James (Alex) Purdon

A Mixed Methods Examination of the Impact of Clark v. Arizona

James "Alex" Purdon (he/him/his) is a doctoral candidate in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. His research focuses on evidence-based approaches to the law and courts, police procedures (with a specific focus on constitutional criminal procedures), substantive criminal law, and the sociology of law.

His previous research has focused on an array of law-related topics, such as the evolution of Fourth Amendment search law, how rap lyrics are used in court, reforming stop-and-frisk, an examination of how police officers understood changes in the law regarding searches of vehicles incident to the arrest of recent occupants, and most recently, the status of state laws on carrying concealed firearms on campus. His research has been published in The Criminal Law Bulletin, The American Journal of Criminal Law, and The New Criminal Law Review and has presented his work for the American Society of Criminology, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the Western Society of Criminology.

Alex is also a collaborator on a long-term research project run out of the ASU's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law Academy for Justice Research Center, an organization devoted to criminal justice reform. This project studies the influence of ideology, expertise, and the shifting norms around crime and punishment on legislative deliberation over criminal justice reform. The purpose of this project is to examine the deliberative process of criminal justice policymakers and how legislators justify and debate changes to their criminal codes.

Currently, Alex is in the final stages of his doctoral dissertation which examines how courts are handling mental health evidence and the insanity defense since Clark v. Arizona (2006). This study utilizes a mixed-methods research design of originally collected data to investigate how the curtailment of mental health evidence has impacted insanity defense cases. In addition to utilizing ethnographic content analyses of relevant cases, he is also employing a series of quantitative analyses to examine whether extra-legal characteristics of defendants affect the potential success of an insanity defense.

Beyond research, Alex has a passion for teaching. He has taught through a variety of modalities, including asynchronously (online) and in-person. He employs a wide range of pedagogical practices to support student-centered learning. It is his belief that the purpose of teaching is to develop students' critical thinking skills, a passion for life-long learning, and become intelligent members of their community able to positively affect social change.