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Richard J. Bonnie papers

 Collection
Identifier: MSS-81-9

Scope and Contents

The Bonnie Papers, given to the law library continuously since 1981, comprise 196 boxes (98 linear feet). The collection includes Bonnie's professional, legal, and research papers, covering the years from approximately 1969 through 2016. An extensive general correspondence file contains materials related to his work in the Law School and other activities; correspondence touching on most of his professional and consulting activities typically may... be found with related papers in the appropriate series. There are very few personal papers.

The collection should be useful to anyone researching drug law, particularly the debate over the decriminalization of marijuana and the rise in drug usage in the 1970s -- an era of great ferment for the drug issue in the United States. Clippings, correspondence, legislative testimony, the materials of special interest groups like NORML, and the notes for Bonnie's books convey the thoughts and attitudes that shaped the drug issue during these years. There is a similar, if not as extensive, collection of materials on the insanity defense from the early 1980s.

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Dates

  • Creation: 1913-2016

Creator

Biographical / Historical

Richard Jeffrey Bonnie, John S. Battle Professor of Law and Director of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy at the University of Virginia, is a recognized authority in the fields of mental health, drug law, and criminal law. In addition to his roles at the Law School, where he began teaching in 1969, Bonnie has worked for the federal government in various capacities, and as a private consultant.

Born in 1945 at Richmond, Virginia,...
Bonnie received his bachelor of arts degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1966, and his law degree from Virginia three years later. He ranked first in his law school class, served on the editorial board of the Virginia Law Review, and belonged to the Order of the Coif and the Raven Society.

Following graduation, Bonnie taught at the Law School for a year before becoming associate director of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, serving from 1971 to 1973. In March 1972, the commission, under the direction of former Pennsylvania governor Raymond P. Shafer, unanimously recommended the decriminalization of consumption-related marijuana offenses. Although the report was endorsed by organizations such as the National Council of Churches and the National Education Association, it was quickly rejected by President Nixon and drew only a mixed response from state legislatures. An amendment to the Uniform Controlled Substances Act, drafted partially by Bonnie and incorporating the commission's findings, was approved by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in 1973. "From 1972 through 1977," Bonnie writes in the preface to his 1980 book, Marijuana Use and Criminal Sanctions, "I was actively involved in the effort to win legislative support for reforming the marijuana laws (p. iii)." During most of these years he was also teaching at the Law School (having returned in the fall of 1973), but he found time to participate in the marijuana reform movement in several ways. Bonnie was appointed to the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse (1975-1980), served as a special assistant to the Attorney General of the United States, and helped write President Ford's White Paper on Drug Abuse in 1975. He testified on marijuana policy before two U.S. Senate subcommittees and 15 state legislative committees, and in 1976-1977 helped the National Governors' Conference develop its study on state marijuana penalties and policies. In 1977 he visited several European countries for the federal government, in part to explain the Carter administration's endorsement of marijuana decriminalization. Besides Marijuana Use, Bonnie also co-authored The Marihuana Conviction (1974) with Virginia colleague Charles H. Whitebread II, as well as numerous articles on marijuana and drug law for scholarly journals and periodicals, ranging from the Washington Post to the National Enquirer. In the 1980s, Bonnie began to move away from drug law and turn his attention more to the fields of psychiatry, mental health, and criminal law. He was chairman of the State Human Rights Committee (1979-1985), which was responsible for protecting the rights of the mentally ill and intellectually disabled in Virginia's public institutions, and co-authored a casebook on criminal law (1982) with Virginia professors Peter W. Low and John C. Jeffries, Jr. Bonnie became a noted expert on the insanity defense, a heated issue following the acquittal of John Hinckley, Jr., in 1982, for the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan. Richard J. Bonnie teaches and writes about criminal law, bioethics, and public policies relating to mental health, substance abuse, and public health. He is Harrison Foundation Professor of Medicine and Law in the School of Law, Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences in the School of Medicine, and Professor of Public Policy in the Frank S. Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.

Bonnie has been actively involved in public service throughout his academic career. He was an advisor to the White House office on drug policy from 1973-77 and secretary of the first National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse (1975‐80). From 1979‐1985, he was Chairman of Virginia's State Human Rights Committee, which is responsible for protecting the rights of residents and clients of Virginia's public services system for behavioral health and developmental disabilities. He also chaired the Commonwealth’s influential Commission on Mental Health Law Reform from 2006-2011, at the request of the Chief Justice of Virginia. Bonnie served from 1981‐88 on the Advisory Board for the American Bar Association's Criminal Justice Mental Health Standards Project, from 2004‐2007 on the ABA Task Force on Mental Illness and the Death Penalty, and is currently serving on an ABA Task Force charged with revising the Criminal Justice Mental Health Standards. He has served on three John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Networks – on Mental Health and the Law (1986-1996), Mandated Community Treatment (2000-10), and Law and Neuroscience (since 2006). He has served as an advisor to the American Psychiatric Association's Council on Psychiatry and Law since 1979, and also serves as an advisor to the Committee on Ethics, Law and Humanities of the American Academy of Neurology.

Bonnie was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 1991 and has chaired and served on numerous IOM/NRC consensus studies, ranging from elder abuse to underage drinking. He recently chaired landmark studies on tobacco policy, Ending the Tobacco Problem (2007) and juvenile justice, Reforming Juvenile Justice: A Developmental Approach (2013). He has served on governing Boards of both the IOM and NRC, including the IOM Board on Neuroscience and Behavioral Health, the NRC Committee on Law and Justice, and the NRC Board on the Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, and is currently serving on the NRC Board on Cognitive, Behavioral and Sensory Sciences. In 2002 he was awarded the Yarmolinsky Medal for his extraordinary service to the IOM and the National Academies. https://www.law.virginia.edu/faculty/profile/rjb6f/1146996

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Extent

98 Linear Feet (196 boxes)

Language of Materials

English

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