David Michael Crane (born May 29, 1950)[1] is an American lawyer who was the Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) from April 2002 until July 15, 2005.

[2] Born in Santa Monica, California, Crane attended Ohio University, earning a Bachelor of General Studies degree in history in 1972 and an M.A.

[8][9] In conjunction with Syracuse University College of Law students, Crane started Impunity Watch, an online publication which seeks to inform the world of human rights violations in real-time.

[10] Following his time as founding Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Crane and his fellow prosecutors DeSilva and Brenda Hollis traveled to The Hague, Netherlands on September 26, 2013, to witness the upholding of Taylor's 50-year sentence by the special court's appeals judges.

In July 2018, the United Nations Human Rights Council appointed Crane to co-chair (alongside Sara Hossain and Kaari Betty Murungi) a three-person Commission of Inquiry into the killing of at least 140 Palestinians by the Israeli army.

In 2017, Crane founded the Global Accountability Network to investigate international crimes in Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, and China.