Renewed War on Drugs, harsher charging policies, stepped-up criminalization of immigrants — in the current climate, joining the NACDL is more important than ever. Members of NACDL help to support the only national organization working at all levels of government to ensure that the voice of the defense bar is heard.
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NACDL is committed to enhancing the capacity of the criminal defense bar to safeguard fundamental constitutional rights.
NACDL harnesses the unique perspectives of NACDL members to advocate for policy and practice improvements in the criminal justice system.
NACDL envisions a society where all individuals receive fair, rational, and humane treatment within the criminal justice system.
NACDL’s mission is to serve as a leader, alongside diverse coalitions, in identifying and reforming flaws and inequities in the criminal justice system, and redressing systemic racism, and ensuring that its members and others in the criminal defense bar are fully equipped to serve all accused persons at the highest level.
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Coalition letter to California Assemblymember Ed Chau regarding disparities and discrimination, abuse, accuracy, information sharing, and other issues in the proposed bill AB 2261 on facial recognition technologies.
Letter to the Senate and House Judiciary Committees regarding the increased overcriminalization, enforcement, and surveillance of already-marginalized communities under pandemic protocols.
Brief for Amici Curiae National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and National Association of Federal Defenders in Support of Petitioner.
Argument: Criminal Court records of conviction are often ambiguous, particularly in misdemeanor cases. In many lower criminal courts, misdemeanor convictions are not "on the record." Misdemeanor records often omit key information about the conviction. Even where misdemeanor records once existed, they may have been destroyed or may be otherwise inaccessible. Because criminal records are often ambiguous, the Eighth Circuit's approach leads to inconsistent immigration outcomes. Under the Eighth Circuit’s approach, two noncitizens convicted of the same divisible misdemeanor offense in different counties in the same state could face different immigration outcomes depending on the completeness of the Shepard documents from their criminal cases. When noncitizens are faulted for the paucity of these records, it creates a system in which immigration outcomes are tied to the bureaucratic decisions of county clerks’ offices and the idiosyncrasies of courts’ guilty plea processes. Such a system is wholly inconsistent with the categorical approach, which seeks to guarantee that “all defendants whose convictions establish the same facts … be treated consistently, and thus predictably, under federal law.” Moncrieffe, 569 U.S. at 205 n.11.
Comments to the U.S. Sentencing Commission regarding proposed amendments to the sentencing guidelines.
There have been disturbing trends in the numbers of noncitizens who have been arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) in state courthouses. The authors offer strategies that can help attorneys protect their clients and witnesses from being arrested or intimidated by ICE when they go to criminal court as well as noncriminal tribunals.
Brief of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and National Association of Federal Defenders as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondent.
Argument: 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv)’s criminalization of a person who “encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact” that it would be in violation of the law is unduly broad under the First Amendment. The prohibition also violates the void-for-vagueness doctrine under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. “Encouragement” and “Inducement” are indefinite terms and depend on subjective determinations. This provides insufficient notice to the public and invites arbitrary and selective enforcement. The statute’s failure to specify a mens rea for “encourages or induces” exacerbates this problem. The statute would also chill First Amendment-protected speech.
Letter to the U.S. Sentencing Commission regarding proposed amendments to the sentencing guidelines.
Letter to the U.S. Sentencing Commission regarding proposed 1997 Amendments.
Comments to the U.S. Sentencing Commission on proposed 1997 Emergency Amendments.
Philip Swaby’s plea-based conviction was overturned for ineffective assistance of counsel that arose from a seemingly small oversight – one that any attorney might have made unless he or she were anything less than ultra-careful.
Attorneys can use federal habeas corpus petitions to impose constitutional limitations on the detention and custody review practices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the immigration courts. Zoey Jones and Andrea Saenz share five lessons learned by an immigration public defender program that has filed habeas corpus petitions that have liberated clients and established significant case law concerning due process and the right to seek release from detention.
The concept of “zero tolerance” within the criminal justice system is nothing new. Zero-tolerance policies allow for a quick and easy method of criminalization that is contrary to an effective and moral criminal justice system.
Immigration Ivan Dominguez
