Vida Johnson

Vida B. Johnson is an American criminal defense attorney and professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. Johnson directs the Criminal Justice Clinic, and supervises attorneys in the E. Barrett Prettyman Post-Graduate Fellowship Program. Johnson regularly writes in the area of criminal law and procedure.

Family and education Johnson's grandfather, Dr. Reverend Allen Johnson, was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi. In 1967, the Johnson family home in Laurel, Mississippi was bombed by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Reverend Johnson and his family were targeted because he was an activist in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Vida Johnson was raised in San Diego, California. Johnson earned her degree in American history. Johnson went on to law school at New York University School of Law.

Johnson is also a supervisor for the E. Barrett Prettyman Fellowship and Stuart Stiller Post-Graduate Fellowship Program. The E. Barrett Prettyman and Stuart Stiller Fellowship Program combines instruction in the Law Center's graduate school with representation of indigent clients in the local courts of the District of Columbia. It trains recent law graduates in both the academic and practical aspects of courtroom advocacy.

Johnson does indigent criminal defense work because she believes there to be criminalization of the black community that replaced the Jim Crow segregation of her grandfather's time.

Johnson supports the Black Lives Matter movement.

Johnson signed "Second chances: More harm than good?," a letter to the editor of The Washington Post, along with Professor Abbe Smith and Professor Kristin Henning. The letter criticized the "Second-Chance City" series and its negative portrayal of the Youth Rehabilitation Act. More than 1,400 law school faculty members from 180 institutions signed the letter,

Contributions to law reviews and scholarly journals Arresting Batson: How Striking Jurors Based on Arrest Records Violates Batson, 34 Yale L. & Pol'y Rev. 387 (2016). Presumed Fair? Voir Dire on the Fundamentals of Our Criminal Justice System, 45 Seton Hall L. Rev. 545 (2015). A Plea for Funds: Using Padilla, Lafler, and Frye to Increase Public Defender Resources, 51 American Criminal Law Review 403 (2014). When the Government Holds the Purse Strings but Not the Purse: Brady, Giglio, and Crime Victim Compensation Funds, 38 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 491 (2014). Effective Assistance of Counsel and Guilty Pleas—Seven Rules to Follow, 37 The Champion 24 (2013). A Word of Caution: Consequences of Confession, 10 Ohio St. J. Crim. L. 213 (2012). A Primer on Crossing an Informant, 35 The Champion 40 (2011).