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Edwin Butterfoss

B.S., Miami University of Ohio
J.D., Georgetown University Law Center

"Service to the public is the role of lawyers. As a Professor at Hamline University School of Law, I am committed to our founding mission of preparing students to be excellent lawyers and community leaders who will use their legal expertise to meet the needs of society. We strive to produce lawyers who will make society stronger through their professional competence and selflessness."

Professor Butterfoss joined the faculty from the Philadelphia law firm of Pepper, Hamilton and Scheetz, where he practiced in the areas of product liability, employment discrimination, and commercial law. He also handled pro bono cases involving prisoners' rights and was a volunteer attorney for the Support Center for Child Advocacy.

As a faculty member at Hamline, Professor Butterfoss teaches Contracts, Criminal Law, and Criminal Procedure. He is known for providing a challenging classroom environment where students learn to make solid, persuasive arguments, and to see a case from a judge's view point.

Butterfoss previously served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and was Dean of the law school from 1998 to 2003. His articles on criminal procedure are frequently cited by state and federal courts and in treatises. He has served as a special assistant Hennepin County attorney, as a member of the Mayor's Task Force on Police-Community Relations in St. Paul, a member of the Minnesota Supreme Court-Criminal Courts Study Commission, as a founding board member of the Innocence Project of Minnesota, and as a member of the ABA Accreditation Committee, which he chaired for three years. Currently, he is a member of the Minnesota Judges' Criminal Benchbook Committee and a board member of the ACLU of Minnesota and Centre Legal of Minnesota.

Selected Publications

• Chapter author in MINNESOTA JUDGES CRIMINAL BENCHBOOK (2008).
• A Suspicionless Search and Seizure Quagmire: The Supreme Court Revives the Pretext Doctrine and Creates Another Fine Fourth Amendment Mess, 40 CREIGHTON L. REV. 419 (2007) . Adapted and republished in 35 SEARCH AND SEIZURE LAW REP. (2008).
• Bright Line Breaking Point: Embracing Justice Scalia's Call for the Supreme Court To Abandon and Unreasonable Approach to Fourth Amendment Search and Seizure Law, 82 Tulane L. Rev. 77 (2007). PDF
• State v. Colosimo: Minnesota Anglers‘ Freedom from Unreasonable Searches and Seizures Becomes “The One That Got Away” , 31 William Mitchell Law Review 527 (2004) (with Joseph L. Daly) PDF
• Part-Time Legal Education: It‘s Not Your Parents’ Old Oldsmobile, 35 U. TOL. L. REV. 25 (2003). PDF
• Be My Guest: The Hidden Holding of Minnesota v. Carter , 22 Hamline Law Review 501 (1999) (with Mary Sue B. Snyder) PDF
• Extending the Guiding Lefthand of Counsel: The Minnesota Supreme Court Provides Protection against Uncounseled Waivers of the Right to Counsel During Interrogations, 17 HAMLINE L. REV. 307 (1993) (with Lisa J. Burkett). PDF
• Solving the Pretext Puzzle: The Importance of Ulterior Motives and Fabrications in the Supreme Court's Fourth Amendment Pretext Doctrine, 79 KY. L.J. 1 (1991). PDF
• Bright Line Seizures: The Need for Clarity in Determining When Fourth Amendment Activity Begins, 79 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINOLOGY 437 (1988). PDF
• As Time Goes By: The Elimination of Contemporaneity and Brevity as Factors in Search and Seizure Cases, 21 HARV. C.R.-C.L. L. REV. 603 (1986). PDF