Pro Publica, a public interest news site, quoted Associate Dean Dan Filler in an Aug. 3 story that examined state efforts to sidestep a U.S. Supreme Court ruling involving teen felons. Though the Supreme Court struck down mandatory life without parole sentences for minors, states such as Iowa are hoping to make offenders who received life-without-parole sentences eligible for parole after 60 years, effectively leaving them in prison for life.  The article also appeared in Salon and Mother Jones. 

Filler, who praised the court in the immediate aftermath of the ruling, told Pro Publica that the states’ initiatives reveal that the decision left openings. "When you look at the decision closely, it implicitly leaves room for exactly what the governor of Iowa did . . . You have to see this decision as entirely cloudy. Different states are going to try different things," Filler concluded.

Filler was appointed to the Pennsylvania Advisory Committee on Capital Punishment in 2012. Also in 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that cited a report that resulted from an American Bar Association study Filler chaired in 2006 that examined the fairness of Alabama’s death-penalty system.