NACDL - National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers

Algorithmic Power and Carceral Expansion: AI, Markets, and the Privatization of State Authority

Explores how privately developed AI systems are reshaping how the state exercises power in the criminal legal system. This opening session will examine the political economy of AI, including vendor influence, procurement practices, proprietary algorithms, and the implications for democratic accountability, constitutional rights, and defense advocacy

• Amba Kak, Co-Executive Director, AI Now 

Beyond "Neutral Tools": Ethical Limits in the Criminal System

AI is often presented as objective and efficiency-enhancing, but its deployment occurs within a system marked by deep structural inequality. This panel interrogates ethical frameworks for deploying AI in criminal legal contexts, focusing on bias, opacity, automation bias, due process, and whether some uses of AI are fundamentally incompatible with justice. 

• Amba Kak, Co-Executive Director, AI Now 
• Michael Ralph, Professor and Chair of Afro-American Studies, Howard University
• Megan Graham, Associate Clinical Professor and Director of the Technology Law Clinic, University of Iowa College of Law
• Praavita Kashyap, Legal Fellow, NACDL Fourth Amendment Center (Moderator)

Toward Model AI Ethics Guidelines for Defense Lawyers

As AI increasingly shapes both defense practice and the evidence used against clients, defense lawyers face new ethical challenges. This session focuses on developing model ethics guidelines addressing competence, confidentiality, and client consent. 

• Katherine Tang Newberger, First Assistant Federal Public Defender for the District of Maryland

Challenging Carceral AI

Confront the growing use of artificial intelligence as a tool of surveillance, punishment, and social control. This conversation will examine how AI technologies reproduce structural inequality in the criminal legal system while shielding powerful institutions from accountability. The speakers will address the limitations of AI, explore how AI entrenches racial and social hierarchies, and the ethical concerns of unleashing these tools in a system marked by a lack of due process, mass incarceration and racial injustice.

• Dr. Timnit Gebru, Founder and Executive Director, The Distributed Artifical Intelligence Research (DAIR) Institute
• Jumana Musa, Director, NACDL Fourth Amendment Center

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What’s in the Black Box?: Litigation and Practice Challenges of AI in Criminal Cases

This practice-oriented panel examines how AI appears in everyday criminal cases and the obstacles it creates for defense attorneys. Topics include discovery and disclosure, trade secret claims, admissibility, expert testimony, and strategies for cross-examining and contesting AI-generated or AI-assisted evidence.

• Maneka Sinha, Professor, George Washington University Law School
• Rebecca Wexler, Professor, Columbia Law School
• Elizabeth Daniel Vasquez, Founder and President, The Forensice Evidence Table
• Michael Price, Litigation Director, NACDL Fourth Amendment Center (Moderator) 

Watching Kids: AI, Youth Surveillance, and Criminalization

Young people are increasingly subject to AI-driven surveillance through schools, social media monitoring, and predictive systems. This panel explores how these technologies affect privacy, autonomy, and pathways into the criminal legal system, with particular attention to racialized impacts and long-term consequences for youth.

• Nila Bala, Professor, University of California Davis School of Law 
• Lia Epperson, Professor, American University Washington College of Law
• Clarence Okoh, Senior Attorney for Civil Rights and Techology, TechTonic Justice
• Shreya Tewari, Resource Counsel, NACDL Fourth Amendment Center