Prof. Laurent Sacharoff

Laurent Sacharoff’s research focuses on criminal procedure, especially the history of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. He has a particular interest in the history of pre-trial criminal procedure including search and arrest warrants, preliminary examinations, and pre-trial commitment. He also writes on computer law and crime, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and the Fourth and Fifth Amendments as applied to digital searches.

His work has appeared or will appear in the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Texas Law Review, the Iowa Law Review, and the Fordham Law Review, as well as popular press articles in Politico and The Washington Post. His work has been regularly cited by courts, particularly on the issue of compelled passwords for digital devices and encryption.

Professor Sacharoff joined the Denver faculty in fall 2022, where he teaches or will teach criminal law, criminal procedure, and cybercrime. Before that, he was a professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law for 12 years, where he was named outstanding professor of the year in 2015, and the University-wide Rising Teacher of the year in 2016.

Before academia, Prof. Sacharoff clerked for the Honorable John S. Martin, Jr. in the Southern District of New York and then joined the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, where he was the pro-bono fellow handling prison litigation, as well as a litigation associate. Professor Sacharoff also worked as a public defender at the Legal Aid Society in Brooklyn, New York.