Valena Elizabeth Beety

Valena Elizabeth Beety serves as the Robert H. McKinney Professor of Law at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, with additional affiliation as a Senior Research Fellow at Arizona State University's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Academy for Justice. She is a leading expert on wrongful convictions and forensic evidence reform, having co-edited The Wrongful Convictions Reader which was reviewed in Cardozo Law Review de novo as offering "new perspectives to seasoned practitioners and scholars" while serving effectively as a course textbook.

Professor Beety's research program critically examines systemic flaws leading to wrongful convictions, including false confessions, witness misidentifications, cognitive bias, junk science, police and prosecutorial misconduct, and ineffective assistance of counsel. Her scholarship spans forensic science reform, drug policy, reproductive justice, and the intersection of gender, disability, and criminal justice. She has published extensively on how marginalized populations—particularly women, rural communities, and individuals with substance use disorders—are disproportionately affected by current criminal justice practices. Her work demonstrates how forensic evidence is often misapplied or overvalued in criminal proceedings, contributing to miscarriages of justice.

Analysis of Professor Beety's publication history reveals consistent focus on evolving forensic methodologies and their courtroom application. Her scholarship has progressed from examining traditional forensic issues like bite mark evidence and eyewitness identification to addressing contemporary challenges including drug-induced homicide prosecutions, the impact of facial recognition technology, and the legal implications of the Dobbs decision on pregnancy criminalization. Recent work increasingly addresses the intersection of public health crises—including the opioid epidemic and COVID-19 pandemic—with criminal justice system responses, highlighting how vulnerable populations bear disproportionate burdens.

Professor Beety actively contributes to practical legal reform efforts, having developed the Drug-Induced Homicide Defense Toolkit and provided expert analysis for forensic evidence reforms in Arizona. Her scholarship is widely cited across legal academia and has directly informed policy discussions at state and national levels regarding criminal justice reform and wrongful conviction prevention.