About Dr. James Diamond

James D. Diamond teaches and writes about criminal law, criminal courts and indigenous peoples. His  book, “After The Bloodbath: Is Healing Possible In The Wake of Rampage Shootings,” was published in 2020 by The Michigan State University Press.  After The Bloodbath produces insights linking rampage shootings and communal responses in the United States. The book looks to the roots of Indigenous approaches to crime, identifying an institutional weakness in the Anglo judicial model, and explores adapting Indigenous practices that contribute to healing following heinous criminal behavior.

Diamond is the Interim Director of the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program and Professor of Practice at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law.

In 2021-2022 Diamond was Visiting Professor of Law at Roger Williams University School of Law in Bristol, Rhode Island. He taught Federal Indian Law, Tribal Courts, Law & Governments, Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure there.

Diamond is the former Director of the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program’s Tribal Justice Clinic and law professor at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. Diamond taught the Tribal Justice Clinic, Tribal Courts/Tribal Law, and both Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure in the B.A. in Law degree program there. Diamond was a Special Prosecutor in the Pascua Yaqui Tribal Court in Arizona. 

Diamond is the former Dean of Academic Affairs at The National Tribal Trial College (NTTC) where he trained victim advocates who work in Tribal Courts in domestic and sexual violence cases. He was on the faculty of the NTTC from 2016-2022.

Prior to teaching, Diamond practiced law for 25 years in Connecticut. He achieved success as a criminal attorney as both a state prosecutor and a defense attorney. Diamond is certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy as a criminal trial specialist, has extensive criminal trial experience and was the lead lawyer in more than 1,000 criminal cases.

Diamond is admitted to practice law in numerous Tribal Courts, the States of Connecticut, Arizona, New York and numerous federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court. Diamond obtained a doctoral degree (S.J.D.) in Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy from the University of Arizona College of Law, a juris doctor (J.D.) from Brooklyn Law School and a bachelor’s degree (B.A.) from The State University of New York at Albany. 

2018: The Tribal Justice Clinic visits with the judges of the Tohono O’odham Nation Tribal Court, in Sells, Arizona.

1981: Diamond (far right) announcing N.Y.S. election law reform legislation.

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Header photograph: After a tragic mass shooting, students at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, VA conduct a candlelight vigil, December 10, 2011. Photo by Chris Keane, Reuters. Reprinted with permission.