M. Katherine B. Darmer
Professor of Law

Email: kdarmer@chapman.edu
Phone: (714) 628-2583

Professor Katherine Darmer specializes in criminal procedure. Before joining the full-time faculty at Chapman in 2000, she served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York, where she prosecuted public corruption, violent gang and narcotics cases. In 1998, she served as lead counsel in a three-month criminal RICO trial that resulted in the conviction of numerous Bronx-based gang members of crimes ranging from murder to narcotics distribution. During her tenure as an AUSA, she also argued seven cases in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Professor Darmer received her A.B. from Princeton University, with high honors, and her Juris Doctor from Columbia University, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar for two years and served as Articles Editor of the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law. She then clerked for the Honorable Kimba M. Wood in the Southern District of New York and the Honorable William H. Timbers on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Following her clerkships and before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, she worked for three years as a litigation associate at the Manhattan law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell. While at Davis Polk, she was a member of the trial team that successfully defended Delta Air Lines in a $2.5 billion lawsuit brought by the Pan Am Corporation and the Pan Am Creditor's Committee.

In 2003, Professor Darmer was co-editor of the book Civil Liberties vs. National Security in a Post-9/11 World, which is the text used in her Advanced Criminal Procedure seminar. Her co-edited book, Morality and the Law, was published in 2007. Professor Darmer’s other scholarship has focused primarily on Fifth Amendment and national security issues. Professor Darmer's recent published law review articles focus on the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, and her forthcoming articles deal with marriage equality and equal protection.  She is a founding board member and Chair of the Legal Team of the Orange County Equality Coalition and a frequent speaker and media commentator on issues including Proposition 8 and marriage equality, the War on Terror, and federal prosecutions and the use of cooperating witnesses (including in the recent investigation of  baseball player Roger Clemens).

Courses Taught: Criminal Procedure, Evidence and Advanced Criminal Procedure

 Publications
Curriculum Vitae