Access to The Champion archive is one of many exclusive member benefits. It’s normally restricted to just NACDL members. However, this content, and others like it, is available to everyone in order to educate the public on why criminal justice reform is a necessity.
Over the past year, the American criminal legal system has been under sustained assault. Across courtrooms, legislatures, and communities nationwide, we have witnessed troubling regression. For those of us committed to defending constitutional rights and human dignity, the lesson is unmistakable: justice is never self-executing. It must be defended relentlessly. The members of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers remain unwavering in that defense.
This year brought renewed attention to sentencing reform and the continuing consequences of overcriminalization. Debates over mandatory minimums, fentanyl prosecutions, and expanded detention authority revealed how deeply punitive instincts remain embedded in our system. At the same time, courts continued grappling with fundamental questions about due process, the limits of executive power, and equal treatment under law. Our members across the country are increasingly confronting a legal landscape in which constitutional protections turn on the narrowest of margins.
Nowhere were these tensions more visible than in the aggressive federal immigration enforcement operations carried out in cities across the country. In Minneapolis, my own city, large-scale ICE operations — involving heavily armed federal agents, the use of deadly force, and mass detentions — sparked widespread protest and fear throughout the community. Residents reported that families were avoiding work, school, and court appearances out of concern that ordinary public spaces had become sites of enforcement activity.
Nothing could be more fundamental than the proposition that constitutional protections do not disappear because the government invokes immigration authority. The Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments apply to every person subjected to governmental power — without exception. Defense lawyers understand that once constitutional safeguards are weakened for one group, the erosion rarely stops there. That is precisely why we fight.
Communities across the nation continued to confront persistent racial disparities, excessive punishment, inadequate defense funding, and the lasting harm of mass incarceration. Yet amid these challenges, there remain genuine reasons for optimism — and the greatest among them is the response of NACDL’s membership. Across the country, our members continue to expose wrongful convictions, challenge unconstitutional practices, and defend the principle that justice requires fairness, restraint, and accountability.
The members of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers have always understood that constitutional rights are meaningful only when enforced in real courtrooms for real people. This year reminded us that our mission remains urgent. The forces pushing toward unchecked governmental power are organized and persistent. We must be more persistent still.
About the Author
Andy Birrell is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and a Fellow of the American Board of Criminal Lawyers. He represents clients in all phases of criminal law and related matters from grand jury investigations through trials and appeals in federal and state courts throughout the United States. Birrell is also a seasoned appellate lawyer, having argued before the United States Supreme Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Andrew S. Birrell (NACDL Life Member)
Birrell Law Firm, PLLC
Minneapolis, Minnesota
612-238-1939
andy@birrell.law
https://www.birrellcriminaldefense.com
