- Email:
- cjcho@iu.edu
- Phone:
- (812) 855-1257
- Location:
Education
- Indiana University Maurer School of Law, JD 2008
- Cornell University, BS 2004
Biography
Professor Cindy Cho joined the Maurer faculty in 2023. Before that, she was a federal prosecutor for over a decade, first as a Trial Attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Consumer Protection Branch, and then as an Assistant U.S. Attorney with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana--where she also served as Chief of the Criminal Division--and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. She teaches legal research and writing, as well as criminal procedure; she researches and writes on criminal law, procedure, and other areas that implicate the work of prosecutors. Her writing has appeared in Slate, the Northwestern University Law Review Online, and the Ohio State Law Journal Online. She is a recipient of the Indiana University Trustees’ Teaching Award (2025) and the Black Law Students Association's Alumni Public Interest Award (2025).
Professor Cho’s work as a prosecutor garnered multiple awards during her career with the Department of Justice, including a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force National Award for Innovative Investigation Efforts for the prosecution of a dark web heroin and cocaine trafficking organization; a U.S. Food and Drug Administration Special Achievement Award for the prosecution of a drug manufacturing CEO who defrauded the FDA and distributed adulterated drugs; and a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General’s Award for Excellence in Fighting Fraud, Waste, and Abuse for the prosecution of a nursing home executive and others who solicited and received millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks. She also prosecuted numerous cases arising from the siege of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Before joining the U.S. Department of Justice through the Honors Program, Professor Cho clerked for Judge Danny C. Reeves on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky and traveled to Windhoek, Namibia, on a Fulbright scholarship.
In the Media
- Quoted in "Four men with NWI ties among those pardoned by Trump for Jan. 6 Capitol breach," Chicago Tribune (1/21/2025)
- Quoted in "Lawsuit alleges IN Medicaid overpayments in the hundreds of millions," Fox 59 News (9/19/2024)
- Quoted in "Harris' record as Calif. AG hints at aggressive approach to polluters," E&E News (7/26/2024)
- Co-wrote "Prosecutors Should Charge Big Oil With Homicide for the Latest Heat-Wave Deaths," Slate (7/8/2024)
- Quoted in "Legal Memo Makes Case for Prosecuting Big Oil Over Extreme Heat Deaths," Common Dreams (6/26/2024)
- Quoted in "Legal Memo Makes Case for Prosecuting Big Oil Over Extreme Heat Deaths," Common Dreams (6/26/2024)
- Quoted in "'Climate homicide' architects pitch theory to prosecutors," E&E News (4/9/2024)
- Quoted in "Proposal to hold fossil fuel companies responsible for climate change gains traction," Interesting Engineering (3/23/2024)
- Quoted in "Fossil fuel firms could be tried in US for homicide over climate-related deaths, experts say," The Guardian (3/21/2024)
Selected works
- Climate Prosecution as Climate Regulation, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW ONLINE (forthcoming 2025)
- What Fischer v. United States Gets Wrong About Prosecutorial Discretion, OHIO STATE LAW JOURNAL ONLINE (forthcoming 2024).
- Charging Big Oil with Climate Homicide - Preliminary Prosecution Memo for July 2023 Heat Wave, Published by Public Citizen (with Aaron Regunberg, David Arkush, and Donald Braman) (June 26, 2024).
Areas of expertise
- Criminal law
- Criminal procedure
- Legal research and writing