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Our History: Former Faculty [Fall 2020 - this site is under construction as we update this list]: Low, Peter W. (1964-2014)

Tenured faculty at the University of Virginia School of Law through its history.

Peter W. Low, 1964-2014

Peter Low
Hardy Cross Dillard Professor of Law Emeritus
LL.B., University of Virginia School of Law, 1963
A.B., Princeton University, 1959
 

After earning his law degree, Peter Low clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren. He joined the Virginia law faculty the next year, 1964, and retired in 2014. For about half of the period from 1965 until 1985, Low served as assistant and then associate dean. In 1989 he was appointed academic associate dean, a position he held until Jan. 1, 1994, when he was named the acting vice president and provost of the University. He became the vice president and provost of the University in July of 1994 and served in that position until Sept. 1, 2001. He then returned to the law faculty. After his return, he continued to serve in various capacities for the next 13 years as the University’s representative to an international consortium of universities (see www.universitas21.com).

Low became the Hardy Cross Dillard Professor of Law in 1975. He was the first recipient of the John V. Ray Research Professorship in Law in 1987, a two-year appointment. His major teaching areas were criminal law and federal courts, in both of which he co-authored widely used teaching casebooks. At various times, he also taught federal criminal law, civil rights litigation, civil procedure, constitutional law, conflict of laws and a number of specialized seminars in one or another of these fields. He taught in the initial session of the Law School’s summer LL.M. program for judges. He lectured frequently to state and local police and FBI agents at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., from 1972 to 1982, and served as the academic coordinator for law-related instruction at the academy from 1970 until 2000. He was a member of the faculty at the law session of the Salzburg Seminars in American Studies in 1972, and was a visiting fellow at the Institute of Criminology at Cambridge University in England for six months in 1970. He was also a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford law schools in the 1970s. He is a member of the Raven Society, and a Life Member of the American Law Institute. He served as Reporter for the Commentaries of the Model Penal Code from 1970 until 1978 and for an American Bar Association Committee on Standards for Criminal Justice in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was also a Consultant to the National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws and the Virginia Commission on Constitutional Revision during the same period.
 

 

Publications

Books

Standards Relating to Appellate Review of Sentences (reporter) (American Bar Association Project on Minimum Standards for Criminal Justice, 1968).

Standards Relating to Sentencing Alternatives and Procedure (reporter) (American Bar Association Project on Minimum Standards for Criminal Justice, 1968).

Standards Relating to Probation (contributor) (American Bar Association Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, 1970).

Final Report: A Proposed New Federal Criminal Code (Title 18, United States Code) (consultant on Sentencing; Theft; and Forgery and Other Fraudulent Practices) (National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws, 1971).

Standards Relating to the Administration of Criminal Justice: Compilation with Index (co-editor) (American Bar Association Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, 1974).

Model Penal Code and Commentaries (Official Draft and Revised Commentaries): Part II, Definition of Specific Crimes (reporter, with John Calvin Jeffries, Jr.) (American Law Institute, 1980).

Criminal Law: Cases and Materials (with John C. Jeffries, Jr. & Richard J. Bonnie) (Foundation Press, 1982; 2d. ed. 1986, with supplements).

Criminal Law (West, 1984; rev. 1990; 2d ed. 2002; 3d ed. 2007).

Model Penal Code and Commentaries (Official Draft and Revised Commentaries): Part I, General Provisions (reporter, with others) (American Law Institute, 1985).

The Trial of John W. Hinckley, Jr.: A Case Study in the Insanity Defense (with John Calvin Jeffries, Jr. and Richard J. Bonnie) (Foundation Press, 1986; 2d. ed. 2000; 3d ed. 2008).

Federal Courts and the Law of Federal-State Relations (with John Calvin Jeffries, Jr.) (Foundation Press, 1987; 2d ed. 1989; 3d ed. 1994; 4th ed. 1998; 5th ed. 2004; 6th ed. 2008, with supplements).

Civil Rights Actions: Section 1983 and Related Statutes (with John C. Jeffries, Jr.) (Foundation Press, 1988; 2d. ed. 1994, with supplements).

Criminal Law: Cases and Materials (with Richard J. Bonnie, Anne M. Coughlin & John C. Jeffries, Jr.) (Foundation Press, 1997; 2d ed. 2004; 3d ed. 2010; 4th ed. 2015).

Federal Criminal Law (with Joseph L. Hoffmann) (Foundation Press, 1997).

Civil Rights Actions: Enforcing the Constitution (with John C. Jeffries, Jr., Pamela S. Karlan, and George A. Rutherglen) (Foundation Press, 2000; 2d ed. 2007; 3d ed. 2013, with supplements).

Federal Criminal Law (Foundation Press, 2d ed. 2003).

Federal Courts and the Law of Federal-State Relations (with John Calvin Jeffries and Curtis A. Bradley) (Foundation Press, 7th ed. 2011; 8th ed. 2014, with supplements).

Articles and Book Chapters

Comment on Forgery and Fraud Offenses: Sections 1737, 1738, 1751-1758, in 2 Working Papers of the National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws 959-982 (National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws, 1970).

Comment on the Sentencing System: Part C, in 2 Working Papers of the National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws 1289-1337 (National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws, 1970).

Comment on Theft Offenses: Sections 1731-1741 (with Richard A. Green), in 2 Working Papers of the National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws 913-957 (National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws, 1970).

Preliminary Memorandum on Sentencing Structure, in 2 Working Papers of the National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws 1245-1287 (National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws, 1970).

Special Offender Sentencing, 8 Am. Crim. L.Q. 70-104 (1970).

Reform of the Sentencing Process, 29 Cambridge L.J. 237-257 (1971).

The Crime of Burglary under the Model Penal Code, Prac. Law., Dec. 1, 1980, at 33-50.

The Model Penal Code, the Common Law, and Mistakes of Fact: Recklessness, Negligence, or Strict Liability?, 19 Rutgers L.J. 539-567 (1988).

Lambert Revisited (with Benjamin Charles Wood), 100 Va. L. Rev. 1603-1681 (2014).

Changing the Vocabulary of the Vagueness Doctrine (with Joel S. Johnson), 101 Va. L. Rev. 2051-2116 (2015).

Other

Statement, in Measures Relating to Organized Crime 184-213, 542-545 (Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Hearings, Mar. 18-June 4, 1969).

Low Analyzes Reforms Submitted to Congress, Va. L. Wkly., Sept. 24, 1971, at 1-4; reprinted in 23 Va. L. Wkly. Dicta 1-8 (1971-72).

Review of Frankel, Criminal Sentences, 87 Harv. L. Rev. 687-692 (1974).

Constitutionalizing the Criminal Law? (with John Calvin Jeffries, Jr.), Va. L. Wkly., Mar. 25, 1977, at 1, 3-4.

Monrad Paulsen, 63 Va. L. Rev. 170-173 (1977).

Police Legal Education (with John Calvin Jeffries, Jr.), Va. L. Sch. Rep., Spring 1979, at 21-23.

Monrad G. Paulsen: Dean 1968-76, Va. L. Sch. Rep., Summer 1988, at 14-16.

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