The Board of Regents presented law professor Jim Ellis with the Meritorious Service Award earlier this month for his teaching career of over three decades and a landmark victory he won before the Supreme Court.
"He's a man who's devoted his time to doing what's good for children and people with disabilities," Regent Raymond Sanchez said. "He's a real role model. He's one of the most acclaimed teachers at UNM, and the students really, really like him."
Ellis has taught at UNM since 1976 and still teaches classes on constitutional rights, the rights of children, and mental health and retardation law.
During his tenure, he has filed briefs in 18 Supreme Court cases.
In 2002, he argued before the Supreme Court that executing mentally retarded prisoners violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.
It was the first case Ellis had argued before any court, but the justices agreed with him, making the execution of mentally retarded prisoners unconstitutional.
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The decision would not have been made without Ellis' personal dedication, said Anthony Amsterdam, a law professor from New York University.
"That was as much a one-person victory as any major Supreme Court decision affecting a momentous change can ever be," Amsterdam said. "Jim not only succeeded in persuading the Supreme Court that there was a national consensus against inflicting the death penalty against persons with mental retardation, he was actually responsible for creating that consensus."
Amsterdam said Ellis founded the field of disability law.
Ellis said he began advocating for the rights of mentally disabled prisoners in the 1970s because they were being treated unjustly by the law.
"People with mental disabilities are not the natural constituency for legislatures, and they're not a natural source of concern for the courts," he said. "It would be my hope that when the Supreme Court makes a decision that affects people with mental disabilities, the prejudices that they bring - that we all bring - are replaced with a deeper understanding of why they should be treated in a more humane way."
Ellis was named the Henry Weihofen Endowed Chair at the School of Law in October for his work in the courtroom and the classroom, law school dean Suellyn Scarnecchia said.
Alumna Kate Girard, who graduated from the law school in May, said Ellis' strength as a teacher is the trust he places in his students.
"The thing that professor Ellis really provides to us is the sense that we can do anything and change the world," she said. "He trusts us and gives us freedom when we do our work, and those are the hallmarks of a great teacher."
Ellis said UNM law students have always been crucial to the cases he has argued before the Supreme Court.
"They help us in researching and writing the briefs," he said. "In most cases, the students have been able to attend the cases before the Supreme Court and see what they've been working on come to fruition. That's been really helpful in helping them to see how law at that level is practiced."
Dick Burr, a lawyer from Houston who has worked with Ellis, said Ellis started fighting the application of the death penalty on the mentally retarded in the Supreme Court in 1989, but he was unsuccessful. He didn't give up, and began pursuing the issue in state courts until a consensus was achieved, Burr said.
He said Ellis went back to the Supreme Court and delivered an argument that changed how constitutional law is interpreted in the U.S.
"Going from state to state on a long, 12-year sojourn, he got a number of state legislatures to preclude death for people with mental retardation," he said. "He changed the constitutional terrain of the country entirely."
