Description

Roberto Hernandez is a student of Public Policy and an ABD PhD Candidate in Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He was trained as a lawyer in Mexico City and in Montreal. Together with Layda Negrete (also a Cal student) he directed and
produced a documentary film that was nominated to three Emmy awards and won an Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Journalism. The film, entitled ñPresunto CulpableÂ, was shot in a Mexico City prison over a period of two and a half years. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film festival in 2010 and won the audience award at the Los Angeles Film Festival. It was broadcast by PBS-POV series in 2010. The film holds the Box Office record for the documentary genre in Mexico, and was a catalyst for major reforms to the criminal justice system there.

This film facilitated the implementation of an amendment to the Mexican Constitution in order to include a presumption of innocence clause and open, adversarial criminal trials. Mexico faces a 2016 deadline to implement that amendment, and Roberto is actively participating in the drafting of legislation that would regulate police behavior as part of the reform effort. Roberto is currently deploying a survey in MexicoÍs prisons to estimate the effects of the new adversary trials.

Roberto has two daughters and lives in Mexico City and in Berkeley.