Longtime criminal law reform advocate Leonard N. Sosnov, a Widener University Delaware Law School professor, is set to receive the Philadelphia Bar Association Thurgood Marshall Award on Wednesday in recognition for his commitment to improving the standard of justice in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania courts.
Sosnov, who teaches and writes in the areas of criminal law, criminal procedure and evidence, spent much of his career representing poor defendants and arguing against mandatory minimum laws. His challenge to Pennsylvania’s 1982 mandatory minimum laws, in a case captioned McMillan v. Pennsylvania, went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1986, where he lost on a 5-4 decision.
