NIU Law Professor Dan McConkie was quoted in the Rock River Current regarding the case of a Rockford, IL photojournalist who was charged with aggravated battery in a public way and resisting arrest while taking photos during the civil rights protests in summer 2020. The photographer was recently acquitted by the jury, and Professor McConkie commented on the First Amendment implications that were brought up in the case.
Professor McConkie joined the NIU Law faculty in 2015. He teaches courses in criminal law, criminal procedure and professional responsibility. His primary research interest is criminal procedure.
Professor McConkie was a prosecutor in California for eight years, first for the state and then for the federal government. As a federal prosecutor, he specialized in taking down large drug trafficking organizations and served as his office’s ethics advisor. As a scholar, he now writes about plea bargaining, which has almost entirely replaced jury trials in our justice system.
Professor McConkie holds an Honors B.A. degree in history from the University of Utah (2001), where he graduated cum laude, and a J.D. degree from Stanford Law School (2004), where he was a Public Interest Fellow. From 2013 to 2015, Professor McConkie was a visiting professor at the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University.
