Stephanos Bibas
Stephanos Bibas is a United States Circuit Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, who previously was a professor of law and criminology and director of the Supreme Court clinic at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He is a noted scholar of criminal procedure with expertise in criminal charging, plea bargaining, and sentencing. As a professor, Bibas examined how procedural rules written for jury trials have unintended consequences when cases involving jury trials are the exception, rather than the rule, with 95 percent of defendants pleading guilty. Bibas also studied the role of substantive goals such as remorse and apology in criminal procedure.
Early life and education
Bibas was born in New York City and spent his summers growing up working for his father, a Greek immigrant who survived the occupation of Greece during World War II, in his family's restaurants. In high school, he became involved in debate and public speaking. He graduated high school at the age of 15 and entered Columbia University.At Columbia, Bibas continued to develop his debate skills through the Philolexian Society and Parliamentary debate. He graduated from Columbia when he was 19 with a Bachelor of Arts in political theory, summa cum laude. He then went on to attend Oxford University, graduating two years later with a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in jurisprudence. While at Oxford, Bibas won the 1st place speaker award in the World Debate Championships.
Bibas then attended Yale Law School, where he obtained his Juris Doctor and was a member of the Yale Law Journal. At Yale Law, Bibas joined the moot court team and won awards for the best oralist and best team, and also served as a symposium editor on the Yale Law Journal.
Professional career
From 2006 to 2017, Bibas was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He received the Robert A. Gorman Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2008. Bibas previously taught at the University of Chicago Law School and the University of Iowa College of Law and was a research fellow at Yale Law School.Before beginning his academic career, Bibas was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he successfully prosecuted the world's leading expert in Tiffany stained glass for hiring a grave robber to steal Tiffany windows from cemeteries. Bibas also unsuccessfully prosecuted an alleged $7 theft at the VA hospital in New York.
Early in his career, Bibas worked as a litigation associate at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C.
From 1994–1995, Bibas clerked for Judge Patrick Higginbotham of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He also clerked for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Anthony Kennedy from 1997–1998, where he was a co-clerk with Raymond Kethledge.
Bibas is the 15th-most-cited law professor by the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. courts of appeals, and state high courts as well as the 5th-most-cited professor of criminal law and procedure by law professors.
Supreme Court clinic
Bibas also directed Penn Law's Supreme Court clinic, for which he litigated a wide range of appellate cases under consideration by the United States Supreme Court. The clinic allows students to assist on real Supreme Court cases, including recruiting, strategising, researching, writing briefs, participating in moot court rehearsals, and attending oral arguments at the Court itself. The Court appointed him to brief and argue Tapia v. United States as amicus curiae. The Court praised Bibas and the clinic for doing "an exceptionally good job" on that case.Cases argued
- Encino Motorcars, LLC v Navarro
- Bank of America v. Caulkett
- Petrella v. MGM, Inc.
- Vartelas v. Holder
- Tapia v. United States
- Turner v. Rogers
Federal judicial service
Since joining the Third Circuit, Bibas's writing style has earned him a reputation as "one of the best writers on the federal bench." His style is "instantly recognizable"; its use of short, punchy sentences and colorful examples aims for "radical clarity."
As covered in the Wall Street Journal, Bibas has stated: "My boss is not my chief judge. My boss is not my appointing president. My boss is the Constitution and the laws."
Notable opinions
Bibas has authored dozens of opinions on a wide range of subjects, including the following selected appeals:- Vorchheimer v. The Philadelphian Owners Association, 903 F.3d 100. Writing for the court, Judge Bibas articulated a clear, textual standard for "necessity" under the Fair Housing Amendments Act. He looked to the ordinary use of the term, citing dictionaries, popular books, and even the Rolling Stones, to determine the term's scope.
- Jacobs v. Federal Housing Finance Agency, 908 F.3d 884. Writing for the court, Judge Bibas upheld, on statutory grounds, the creation of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, a government conservator that took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and helped rescue the nation's economy after the housing crisis of 2008, as well as the FHFA's ability to retain Fannie and Freddie's future net profits in exchange for taking on their crisis-era liabilities.
- Cranbury Brick Yard v. United States, 943 F.3d 701. Writing for the court, Judge Bibas held that a company that bought an abandoned weapons-manufacturing facility could not sue the United States Military for the cost of cleaning up pollution at the facility. Bibas explained the private causes of action under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act through a "comical" example about a chemical factory in Gotham City that had been polluted by LexCorp and Wayne Enterprises.
- E.O.H.C. v. Secretary U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 950 F.3d 177. Writing for the court, Judge Bibas held that district courts have jurisdiction to hear a wide array of "now or never" challenges to the conditions of an immigrant detainee's confinement. Among them were the plaintiffs' challenges to the Trump Administration's Migrant Protection Protocols and alleged violations of the Flores Settlement Agreement.
- McCafferty v. Newsweek Media Group, 955 F.3d 352. Writing for the court, Judge Bibas affirmed, on First Amendment grounds, the dismissal of a defamation complaint against Newsweek brought by a twelve-year-old, politically vocal supporter of Donald Trump. Bibas wrote: "Political discourse can be bruising. People often express opinions that offend others. But the First Amendment protects virtually all of those opinions, even offensive and hurtful ones, to promote a greater good: robust political discourse. The price of free speech is putting up with all sorts of name-calling and hurtful rhetoric."
- Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs v. Attorney General of New Jersey, 910 F.3d 106 . Judge Bibas dissented from a majority opinion that upheld New Jersey's ban on large capacity magazines for firearms. Bibas criticized the majority for failing to respect the right to bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment, writing that it is "an equal part of the Bill of Rights," which, like other enumerated constitutional rights, requires heightened judicial scrutiny.
Personal life
Selected publications
- : exploring the use of technology and procedural innovation to simplify and streamline complex court procedures to create a cheaper, simpler, faster justice system to control costs.
- Supreme Court, 2011 Term—Comment: Incompetent Plea Bargaining and Extrajudicial Reforms, 126 Harv. L. Rev. 150 : assessing the Supreme Court's recent plea-bargaining jurisprudence and predicting how judicial rulings will likely spur nonjudicial actors to better regulate plea bargaining.
- : book about how criminal justice has moved from a lay-driven public morality play to a hidden, amoral, lawyer-run, plea-bargaining assembly line; what the US has lost in its quest for efficiency; and how the nation could swing the pendulum partway back toward greater transparency and public involvement.
- : explores the agency costs, structural forces, and psychological biases that cause plea bargaining to deviate from expected trial outcomes.
- , coauthored with Richard Bierschbach: advocates reforming criminal procedure to encourage more remorse, apology, and :wikt:reconciliation|reconciliation.
- : explores the difficulties with external regulation of prosecutors by legislatures, judges, and bar authorities, and instead proposes ways to make head prosecutors more accountable to the public and to reform the inner workings of prosecutors' offices.
Videos
- . YouTube.com