Faculty & Administration View All

O. C. Snead

Associate Professor of Law

Office Number: 2141 Eck Hall of Law
Telephone: 574.631.8259
Fax: 574.631.4197
Email: snead.1@nd.edu
Staff Assistant: Debi Jones

Professor Carter Snead joined the faculty in 2005. His principal area of research is Public Bioethics – the governance of science, medicine, and biotechnology in the name of ethical goods. His scholarly works have explored issues relating to neuroethics, enhancement, stem cell research, abortion, and end-of-life decisionmaking. His articles have appeared in such publications as the New York University Law Review, the Harvard Law Review Forum, Constitutional Commentary, Quaderni Costituzionale, the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law and Ethics, the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, and Political Science Quarterly. Professor Snead teaches Law & Bioethics, Torts, and Constitutional Criminal Procedure.

In addition to his scholarship and teaching, Professor Snead has provided advice on the legal and public policy dimensions of bioethical questions to officials in all three branches of the U.S. government, and in several intergovernmental fora. Prior to joining the law faculty at Notre Dame, Professor Snead served as General Counsel to The President’s Council on Bioethics (Chaired by Dr. Leon R. Kass), where he was the primary drafter of the 2004 report, “Reproduction and Responsibility: The Regulation of New Biotechnologies.” In 2006, he testified in the U.S. House of Representatives on regulatory questions concerning RU-486 (the abortion pill). From 2004 to 2005, Professor Snead led the U.S. government delegation and served as its chief negotiator for the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (adopted in October 2005). He served (along with Dr. Edmund Pellegrino) as U.S. government’s Permanent Observer to the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee on Bioethics (CDBI), where he assisted in its efforts to elaborate international instruments and standards for the ethical governance of science and medicine. In conjunction with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), he regularly lectures to state and federal judges on the uses of neuroimaging in the courtroom. He was recently appointed by the Director-General of UNESCO to a four-year term on the International Bioethics Committee (IBC), a 36-member body of independent experts that advises member states on bioethics, law, and public policy. The IBC is the only bioethics commission in the world with a global mandate.

Professor Snead received his J.D., magna cum laude, from Georgetown University (where he was elected to the Order of the Coif), and his B.A. from St. John’s College (Annapolis, MD). He clerked for the Hon. Paul J. Kelly, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

In the News

LAW60901, Torts

LAW70359, Constitutional Criminal Procedure

LAW73828, Bioethics and the Law Seminar (Netid Required)

Faculty Expertise Areas

  • Bioethics
  • Constitutional law
  • Criminal law and procedure
  • Law, science and medicine

Articles

Memory and Justice (in progress).

Cognitive Neuroscience, Retributive Justice, and the Eighth Amendment, in WILL TECHNOLOGY MAKE THE CONSTITUTION OBSOLETE? (Jeffrey Rosen, ed., Brookings Institute forthcoming 2010).

Human Dignity in American Public Bioethics in HUMAN DIGNITY IN BIOETHICS: FROM WORLDVIEWS TO THE PUBLIC SQUARE (Stephen C. Dilley & Nathan J. Palpant, eds.) (in progress).

I profili costituzionali delle decisioni sulle cure di persone incapaci tra libertà e giusto processo, con uno sguardo oltreoceano (The Constitutional Aspects of Health Care Decisions of Incompetent Persons Between Freedom and Due Process, with an Across-the-Ocean View), __ QUADERNI COSTITUZIONALE __ (forthcoming 2010) (with Prof. Andrea Simoncini).

Public Bioethics, Science, and the Problem of Integration, 43 U.C. DAVIS L. REV __ (forthcoming 2010)

Response to Nicholas Boyle’s “God, Sex, and America: The Decline of the Common Morality, Power, and the Emergence of a Global Ethical Life,” JOURNAL OF LAW, PHILOSOPHY, AND CULTURE, (forthcoming 2009).

Public Bioethics and the Bush Presidency, 32 HARV. J. OF L. & PUB. POL. 867 (2009).

Bioethics and Self-Governance: The Lessons of the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, 34 J. MED. & PHIL. 204 (2009).

Neuroimaging and Capital Punishment, 19 The New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology and Society 35 (2008).

A Review of Helena Silverstein’s How Courts Fail Pregnant Minors (NYU Press 2007)), __ Political Science Quarterly __ (forthcoming Spring 2008) (peer reviewed) (invited submission).

Neuroimaging and the ‘Complexity’ of Capital Punishment, 82 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1265-1339 (2007).

Unenumerated Rights and the Limits of Analogy: A Critique of the Right to Medical Self-Defense, 121 Harv. L. Rev. F. 1-12 (2007). (Responding to Eugene Volokh, Medical Self-Defense, Prohibited Experimental Therapies, and Payment for Organs, 120 Harvard L. Rev. 1813 (2007).)

Neuroimaging, Entrapment, and the Predisposition to Crime, 7 American J. of Bioethics 60-61 (2007), (Invited Peer Commentary).

Assessing UNESCO’s Universal Declaration of Bioethics and Human Rights, 7 National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 53-72 (2007) (invited essay).

Il finanziamento delle ricerche sulle cellule staminali in Europa e negli USA (A Comparative Analysis of E.U. and U.S. Funding Policies for Embryonic Stem Cell Research: Details, Aims, and Effects), 4 Quaderni Costituzionale 834 (2006) (translated from English to Italian by Prof. Stefania Ninatti) )

The (Suprising) Truth about Schiavo: A Defeat for the Cause of Autonomy, 22 Const. Comm. 101 (2005) (reprinted in Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. (ed.), Life and Learning XVI (2006)).

The Pedagogical Significance of the Bush Stem Cell Policy: A Window into the Nature of Bioethical Regulation in the U.S., 5 Yale J. Health Pol’y, L. & Ethics 491 (2005) (peer reviewed) (invited submission) (reprinted in Judith F. Daar, Reproductive Technologies and the Law (Lexis 2005)).

Dynamic Complementarity: Terri’s Law and Separation of Powers Principles in the End-of-Life Context, 57 Fla. L. Rev. 53 (2005).

Preparing the Groundwork for a Responsible Debate on Stem Cell Research and Cloning, 39 New Eng. L. Rev. 701 (2005) (Keynote address for 2004 Symposium, “Bioethics: The Current Stem Cell Research Debate”) (to be reprinted in Anila V. Menon, Legal and Ethical Aspects of Cloning (ICFAI Books 2006)).

Technology and the Constitution, 5 The New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology and Society 61 (Spring 2004).

Federal Criminal Conspiracy, 35 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 739 (1998) (Co-Author).