Director, Project on Criminal Justice, Cato Institute
Matthew Cavedon is the Director of the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice. He focuses on reforming plea-driven mass adjudication, ensuring police accountability, and defending constitutional criminal originalism. Cavedon’s scholarship has been published (or is forthcoming in) publications including the Arizona State Law Journal, Cato Supreme Court Review, Seattle University Law Review, and Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy. Formerly a Georgia public defender and fellow at the Institute for Justice, Cavedon has taught law school courses on criminal law and procedure, as well as the First Amendment. Cavedon clerked for a U.S. district court and the Supreme Court of Georgia. He came to Cato following a fellowship at the Emory University Center for the Study of Law and Religion.
Assistant Attorney General & Senior Trial Counsel to the Criminal Bureau, Massachusetts Attorney General
Partner, King & Spalding
John Richter is a trial and investigations partner in the Special Matters and Investigations Practice Group, and represents and defends companies, Boards of Directors, Board committees, and individuals facing a variety of white-collar criminal and regulatory enforcement matters, parallel civil litigation, and internal corporate investigations. John previously served as the Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice and as the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma, having been nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by unanimous consent of the U.S. Senate.
Senior Fellow, Independent Institute
Dr. Stephen P. Halbrook is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute. He has taught legal and political philosophy at George Mason University, Howard University, and Tuskegee Institute, and he received his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and Ph.D. in social philosophy from Florida State University.
The winner of three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court (Printz v. United States, United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Company, and Castillo v. United States), he has testified before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Subcommittee on Crime of the House Judiciary Committee, Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and House Committee on the District of Columbia.
A contributor to numerous scholarly volumes, he is the author of the books, Gun Control in Nazi-Occupied France: Tyranny and Resistance; Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and “Enemies of the State”; The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms; That Every Man Be Armed: Evolution of a Constitutional Right; A Right to Bear Arms; Firearms Law Deskbook: Federal and State Criminal Practice; Securing Civil Rights: Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms; State and Federal Bills of Rights and Constitutional Guarantees; and Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II. Dr. Halbrook’s scholarly articles have appeared in such journals as the Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law, Drug Law Report, George Mason University Law Review, Journal of Air Law and Commerce, Journal of Law and Policy, Law & Contemporary Problems, National Law Journal, Northern Kentucky Law Review, St. John’s Journal of Legal Commentary; Seton Hall Constitutional Law Journal, Tennessee Law Review, University of Dayton Law Review, Valparaiso University Law Review, Vermont Law Review, and William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal.
Dr. Halbrook's popular articles have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Newsday, San Francisco Chronicle, National Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Kansas City Star, Washington Examiner, Shreveport Times, Sacramento Bee, Providence Journal, Tampa Tribune, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, History News Network, San Antonio Express-News, The Daily Caller, Detroit News, Honolulu Star Advertiser, Birmingham News, Environmental Forum, USA Today, and Washington Times. He has also appeared on numerous national TV/radio programs on CNN, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, Court TV, NewsMax TV, CBN, Voice of America, and C-SPAN.
Executive Director, North America, Quilliam International
Dr. Muhammad Fraser-Rahim is the Executive Director, North America for Quilliam International.
He is an expert on violent extremism issues and a scholar on Africa. Prior to his current role, he served as a Senior Program Officer at the U.S. Institute of Peace, where he led their Horn of Africa program and served as an expert on violent extremism issues globally.
Dr. Fraser-Rahim’s areas of specialty are on transnational terrorist movements, Islamic intellectual history, Muslim communities in the West and Africa affairs. In addition, Dr. Fraser-Rahim worked for the United States Government for more than a decade for the Department of Homeland Security, Director of National Intelligence, and the National Counter-terrorism Center. There, he provided strategic advice and executive branch analytical support on violent extremism issues to the White House and the National Security Council, where he was the author or co-author of Presidential Daily Briefs and strategic assessments on extremist ideology.
Dr. Fraser-Rahim has conducted research in more than 40 countries on the African continent, and has worked and studied throughout the Middle East. He completed advanced level Arabic language certificates at various higher education institutions in the U.S., West Africa and the Middle East and he earned his Ph.D. in 2017 from Howard University in African Studies, with a focus on Islamic thought and on violent extremism issues.
Dr. Fraser-Rahim provided one of the first doctoral dissertations on the intellectual thought of African American Muslims and its nexus to the broader Islamic world using original primary sources in both Arabic and English. and focused on the American Muslim thinker, WD Mohammed, titled, ” The Making of American Islam and the Emergence of Western Islamic Intellectual Thought to Counter Violent Extremism: A Case Study of American Muslim Revivalist, Imam WD Mohammed (1933-2008.) Finally, he is also a security fellow at the Truman National Security Project.
Co-Founder and Senior Counsel, American Freedom Law Center
Robert J. Muise is an expert in constitutional law. Since 2000, his law practice has been dedicated to defending religious liberties, the freedom of speech, and the right to life in state and federal trial and appellate courts all across the country. More recently, Mr. Muise has been involved in numerous cases defending American freedoms against the growing threat of sharia.
In 2012, Mr. Muise, along with David Yerushalmi, co-founded the American Freedom Law Center, a national public interest law firm dedicated to fighting for faith and freedom and defending our Judeo-Christian heritage and moral values.
In 2015, Messrs. Muise and Yerushalmi co-authored the monograph entitled, Offensive and Defensive Lawfare: Fighting Civilizational Jihad in America’s Courts as part of the Center for Security Policy’s Civilization Jihad Reader Series.
Through his work, Mr. Muise has appeared on national television programs such as The Kelly File with Megyn Kelly, the O’Reilly Factor, Hannity and Colmes, Freedom Watch, Fox and Friends, and the Glenn Beck Program, among others. He has also been interviewed on numerous local and national radio shows and for many national and local newspapers and periodicals, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and many others. He was named the “Appellate Lawyer of the Week” by the National Law Journal on August 10, 2011. Mr. Muise is also co-author of a scholarly article published in the Duke University Press’s Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law, entitled, “Wearing the Crown of Solomon? Chief Justice Roberts and the Affordable Care Act ‘Tax.'”
Founder and Chairman, Liberty Counsel
Mat Staver is the Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, an international nonprofit litigation, education, and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life, and the family; Chairman of Liberty Counsel Action, Freedom Federation, The Salt & Light Council, and National House of Hope; Chairman of Christians in Defense of Israel; Founder and Chairman of Liberty Relief International; Vice President and Chief Counsel of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference-CONEL; Director of the Hispanic Israel Leadership Coalition; former Vice President of Liberty University; former Dean and tenured professor of law at Liberty University School of Law; Trustee of The Timothy Plan, a New York and Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange-traded family of mutual funds; Trustee of the Supreme Court Historical Society; Board of Reference of The Christian Film and Television Commission; Board of Advisors of Care for Pastors; Founder and former President of Staver & Associates; and Founder and former President of The Staver Group.
Mat has over 230 published legal opinions. He has authored eight scholarly law review publications and 10 books, including Faith & Freedom: A Complete Handbook for Defending Your Religious Rights, Same-Sex Marriage: Putting Every Household at Risk, and Eternal Vigilance: Knowing and Protecting Your Religious Freedom. He has authored many booklets and brochures, along with hundreds of articles.
Mat is the host and producer of Faith and Freedom, an 11-minute daily radio program, and Freedom's Call, a 60-second daily radio program. He is a frequent guest on international and many national network and cable television and radio programs, including print and electronic media.
Mat has filed numerous briefs and argued in many federal and state courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court and has argued two landmark cases before the Supreme Court, Madsen v. Women's Health Center and McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky.
Mat has a B.A., Theology, cum laude, Southern Missionary College; M.A., Religion, summa cum laude, Andrews University; J.D., University of Kentucky; LL.D., honoris causa, Liberty University; D.D., honoris causa, South Florida Bible College.
Senior Counsel, Senior Vice President of Corporate Engagement, Alliance Defending Freedom
Jeremy Tedesco serves as senior counsel and senior vice president of corporate engagement for Alliance Defending Freedom. In this role, Tedesco leads ADF’s efforts to combat corporate cancel culture and build a business ethic that respects free speech, religious freedom, and human dignity.
Immediately preceding his current role, Tedesco served as senior vice president for communications, during which time he was a lead convener of the Philadelphia Statement, a movement dedicated to restoring free speech and civil discourse. Tedesco also launched a regular video series called Freedom Matters, profiling ADF clients, cases, and issues. The program included 24 videos in its first year, which more than 31 million people viewed.
Previously, Tedesco litigated First Amendment cases at the highest levels. He was part of the legal team that represented cake artist Jack Phillips in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission before the U.S. Supreme Court and argued Phillips’ case at the Colorado Court of Appeals. He was also the lead brief writer in two other U.S. Supreme Court wins, Reed v. Town of Gilbert and Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn. Tedesco has also argued six times before five different federal appellate courts and founded and directed the ADF Center for Conscience Initiatives, where he led efforts to protect individuals from government-coerced speech.
Numerous media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, CNN, The New York Times, USA Today, PBS, NPR, and National Review, have interviewed Tedesco or published his comments.
Tedesco earned his Juris Doctor in 2004 from the Regent University School of Law.
Head of Corporate Governance, Strive Asset Management
Justin Danhof is the Head of Corporate Governance at Strive Asset Management. Previously, he served as General Counsel for the National Center for Public Policy Research, as well as Director of the Center’s Free Enterprise Project. He also worked in the Miami-Dade State’s Attorney’s Office in the Economic Crimes and Cybercrimes Division, for the Massachusetts Alliance for Economic Development and at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Mr. Danhof’s work has been widely published and quoted in major newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Politico, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Boston Globe, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Washington Post. He has also appeared on the Fox News Channel, One America News Network, and the Fox Business Channel, among others.
Mr. Danhof is a member of the Federalist Society and Christian Legal Society.
Mr. Danhof is a graduate of Bentley University (Waltham, MA), where he received a Bachelor of Science in economics and finance and pitched for three seasons on the school’s NCAA Division II baseball team. Mr. Danhof completed his graduate studies at the University of Miami School of Law where he received his Juris Doctor and Master of Laws in Taxation.
Mr. Danhof is licensed to practice law in New York and Washington, D.C.
L. Q. C. Lamar Professor of Law, Emory University School of Law
Thomas C. Arthur holds degrees from Yale Law School and Duke University, where he was an Angier B. Duke Scholar and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Before coming to Emory, he practiced law for eleven years with the Washington, DC office of Kirkland & Ellis. In 1982, he left his law firm partnership to join the Emory Law faculty.
Arthur teaches antitrust, civil procedure, and administrative law, and he has been active on the executive committee of the Antitrust Section of the Association of American Law Schools. His articles in the California and Tulane law reviews have been credited with the founding of a new, "statutory" school of antitrust analysis. His 1991 Emory Law Journal article (co-authored with Professor Richard D. Freer) provoked a nationally noted debate over an important new statute governing the jurisdiction of federal courts. A major antitrust article, "The Costly Quest for Perfect Competition: Kodak and Nonstructural Market Power," was published in the New York University Law Review (vol. 69, April 1994).
Professor of Law and Co-Director, High Tech Law Institute, Santa Clara University School of Law
Eric Goldman is a Professor of Law, and Co-Director of the High Tech Law Institute, at Santa Clara University School of Law. Before he became a full-time academic in 2002, he practiced Internet law for 8 years in the Silicon Valley. His research and teaching focuses on Internet, IP and advertising law topics, and he blogs on these topics at the Technology & Marketing Law Blog [http://blog.ericgoldman.org]. Managing IP magazine has twice named him to a shortlist of North American “IP Thought Leaders,” and he has been named an “IP Vanguard” by the California State Bar’s IP Section.
Former Deputy Attorney General for Virginia
Kennerly Davis has over forty years of experience in corporate management, public service, and the private practice of law. He has held senior executive positions in a Fortune 500 electric and gas company. He has served as Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia, and as a legislative aide to a U.S. Senator and a U.S. Congressman. He practiced law for 25 years with Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP.
Davis is active in the Federalist Society as a member of the Regulatory Process Working Group of the Regulatory Transparency Project, and as a member of the Execuitve Committee of the Administrative Law and Regulation Practice Group. He is active in the national Alumni Free Speech Alliance, and involved in AFSA-chapter initiatives, including litigation, to publicize and correct the serious legal problems created by university Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs and the anonymous bias reporting systems used to enforce those DEI programs.
Davis writes and speaks on a wide variety of topics, including those related to the Founding of America, the natural rights foundation of our Republic, the constitutional rule of law, equal protection and free speech, DEI programs and bias reporting systems, capitalism, regulation and regulatory reform, and economic development. His articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Examiner, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Federalist Society Review, the FedSoc Blog, Real Clear Energy, Townhall, the Daily Caller, reports of the Center for Strategic & International Studies, and other publications. He appears frequently on radio, podcasts, and television.
Davis graduated with honors from Cornell University with an A.B. degree in Government. He earned an M.A. degree from Pembroke College, Oxford, in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. He was awarded a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, and an M.B.A. degree from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Davis lives in Richmond, Virginia. He can be contacted by email: j.kendavis@verizon.net, and by phone: (804) 624-8525.
Vice President, Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
John G. Malcolm oversees Advancing American Freedom’s work to increase understanding of the Constitution and the rule of law as Vice President of the organization’s Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law. Malcolm brings to the challenge a wealth of legal expertise and experience in both the public and private sectors.
Prior to joining Advancing American Freedom in 2025, Malcolm was the Vice President of the Institute for Constitutional Government and the Director of the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Prior to joining Heritage in 2012, Malcolm was general counsel at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, as well as a distinguished practitioner in residence at Pepperdine Law School. From 2004 to 2009, Malcolm was executive vice president and director of worldwide anti-piracy operations for the Motion Picture Association.
Malcolm served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division from 2001 to 2004, where he oversaw sections on computer crime and intellectual property, domestic security, child exploitation and obscenity, and special investigations. Immediately prior to that, he was a founding partner in the Atlanta law firm of Malcolm & Schroeder, LLP.
From 1990 to 1997, Malcolm was an assistant U.S. attorney in Atlanta, assigned to the fraud and public corruption section, and also an associate independent counsel, investigating fraud and abuse in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He was honored with the Director’s Award for Superior Performance for his work in connection with the successful prosecution of Walter Leroy Moody Jr., who assassinated an 11th Circuit judge and the head of the Savannah chapter of the NAACP.
A graduate of Harvard Law School and Columbia College, Malcolm began his career as a law clerk to a federal district court judge and a federal appellate court judge, and as an associate at the Atlanta-based law firm of Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan (new Eversheds Sutherland).
Malcolm, who resides in Washington, D.C., serves on the Board of Trustees of the Washington National Opera and is a Senate-confirmed member of the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation, the largest funder of civil legal aid in the United States.
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Supreme Court Criminal Law Roundup: A Look Back and a Look Ahead
Matthew P. Cavedon, Dean A. Mazzone
Join Dean Mazzone and Matt Cavedon for a discussion of major criminal cases at the...
Courthouse Steps Decision Teleforum: Ramos v. Louisiana
John C. Richter
In a decision in Ramos v. Louisiana handed down on April 20, 2020, the Supreme Court...
To Bear Arms for Self-Defense: A “Right of the People” or a Privilege of the Few? Part 2
Stephen P. Halbrook
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...
Southern Poverty Law Center Controversy
Muhammud Fraser-Rahim, Robert J. Muise, Mathew D. Staver, Jeremy Tedesco, Justin Danhof
The Southern Poverty Law Center (501(c)(3)) and SPLC Action Fund (reportedly processing 501(c)(4) application) potentially...
Social Media Content Control
Thomas Carlton Arthur, Eric Goldman
In two recently filed lawsuits conservative organizations have complained that Google has restricted their access...
Could a New Section 1983 Covering Federal Officials Curb Executive Branch Abuse of Constitutional Rights?
John Kennerly Davis
Note from the Editor: This article notes public distrust of the federal government in light...
Book Review: The War on Cops
John G. Malcolm
Note from the Editor: This book review supports the basic contentions of Heather Mac Donald’s...
Speech Code for Lawyers? - Podcast
Eugene Volokh
The American Bar Association (ABA) model rules of conduct have long wrestled with regulating the...
Topics
But What About the Bakers?
Same-sex marriage is now the law of the land—and that’s a good thing. While Justice...
The Court Speaks on Free Speech - Podcast
Eugene Volokh
On Jun 18, the U.S. Supreme Court decided two cases with free speech implications. In...