Faculty and Staff Profile

Rhys Hester

Educational Background

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
University of Minnesota Law School 2016

PhD Criminology & Criminal Justice
University of South Carolina 2012

JD School of Law
University of South Carolina 2004

Courses Taught

Criminal Law
Criminal Procedure
Justice Administration
Criminal Courts
Professional Development
Moot Court

Profile

Dr. Hester researches and teaches in the areas of courts, sentencing and punishment, risk assessment, and judicial decision making. He is Graduate Director of the Master’s in Social Science program. Prior to joining Clemson in 2018, Hester was Deputy Director of the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing and an Associate Research Professor at Penn State. Dr. Hester previously served as a Research Fellow with the Robina Institute at the University of Minnesota Law School where he taught Criminal Procedure. Hester is also an attorney, and before entering academia, he clerked for Judge Ralph King Anderson, Jr. at the South Carolina Court of Appeals. He also enjoys studying and teaching constitutional law, especially Fourth Amendment search and seizure issues.

Hester is the author of two recent books—Sentencing without Guidelines (Temple University Press, 2024) and Sentencing Guidelines and Commissions: Comparative Perspectives (Oxford University Press, 2025) (with Roberts and Freiberg). He has published in the leading journals in his field including Criminology, Justice Quarterly, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, and Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, among others.

Dr. Hester is a consultant with the National Institute of Justice for the annual review and revalidation of the PATTERN risk assessment instrument as required by the First Step Act of 2018. In 2022-2023, he was a Visiting Research Scholar at Penn State engaged with the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing's 8th edition sentencing guidelines revisions. In 2026 he was appointed as a member of the United States Sentencing Commission’s Advisory Group on Data and Research Practices.

Outside of academia, Hester is a music and guitar enthusiast. He co-produced and played lead guitar on the 2026 album Over the Mountain by Taylor Corum. Hester's band—Swamp Rabbit Bluegrass—is currently working on its debut EP, and most weekends he can be found playing guitar with Swamp Rabbit or Corum in or around Greenville, SC.

Research Interests

• Courts and sentencing; judicial decision making


• Actuarial risk assessment instruments


• 4th Amendment (search, seizure, use of force)

Research Publications

(Selected publications--see CV for full list.)

Rhys Hester. Sentencing without Guidelines. Temple University Press.

Rhys Hester. Judicial Rotation as Centripetal Force: Sentencing in the Court Communities of South Carolina. Criminology, Vol. 55.

Rhys Hester and Todd Hartman. Conditional Race Disparities in Criminal Sentencing: A Test of the Liberation Hypothesis from a Non-Guidelines State. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Vol. 33.

Miranda Galvin, Rhys Hester, and Matthew Kleiman. Does Pretrial Status Explain Racial Disparities in Sentencing Outcomes? A Decomposition Analysis. Justice Quarterly, Vol. 42.

Ryan Labrecque, Rhys Hester, and Jason Gwinn. Revalidation of the First Step Act Risk Assessment: A Test of Predictive Strength, Dynamic Validity, and Racial/Ethnic Neutrality. Crime & Delinquency, Vol. 71.

Rhys Hester, Richard S. Frase, Julian V. Roberts, and Kelly Mitchell. Prior Record Enhancements at Sentencing: Exploring the Unsettled Justifications and Unsettling Consequences. In Michael Tonry (Ed.), Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, Vol. 47.

Rhys Hester. Prior Record and Recidivism Risk. American Journal of Criminal Justice, Vol. 44.

Rhys Hester. Reading Rights and Respecting Decisions: An Experimental Test of Consent Warnings. Journal of Crime and Justice, Vol. 42.

Honors and Awards

2019 SCJA Outstanding Article of the Year Award for the article "Prior Record and Recidivism Risk" which appeared in the American Journal of Criminal Justice.

2019 CBSHS Outstanding Journal Publication Award for the article "Conditional Race Disparities in Criminal Sentencing" which appeared in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology.

Links