Texas Tech University

Brandon Beck

Assistant Professor of Law

Email: brandon.beck@ttu.edu

Phone: (806) 834-8586

Brandon Beck is an appellate advocate and expert in federal criminal law. His scholarship focuses on federal crime policy, legal history, the Second Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, and statutory interpretation. He has spoken on these topics at Duke University School of Law School, Notre Dame Law School, Vermont Law School, Texas A&M University School of Law, and elsewhere. Additionally, he has been quoted by Texas Monthly, Politico, Bloomberg, the Los Angeles Times, CBS, the Washington Examiner, and others, on a wide variety of criminal law topics. In 2024, he received the Texas Tech Integrated Scholars Award, a campus-wide recognition for teaching, scholarship, and service.

As an advocate, in 2019, Professor Beck argued and won United States v. Davis, 588 U.S. 445 (2019) before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2022, he persuaded the Supreme Court to grant certiorari, vacate, and remand the sentence of Treshun Bates, resulting in a new sentence of time served. Most recently, in 2024, he co-authored the Supreme Court merits brief for Respondent in United States v. Rahimi. In addition to his work before the Supreme Court, Professor Beck has argued fifteen cases before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, including an argument before the en banc court. He is a current member of the Criminal Justice Act panel for the Northern and Western Districts of Texas, where he represents indigent defendants on appeal before the Fifth Circuit.

In his past life, Professor Beck was an Assistant Federal Public Defender, a civil litigator, the editor-in-chief of a literary journal, a graduate student in the history of ancient religion, and a high school mathematics and Latin teacher. While in law school, he won the National Moot Court Competition as both an oralist and brief writer. In 2012, he was inducted into the National Order of Barristers and the National Order of Scribes.

Photo Description

Degrees

  • University of Texas at Austin, B.A., 2004
  • Boston University, M.T.S., 2007
  • Texas Tech University School of Law, J.D., 2012

Courses

  • Federal Criminal Law
  • Second Amendment Seminar
  • Legal Practice I and II

Publications

Massey v. Texas: Eroding the Exclusionary Rule and Incentivizing Police Misconduct (with Geoffrey S. Corn), 12 TEXAS A&M LAW REVIEW ____ (forthcoming 2024)

The Federal War on Guns: A Story in Four-and-a-Half Acts, 26 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA JOURNAL OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 53 (2023)

The Orwell Court: How the Supreme Court Recast History and Minimized the Role of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines to Justify Limiting the Impact of Johnson v. United States, 66 BUFFALO LAW REVIEW 1013 (2018)

Just Visiting: Health Care Liability Claims and Non-Patient Injuries in a Health Care Setting, 56 SOUTH TEXAS LAW REVIEW 483 (2015)

Current Problems (and Solutions) in Texas Personal Injury Suits Involving Motorists and Livestock, 47 TEXAS TECH LAW REVIEW 223 (2015) (with M. Shane McGuire)

...