Professor Michael Vitiello | Originalism

Legal Tenzer: Casual Conversations on Noteworthy Legal Topics

In This Episode...

Professor Michael Vitiello and I have a lively discussion about originalism, a constitutional and statutory interpretation method increasingly used by the members of the Supreme Court.

About Our Guest...

Distinguished Professor of Law Michael Vitiello of the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law is a nationally-recognized expert on criminal law, sentencing policy, and marijuana law. His work on California's three-strikes law has been cited by the United States Supreme Court and the California Supreme Court. Since 2002, he has been a member of the American Law Institute, a prestigious independent organization committed to improving and modernizing law whose highly selective membership is comprised of the best legal minds in the country. Professor Vitiello is the author of 13 books and over 80 law review articles. In 2019, he and two co-authors from the University of Michigan published Cases and Material on Marijuana Law (West Academic Publishing 2019). One of his most recent book, Animating Civil Procedure, focuses on how the right wing of the Supreme Court has used procedural decisions to close the courthouse door on many prospective plaintiffs, thereby favoring corporate and other powerful interests over injured plaintiffs. His numerous articles on legalizing marijuana take a careful policy-oriented approach to that area of the law, insisting that, because legalization will occur, policy makers need to craft legislation to avoid undue social harm. His articles critical of California’s Three Strikes have been widely cited, including by two Supreme Court Justices in Ewing v. California.

Prior to entering the legal academy in 1977, Professor Vitiello served as a law clerk to a Pennsylvania appellate court judge for three years. Thereafter, he received tenure at Loyola Law School in New Orleans, before visiting at Tulane Law School and the University of Mississippi Law School. He joined the McGeorge faculty in 1990. During his career, he has taught over fifteen different courses, with a special emphasis on Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Civil Procedure, and Marijuana Law. He has also created courses in a variety of comparative law areas, most notably using the Amanda Knox case to compare the Italian and American criminal justice systems, and has taught in international programs run by McGeorge in London and Salzburg. In 2007, he received a Fulbright Senior Specialist grant and taught at the University of Parma. During the spring of 2016, he taught a course at the University of Salzburg on “Why European clients want to avoid suit in US courts and how to avoid suit there.” In the spring of 2017, he taught a seminar on marijuana and the law and from March through June of 2017, he taught a course on “Recent Developments in American Criminal Law” at the University of Parma.

In 45+ years of teaching, he shows no signs of slowing down. Several years ago, he became the senior editor for a series of simulation books published by West Academic. That series, "The Bridge to Practice," allows professors to integrate skills training into traditional classrooms. He has published three books in that series, which he uses in his three main courses. He also organized several symposia for the McGeorge community, including symposia on legalizing marijuana, sex offenses, sentencing reform, and the Warren Court. Vitiello became the Associate Dean for Scholarship in 2023.

If he cannot be found in the classroom or in his office, students can find him in the gym, where they have trouble keeping up with his aerobic workouts. Since 1993, he has been a home-winemaker, often donating wine to various functions on campus.