[S]OUTH ROYALTON — Robert Sand said he was taught in law school and during his early days as a prosecutor to maximize the strength of his case while exploiting the weaknesses of the defense.
“That’s a perfectly fine approach in the adversarial system and it’s not a bad way to arrive at facts,” Sand said, “but I really came to believe that it’s really not a great way to arrive at justice.”
Sand is now a professor at Vermont Law School after more than two decades as a prosecutor, including most of that time as the Windsor County state’s attorney. He is also a frequent witness providing testimony to the Vermont House and Senate Judiciary committees on criminal justice topics, including most recently the legalization of marijuana.
Now he is taking on a new role.
Sand will be the director of the new Center for Justice Reform at the law school in South Royalton. Vermont Law School is launching the degree program Thursday.
“I have had a longtime interest in alternatives to the more conventional punitive model,” Sand said this week. “I think that the law school recognizes that based on the national dialogue there is a real need to teach students other ways to think about harm and conflict and crime.”
The center will offer degrees and certification programs for law and master’s students, criminal justice professionals, educators or other community members seeking to learn about restorative justice approaches and who want to develop alternative responses to harm.
The center will offer a master of arts in restorative justice degree, a joint master’s degree in restorative justice and JD, or law degree, as well as professional certification in restorative justice.
“Students will be able to take (the master’s) as a standalone degree, or in conjunction with a JD,” Sand said. “We will be the only law school in the country that has a combined JD and a master’s of arts and restorative justice.”
Sand’s vision is for the center as it grows to also serve as a hub of research and policy work in the field of restorative justice.
“The first step is enrolling our inaugural class,” he said, with students expecting to start taking classes in the fall of 2018.
Another goal is to establish an expungement clinic, according to Sand, where students under attorney supervision will help Vermonters clear old convictions off their records.
“Vermont Law School has long led the field in pioneering law and policy programs, and our
uniquely positioned Center for Justice Reform continues that leadership,” VLS President
and Dean Thomas McHenry said in a statement announcing the center.
Courses will not focus exclusively on the criminal justice system, but in other areas as well, such as education. Teachers and academic administrator can develop restorative justice skills to keep more students in schools rather than suspended or expelled, Sand said.
“It is a different way to think about harm and conflict,” he said of restorative justice, adding that it looks for ways for those harmed to be a given a voice in the response and for those who have caused harm to make amends.
“Ultimately, the goal is healing, rather than punishment,” Sand said. “Punishment may be part of that process, but that is not the overarching goal.”
The master’s degree program will include both on-campus and online courses. The law and master’s degree program is designed to allow students to obtain both degrees in three academic years, the same time it usually takes to earn the JD agree alone, according to the school.
Courses that will be offered include Critical Issues in Restorative Justice; Adversity, Trauma, and Victimization; and Restorative Justice in Educational Institutions.
The professional certification in restorative justice will be a summer program with online and on-campus classes.
Sand, a 1987 graduate of the law school, said he would have liked to have such courses and programs available to him back when he was a student on the South Royalton campus.
“I don’t regret my work as a prosecutor at all,” he said, “but I wish I had been able to think about it a little differently from the get-go.”
