1999 News Release Chronology

1999 News Release Chronology:

November 1999 -- Criminal Defense Lawyers Call for Illinois Death Penalty Reforms
Chicago,IL, November 4, 1999 -- The nation's preeminent criminal defense bar association today said that, short of abolition of the death penalty or a moratorium on executions, proposed reforms to Illinois' capital punishment system must include implementation of new procedural safeguards aimed specifically at police and prosecutors in order to avoid further wrongful convictions. --more--

October 1999 -- Justice Dept. Cover-Up for FBI Exposed
Washington, DC, October 6, 1999 -- A federal judge has found instances where the DOJ engaged in "misconduct and bad faith" in an attempt to cover-up improprieties committed by the FBI. The cover-up consisted of repeated misrepresentations of key information in a FOIA suit brought by the NACDL, aimed at disclosing to the public new information about abuses at the FBI Lab. --more--

September 1999 -- Bounty Hunter Accountability Act
Washington, DC, September 28, 1999 -- NACDL joins Congressman Asa Hutchinson in support of legislation introduced today to safeguard the fundamental Constitutional rights of citizens against bounty hunter abuses. --more--

September 1999 -- First Waco, Now Boston?
Washington, DC, September 23, 1999 -- NACDL today called on President Clinton to take corrective measures against the FBI in light of stinging revelations in a Boston judicial proceeding last week that once again point to an agency that is violating the constitution and abusing its own internal guidelines. In a letter to Clinton, NACDL President William Moffitt cites a major federal racketeering case which revealed that the FBI disregarded the standards and procedures governing its relationship with two top echelon informants in Boston. --more--

August 1999 -- Reno Must Not Trust the FBI
Washington, DC, August 31, 1999 -- NACDL questioned Attorney General Janet Reno's willingness to involve the FBI in the investigation of the April 1993 siege at the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, Texas, in the face of recent revelations that the FBI lied about the use of flammable tear-gas canisters. In a letter to Reno, NACDL President William Moffitt pointed out that the FBI has exhibited a pattern of distortion and egregious professional misconduct in several matters--not just Waco. --more--

August 1999 -- Criminal Defense Lawyers Ask Bush For "Compassionate Conservatism" in Robison Capital Case
Washington, DC, August 16, 1999 -- William B. Moffitt, President of the NACDL, today sent the following letter to Texas Governor George W. Bush asking for clemency for diagnosed schizophrenic Larry Keith Robison, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection on August 17, 1999. --more--

July 1999 -- New Criminal Defense Lawyers' President Decries "Gutting" of Citizens Rights
Washington, DC, July 21, 1999 -- An unsettling political climate which "tramples on the constitutional rights of Americans, regardless of their innocence, and which ignores legitimate alternatives to incarceration" has made the work of criminal defense lawyers "more difficult and more essential than ever," said William B. Moffitt, incoming president of the NACDL. --more--

July 1999 -- Texas Courts Wreak Havoc With Death Penalty Cases
Washington, DC -- "The death penalty conviction process in Texas has all the integrity of a professional wrestling match," writes Stephen Bright in the July issue of The Champion, the monthly legal journal of the NACDL. "A politically-motivated Texas Court of Criminal Appeals regularly turns a blind eye and a deaf ear to even extreme travesties of justice where court-appointed lawyers have actually fallen asleep during trials or are clearly incompetent and unable to offer proper representation to people facing the death penalty." --more--

June 1999 -- House to Feds: No More Unfair Asset Grabs
Washington, DC, June 24, 1999 -- Overzealous federal law enforcement officials who unjustly seize property and assets of innocent citizens will be reined in as a result of reform legislation passed by the House today. The bi-partisan Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act "preserves the basic American principle that individuals are innocent until proven guilty and that citizens should not lose their property without due process of law," said Larry Pozner, President of the NACDL. --more--

June 1999 -- Evidence Withheld But Death Sentence Upheld
Washington, DC, June 17, 1999 -- The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that a Virginia prosecutor withheld evidence in its prosecution of Tommy Strickler for capital murder in 1990 Strickler v. Greene, No. 98-5864. The court agreed with Strickler that the evidence improperly suppressed "might have produced a different result, either at the guilt or sentencing phases." But the majority, placing the burden on the death row inmate, upheld the death sentence. --more--

June 1999 -- Loitering Law Struck Down
Washington, DC, June 11, 1999 -- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled yesterday on Chicago's "Gang Congregation Ordinance," which prohibits "criminal street gang members" from "loitering" with one another or with other persons in any public place with "no apparent purpose." Chicago v. Morales, No. 97-1121. The ordinance violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. --more--

June 1999 -- Court Blocks Short-Cut to Death Row
Washington, DC, June 10, 1999 -- The U.S. Supreme Court today unanimously agreed that using one suspect's tape-recorded confession to help convict another suspect violates the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Lilly v. Virginia, 98-5881. --more--

June 1999 -- Supreme Court Opts for Empty Ritual: Prisoners Must Petition State Supreme Courts
Washington, DC, June 7, 1999 -- The U.S. Supreme Court today held that before state prisoners can seek federal habeas corpus relief, they must first petition the state supreme courts for discretionary review, even in states, like Illinois, which leave such matters to the state's intermediate appellate court. O'Sullivan v. Boerckel, 97-2048.--more--

June 1999 -- Supreme Court Vacates Drug Conviction: Right to Jury Unanimity Upheld
Washington, DC, June 1, 1999 -- The U.S. Supreme Court today held that before a jury can find that the government has proven the federal crime of "Continuing Criminal Enterprise," it must agree that a "continuing series" of drug offenses was proven beyond a reasonable doubt -- and must be unanimous as to what those offenses were. Richardson v.United States, 97-8629. --more--

May 1999 -- Media on Police Raids: Unconstitutional -- News Gatherers, Not Carrion Feeders
Washington, DC, May 24, 1999 -- The U.S. Supreme Court today decided two companion cases which test the constant tension between individual rights and the public's right to know, Hanlon v. Berger, 97-1927 and Wilson v. Lane, 98-83. In both of these cases, the Court held, police authorities who invite news media to observe the execution of search warrants violate the Fourth Amendment privacy rights. --more--

May 1999 -- Supreme Court Decision on Forfeiture -- Florida v. White
Washington, DC, May 17, 1999 -- Chipping away at what remains of the Fourth Amendment, the U. S. Supreme Court today — overruling the Florida Supreme Court — upheld the warrantless seizure of an automobile the police believed was used in drug trafficking several months earlier. --more--

April 1999 -- Searching Auto Passengers
Washington, DC, April 5, 1999 -- In response to today's U.S. Supreme Court decision in Wyoming v. Houghton, permitting searches of automobile passengers when only the driver is suspected of criminal conduct, NACDL issued the following statement. "We're becoming a police state," said NACDL President Larry S. Pozner, of Denver. --more--

March 1999 -- News Gatherers, Not Carrion Feeders
Washington, DC, March 24, 1999 -- The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument today in two companion cases which test the constant tension between individual rights and the public's right to know. In both of these cases, authorities invited news media to accompany them on "raids," and the aggrieved citizens later sued. --more--

March 1999 -- Champion Magazine Explores 'Gideon at 36 Years': Funding Justice for All
Washington, DC, March 24, 1999 -- Recognizing that more than 36 years after the Gideon decision the playing field is still steeply sloped in favor of the prosecution, The Champion, NACDL's monthly magazine, devotes its April issue to a national crisis of concern to judges, legislators, prosecutors and defense lawyers alike: the problem of delivery of legal services to the poor. --more--

March 1999 -- Gideon at 36 Years: Competent Counsel or Shoddy Advocacy?
Washington, DC, March 18, 1999 -- Thirty-six years ago today, in the landmark Gideon v. Wainwright ruling, the United States Supreme Court recognized the Sixth Amendment command that competent counsel must be provided for everyone accused of a crime. Despite that mandate, funding for defending the indigent accused is woefully inadequate. --more--

March 1999 -- The Murder of Rosemary Nelson: Impartial Outside Investigation Urged
Washington, DC, March 16, 1999 -- NACDL expresses outrage and profound grief over the murder of human rights lawyer Rosemary Nelson, who was killed by a car bomb outside her home in Northern Ireland yesterday. "On behalf of our 10,000 members on both sides of the Atlantic, I am calling for an immediate and independent inquiry into this case to forestall any possibility of official cover-up of this heinous crime," said NACDL President, Larry Pozner. --more--

March 1999 -- "Perp Walks" Should be Outlawed
Washington, DC, March 3, 1999 -- "'Perp walks' are offensive to any conceivable notion of justice in America and to the Constitution that underlies our justice system. This self-serving, police practice of parading citizens under arrest -- alleged "perpetrators" -- before photographers and TV cameras destroys their presumption of innocence. Police departments across the country should cease and desist immediately," Larry Pozner, NACDL President, said today. --more--

March 1999 -- Defense Lawyers Urge Germany to Impose Economic Sanctions In Protest of LaGrand Executions
Washington, DC, March 1, 1999 -- NACDL urges German companies which do business in the United States to withhold economic investment in the 38 states which execute imprisoned criminals. The 10,000-member organization is protesting last week's execution of German national Karl LaGrand and the impending execution Wednesday of his brother Walter, also a German citizen. --more--

February 1999 -- Winning at Any Cost: Prosecutorial Excess Distorting America's Justice System
Washington, DC, February 9, 1999 -- A slew of recent investigative reports in major newspapers across America document that excess by prosecutors, both federal and local, are on the rise and often in flagrant violation of the very laws prosecutors are sworn to defend. --more--

February 1999 -- Imprisoning America's Poor -- a Crisis in Defense Funding
Washington, DC, February 4, 1999 -- America's criminal justice system is beset with a fatal flaw: funding for the defense of the indigent accused is so woefully inadequate that the adversary system —- indeed the justice system itself -— is breaking down. As a result, justice has become an empty promise for all but the most wealthy in America. --more--

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL)
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