NACDL - National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers

I write to you today to urge you to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier, an 80-year-old member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and boarding school survivor who has spent nearly five decades in federal prison. His case has become a symbol of hope and resilience in the face of systemic injustices. Indeed, Mr. Peltier is an icon of the American Indian Movement who has devoted his life to fighting for the liberation of Indigenous Peoples.

We write to you with a united voice and call on you to use your Executive power and grant commutations to everyone currently facing the death penalty at the federal level.

NACDL welcomes the opportunity to comment on the Drug Enforcement Agency’s proposed rule on the status of marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act. NACDL urges the DEA to reconsider its proposed rule and issue a new rule to deschedule marijuana. Rescheduling marijuana to Schedule III will not end federal marijuana arrests, even for possession and use, it will not release anyone from prison, and it will not expunge previous marijuana arrests from individuals’ criminal records. NACDL contends that rescheduling marijuana is simply not enough, and marijuana should be federally descheduled.

We advocate for immediate commutation of sentences, compassionate release, and second chances for persons convicted of non-violent marijuana offenses. The continued prosecution of marijuana crimes continues to cause irreparable harm on real people and their families. Men and women languish in federal prisons across this country for conduct today that has been legalized in many states and under statues that have been rewritten to reflect the evolving landscape in the field of marijuana.

Attached is the testimony of Clare Garvie, Fourth Amendment Center Training and Resource Counsel, for the U.S. Commission on Human Rights' hearing on Civil Rights Implications of the Federal Use of Facial Recognition Technology. Her testimony highlights how the use of facial recognition technology in the criminal legal system intersects with the Commission’s mandate to inform civil rights policy, enhance enforcement of federal civil rights laws, and investigate discrimination in the administration of justice. 

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, a professional society, offers the following comments for the White House’s consideration. … NACDL has particular expertise in the collection of law enforcement data. Since 2020, NACDL’s Full Disclosure Project has managed an open-source web application to track, aggregate, and analyze law enforcement misconduct data. NACDL also collaborates with advanced computing and data science partners to develop tools and processes that automate collecting and digesting police data.

We submit this letter in support of many of the Department’s proposed amendments to 34 CFR 685. … NACDL supports amendments to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program that will provide greater flexibility for qualifying payments and establishing a process for reconsideration when an application for forgiveness is denied. We also strongly support additional changes contemplated by the Department that would allow more lawyers providing full-time public defense services (a job function explicitly listed in the Higher Education Act as qualifying employment) access to PSLF.

This comment from the Fourth Amendment Center addresses the National Institute of Standards and Technology's report "Digital Investigation Techniques: A Scientific Foundation Review."

We write to propose a category of individuals who are deserving of clemency. Specifically, we respectfully request that you consider clemency for (1) individuals who suffered severe sentences as a consequence of having exercised their Sixth Amendment right to trial rather than having pleaded guilty and (2) individuals who accepted severe plea bargains under threat of substantially greater post-trial sentences. These scenarios—routine in our criminal justice system—illustrate a profound constitutional and human injustice: the “trial penalty”…

Comments to the Rules Committee of the United States Supreme Court regarding proposed amendments to the Court rules.

NACDL comments to the Executive Office of the President Office of Science and Technology Policy responding to a request for information regarding the use of biometric technology.

NACDL Full Disclosure Project's response to the Request for Information and recommendations to the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training (IADLEST) regarding the National Decertification Index Expansion Project and the need to address and present law enforcement misconduct data transparently.

NACDL President Chris Adams' comments to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona regarding the Office for Civil Rights' review of amendments made in 2020 to regulations guiding TItle IX investigations and proceedings.

Coalition letter to President Biden regarding the absence thus far of executive actions addressing discriminatory and militarized policing in Black and Brown communities.

As a criminal defense organization, we do not profess to possess expertise in policing practices insofar as those practices do not directly intersect with the criminal justice system. But many police practices do have a direct impact on the treatment of accused persons, the degree to which their cases are litigated justly, and case outcomes. Accordingly, we offer a few key insights, which we hope will find their way into the Commission’s recommendations.

Comments to the American Society for Testing and Materials regarding proposed standard ASTM WK72597: New Standard Guide for the Microscopical Examination of Human Hair.

Letter to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) regarding proposed changes to Section 19, which regulates restrictions for people with relevant criminal convictions.

Comments to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service regarding proposed changes to SNAP benefits for able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWD).

NACDL President Drew Findling's letter to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos regarding proposed regulations for campus hearings pursuant to Title IX funding, Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs or Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance Docket No. ED-2018-OCR-0064.

To Director of National Intelligence Coats: The undersigned organizations write to express our dismay at your decision to abandon the effort to estimate the number of Americans whose communications are incidentally collected pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. We ask that you reconsider.

To Chair Goodlatte and Ranking Member Conyers: ... If Director Coats remains steadfast in his efforts to evade oversight by the public and this Committee, we urge you to use all powers at your disposal to obtain this number.

The undersigned civil society groups write to express our concerns about recent reports of an order issued under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that compelled Yahoo! to scan the emails of all of its users, in real time, for a “signature” associated with a foreign power. We believe such a massive scan of the emails of millions of people, particularly if it involves the scanning of email content, could violate FISA, the Fourth Amendment, and international human rights law, and has grave implications for privacy. 

Executive Director Norman Reimer's letter to President Barack Obama regarding fair-chance hiring practices that include banning the box asking about prior convictions on an initial job application.

Coalition letter to the President of the United States in support of federal ban the box for government agencies and contractors; NACDL is a signatory.

We represent a wide range of privacy and human rights advocates, technology companies, and trade associations that hold an equally wide range of positions on surveillance reform. Many of us have differing views on exactly what reforms must be included in any bill reauthorizing USA PATRIOT Act Section 215, which currently serves as the legal basis for the NSA’s bulk collection of telephone metadata and is set to expire on June 1, 2015. Our broad, diverse, and bipartisan coalition believes that the status quo is untenable and that it is urgent that Congress move forward with reform.

We urge the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to follow the House’s lead and to recommend that backdoor searches under section 702 be prohibited. Such access should be granted only when the government has obtained an order from the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] Court upon a showing of probable cause that the U.S. person whose communications are sought is an agent of a foreign power.

We write to urge you not to renew the Section 215 Bulk Telephony Metadata Program when the current order expires on June 20, 2014. The program is not effective. It should end.

Letter to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission regarding proposed changes to the Deliberate Misconduct Rule (79 Fed. Reg. 8097) that would broaden the provision to include those deemed to have acted with "deliberate ignorance."

... NACDL proposes that each subcommittee include a balanced, multidisciplinary combination of experts reflecting the fact that each subcommittee will be tasked with developing a wide range of standards that require input from different fields of expertise. As part and parcel of its functional analysis of subcommittee composition, NACDL also addresses the related issues of the systematic review of scientific literature that must precede development of scientifically-supported standards, and the leadership of the subcommittees and their governing Scientific Area Committees.

We write today to urge you to support reform of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to guarantee that every American has full constitutional and statutory protections for the emails, photos, text messages, and other documents that they send and share online.

NACDL applauds the PCLOB for its premiere report on the telephone records program conducted under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). NACDL recognizes that the 702 surveillance program remains subject to more classification authorities than the 215 program, and understands that the PCLOB‘s report on the 702 program may be more limited in its public analysis than the 215 report. However, NACDL encourages the PCLOB, to the maximum extent consistent with national security, to make its report public, with limited redactions.

NACDL urges the National Institute of Standards and Technology to form Guidance Groups dominated by scientists who are independent of law enforcement and inclusive of statisticians, researchers, and quality control experts. Since the National Research Council issued its clarion call for reform of forensic science, NACDL has consistently advocated for implementation of the NRC’s overarching recommendation – that the validity of forensic disciplines be examined and standards be set by an entity independent of law enforcement and dominated by a culture of science.

The undersigned human rights, religious, and civil liberties organizations strongly urge your administration to promptly and fully carry out two key commitments you made as steps toward closing the Guantanamo Bay prison and ending indefinite detention. These actions would help to fulfill your renewed promise to end indefinite detention and close the Guantanamo prison.

The undersigned civil liberties and human rights organizations write regarding the Periodic Review Boards (PRBs) for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba that the Department of Defense has announced will commence shortly. …should the administration proceed with PRBs, we encourage you to take appropriate steps to ensure the PRBs, as established by Presidential Executive Order 13567, have the required processes in place for meaningful review of a detainee’s detention status at Guantanamo.

NACDL undersigned a letter to the U.S. government on July 18, 2013 urging greater transparency around national security-related requests by the US government to Internet, telephone, and web-based service providers for information about their users and subscribers.

We are very glad that the Board has been fully constituted, and we greatly appreciate your immediate attention and work in response to the recent disclosures concerning NSA surveillance. We understand that you are meeting to consider the impact of these NSA programs on privacy and civil liberties. We write to ask that, as one of your first action items, you urge the administration to make public information about the legal authorities for government surveillance of Americans.

NACDL submitted comments to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on April 23, 2013 in response to the Request for Comments on the FAA‘s proposed approach for addressing the privacy questions raised by the operation of unmanned aircraft systems within the test site program.

NACDL undersigned a letter on March 19, 2013 addressed to Michael Daniel, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator, to encourage the White House to renew its promise to veto the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA).

The undersigned nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) authorized to observe the military commission proceedings at Guantánamo Bay write to express our objection to new restrictions that the Department of Defense put in place this week on our ability to attend press briefings. … The information and insights we obtain from these briefings help shape our understanding of what we observe during the proceedings, and provide additional information not necessarily available from the viewing area at the back of the courtroom.

We strongly urge you to veto the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (NDAA) — if the conference bill, which is being negotiated now, impedes your ability to close Guantanamo. Specifically, we urge you to veto the NDAA conference bill if it restricts the Executive Branch's authority to transfer detainees for repatriation or resettlement in foreign countries or for prosecution in federal criminal court. … We urge you to veto the NDAA if any of these restrictions are included in the final bill sent to you by Congress.

We strongly urge you to veto the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 — if it impedes your ability to close Guantanamo, by restricting the Executive Branch's authority to transfer detainees for repatriation or resettlement in foreign countries or for prosecution in federal criminal court. 

NACDL urges this Court to grant Petitioners' motions challenging the Government's Memorandum of Understanding Governing Continued Contact Between Counsel/Translator and Detainee Following Termination of the [Guantánamo] Detainee's Habeas Case. NACDL also encourages this Court to hold that Judge Hogan's Protective Order continues to apply to Petitioners, and that the Government may not condition Petitioners' access to counsel on counsel's submission to the new MOU.

We appreciate that nongovernmental organization (NGO) observers and the press had opportunities to meet while at Guantanamo Bay for the arraignment of the 9/11 accused; however, it is unfortunate that the Office of Military Commissions denied NGO observers access to the press conference on Sunday, May 6, 2012. This raises concerns about the government’s commitment to transparency.

We the undersigned consumer rights, human rights, technology, and civil liberties organizations, members of the EPIC Advisory Board, and members of the general public submit this Petition to the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) to urge the Agency to conduct a rulemaking to address the threat to privacy and civil liberties that will result from the deployment of aerial drones within United States. The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 provides a timely opportunity for you to address this critical question.

Coalition letter to Department of Justice Criminal Division Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer and Securities and Exchange Commission Director of Enforcement Robert Khuzami regarding enforcement of and forthcoming guidance for the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

Thank you for your letters to Secretary Panetta dated July 5, 2011 and October 3, 2011, concerning military commission proceedings and related issues of access by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The Department of Defense is committed to making military commission proceedings transparent and accessible to the public, consistent with protecting national security, the safety of individuals, and the rights of the accused. … Recently, we have been working to improve public access to military commission proceedings and materials.

We are writing to follow up on the letter we sent in July concerning the logistical difficulties that in the past have prevented us from adequately performing our role as nongovernmental organizations authorized to observe military commissions at Guantanamo Bay. To date, we have not received a response to our letter. … While we are encouraged that the commission may be expanding access to the commissions for some individuals and media, this new venue would not address any of the NGO observers' concerns about the commissions' lack of transparency, as set forth in our earlier letter.

As nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) authorized to observe military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, we are writing regarding logistical difficulties that prevent us from adequately performing that role. Now that the U.S. government has decided to try those accused in the September 11, 2001 attacks and the bombing of the USS Cole before military commissions, we believe that it is especially important that NGOs not only observe commission hearings, but are better able to obtain relevant documents and share our observations with the general public.

In light of Attorney General Holder’s April 4, 2011, announcement regarding the prosecution of the alleged planners and co-conspirators of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the undersigned organizations request that the Department of Defense open the process for issuing regulations for the military commissions to allow meaningful pre-promulgation public participation. Certainly, future commissions will result in intensive public scrutiny of the system. Therefore, the Department should uphold the President's promise of openness in government by reforming the military commission rulemaking process.

Letter to the Securities Exchange Commission regarding proposed whistleblower provisions to the Securities Exchange Act.

As a new round of military commission trials takes shape at Guantanamo Bay, an important piece of unfinished business is revision of the Manual for Military Commissions. The 2010 Manual will spell out the specifics of proceedings under the Military Commissions Act of 2009. The Department of Defense has been working on this revision for some time but has not made a draft available for public comment, even though doing so is the norm for both federal court and court-martial rule making. An opportunity for public comment may produce improvements in the final text.

Letter to the Federal Communications Commission regarding the prison pay phone industry.

Written statement of NACDL second vice president E.E. (Bo) Edwards to the Judicial Review Commission on Foreign Asset Control regarding the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (H.R. 3164, 1999).

NACDL treasurer Bill Moffitt's testimony to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights regarding "three strikes" laws that result in mandatory minimum sentences.