgetown University Law Center (2011-2013).  At CSULB, Dr. Binnall is the Faculty Advisor for Rising Scholars and the Executive Director of Project Rebound – both organizations that work to ensure the success of formerly incarcerated and system involved students on campus.

Dr. Binnall’s research focuses on the civic marginalization of those with criminal convictions, parole and post-release, and conditions of confinement.  His primary research focus examines the exclusion of individuals with a felony conviction from the jury process.  The nation’s leading scholar on the topic, Dr. Binnall has testified for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and presented his research to the American Bar Association’s Jury Commission. He has published numerous articles in both law reviews and social science journals, and is the author of the first book devoted to the issue of record-based juror exclusion: Twenty Million Angry Men: The Case for Including Convicted Felons in Our Jury Process (University of California Press, 2021).