Profiles

Jona Goldschmidt, JD, PhD, LLM

About

Dr. Jona Goldschmidt is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology. He earned his BS degree at the University of Illinois-Urbana in Journalism (1972), his JD at DePaul University College of Law (1975), his PhD in Justice Studies at Arizona State University (1990) (area of concentration: Dispute Resolution; and his LLM at the University of Arizona (2022). He is a member of the Illinois and California bars, and is admitted to the bars of the Supreme Court of the United States, the 7th and 8th US Circuit Courts of Appeal, and the US District Courts for the Southern and Northern Districts of Illinois. Before coming to Loyola, Dr. Goldschmidt was a member of the faculty of Northern Arizona University's Department of Criminal Justice, and before that was an Assistant Executive Director of the American Judicature Society. In retirement, Dr. Goldschmidt teaches as an adjunct faculty at Oakton College Dept. of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, volunteers providing free legal services to self-represented litigants in the US District Court in Chicago, is active in the Illinois Academy of Criminology, and continues to write and conduct research on a variety of subjects.

Research Interests

Dr. Goldschmidt's areas of interest, research, and publication include self-representation, access to justice, judicial selection, legal ethics, judicial ethics, sociology of professions, and international criminal law.

Courses Taught

Undergraduate: The Criminal Justice System; Criminal Law; Criminal Procedure; Famous Criminal Trials; Collective Action: Civil Disorder & Police Response; Historical & Philosophical Foundations of Criminal Justice; Ethics, Discipline & Liability in Criminal Justice; Law and Society; Criminal Evidence; Anti-Terrorism & Criminal Enforcement; Art & Cultural Property Crime.

Graduate: Professional Ethics; History and Philosophy of Criminal Justice; Policy Analysis.

Before retiring, Dr. Goldschmidt was the department's Undergraduate Program Director, a pre-law advisor, faculty advisor for the department's chapter of Alpha Phi Sigma, the Criminal Justice Honor Society, and faculty advisor to the Pre-Law Society.  

Selected Publications

His books and monographs include: 

Self-Representation: Law, Ethics, and Policy (Rowman & Littlefield, Lexington Books) (2022).

The Psychology and Law of Workplace Violence: A Handbook for Mental Health Professionals and Employers (2004) (with Irvin Perline) 

Meeting the Challenge of Pro Se Litigation: A Report and Guidebook for Judges and Court Managers (1998) (with Barry Mahoney, Harvey Solomon, and Joan Green) 

Judicial Settlement Ethics: Judges' Guide (1996) (with Lisa Milord)

User-Friendly Justice: Making Courts More Accessible, Easier to Understand, and Simpler to Use (1996) (with Ira Pilchen)

Certification of Questions of Law: Federalism in Practice (1995)

Judicial Disqualification: An Empirical Study of Judicial Practice and Attitudes (1995) (with Jeffrey Shaman).

Additional publications include:

Ghost Coaching: A Report from a Pro Se Assistance Program Volunteer, 70 The Federal Lawyer, No. 1, 39 (January/February, 2023).

How Do Lawyer Disciplinary Agencies Enforce Rules Against Litigation Misconduct? Or Do They? Results of a Case Study and a National Survey of Disciplinary Counsel XXVII Suffolk Journal of Trial and Appellate Advocacy 1 (2022) (lead article).

Equal Injustice for All: High Quality Self-Representation Does Not Ensure a Matter is “Fairly Heard,” 44.2 Seattle U.L. Rev. SUpra 75 (2021).

Exclusion of Race of Suspect from Clery Act Campus “Crime Alerts”: Results of a Survey of Clery Act Reporters, 967-28 George Mason Law Review 967 (2021). (with Chris Donner).

Who Sues the Supreme Court, and Why? Pro Se Litigation and the Court of Last Resort, 8 Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality 181 (2020) (lead article). 

Required, Permissible, And Impermissible Forms of Federal Judicial Assistance to Self-Represented Litigants: Toward Establishment of a Judicial Duty of Reasonable Assistance, 25 Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights and Social Justice 217 (2019) (lead article).

Ghosting: The Courts' Views on Ghostwriting Ethics are Widely Divergent: It’s Time to Find Uniformity and Enhance Access to Justice, 102 Judicature 37 (December, 2018).

How the Effort to Secure a "Civil Gideon" Morphed into a Call for Mandatory Representation of Self-Represented Litigants: A Discussion of Rabeea Assy's "Injustice in Person: The Right to Self-Representation," in Symposium on Rabeea Assy's "Injustice in Person: The Right to Self-representation," 17 Jerusalem Review of Legal Studies 1 (2018).

See No Evil: State High Courts' Refusal to Accept Amicus Briefs at the Review Stage of Discretionary Appeals, and Its Adverse Affect on Pro Se Appellants, 19 WMU-Cooley Journal of Practical & Clinical Law 183 (2018) (lead article).

Citizen Attitudes toward Errors in Criminal Justice: Implications of the Declining Acceptance of Blackstone’s Ratio, International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2016.10.001 (with Moulin Xiang & Richard Greenleaf).

Has He "Made His Bed and Now Must Lie in It"? Toward Recognition of the Pro Se Defendant's Sixth Amendment Right to Post-Trial Readmonishment of the Right to Counsel, 7 Depaul Journal for Social Justice 287 (2015).

Patterns and Trends in Federal Pro Se Defense: An Exploratory Study (with Don Stemen), 2015 Federal Courts Law Review  8 (2015), cited by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg in her majority opinion in McCoy v. Louisiana, 138 S.Ct. 1500, 1507 (2018).

Judging the Effectiveness of Standby Counsel: Are they Phone Psychics? Theatrical Understudies? Or Both? 24 Southern California Review of Law and Social Justice 133 (2015) (lead article).

Ensuring Fairness or Just Cluttering Up the Colloquy? Toward Recognition of Pro Se Defendants' Right to be Informed of Available Defenses, 61 Drake Law Review 101 (2012).

Lawyers' Perceptions of the Fairness of Judicial Assistance to Self-represented Litigants, 30 Windsor Yearbook on Access to Justice 140 (with Loretta Stalans) (2012).

An Analysis of Ghostwriting Decisions: Still Searching for the Elusive Harm, 95 Judicature 78 (Sept–Oct, 2011).

Autonomy and "Gray Area" Pro Se Defendants: Ensuring Competence to Guarantee Freedom, 5 Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy 130 (2011).

The Relationship Between Method of Judicial Selection and Judicial Misconduct, XVIII Widener Law Journal 455 (2009) (with David Olson & Margaret Ekman).

Judicial Assistance to Self-represented Litigants: Lessons from the Canadian Experience, 17 Michigan State Journal of International Law 601 (2009).

Strategies for Dealing with Self-Represented Litigants, 30 North Carolina Central Law Review 130 (2008).

"Order in the Court!": Constitutional Issues in the Law of Courtroom Decorum, 31 Hamline Law Review 1 (2008) (lead article).

Judicial Ethics and Assistance to Self-Represented Litigants, 28 Justice System Journal 324 (2008).

The Necessity of Dishonesty: Police Deviance, "Making the Case," and the Public Good, 18 Policing & Society 113 ( 2008).

Merit Selection: Current Status, Procedures, and Issues, 49 University of Miami Law Review 1 (1994), cited by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, concurring, in Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, 536 U.S. 765, 791, 122 S.Ct. 2528, 2543 (2002).

In Defense of Ghostwriting, 29 Fordham Urban Law Journal 1145 (2002).

The Pro Se Litigant's Struggle for Access to Justice: Meeting the Challenge of Bench and Bar Resistance, 40 Family Court Review 37 (2002) (lead article).

How Are Courts Handling Pro Se Litigants? Results of a Survey of Judges and Court Managers, 81 Judicature 13 (July–August,1998).