Broad Coalition Launches to Restore the Constitutional Right to Trial – Twenty-four national organizations, impacted people, community leaders, organizers, and legal reform leaders created the End the Trial Penalty Coalition to end the coercive elements of plea bargaining to restore fundamental constitutional rights, including the right to a jury trial.

New Plea Bargain Task Force Report Highlights the Trial Penalty, Calls for Transparency – Washington, DC (Feb. 22, 2023) – NACDL applauds the release of a new report from the Plea Bargaining Task Force, a group convened by the Criminal Justice Section of the American Bar Association.* The task force closely examines the role of plea bargaining in our criminal legal system and provides policy recommendations and goals for changes in the way plea bargaining operates.

Nation’s Criminal Defense Bar Releases Groundbreaking Report, Principles, and Recommendations Concerning the ‘Trial Penalty’ and the Decline of the Constitution’s Sixth Amendment Right to Trial – Washington, DC (July 10, 2018) – At a special event at the National Press Club earlier today, The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) released The Trial Penalty: The Sixth Amendment Right to Trial on the Verge of Extinction and How to Save It. 

Special Double Issue of Federal Sentencing Reporter on “The Trial Penalty” - Washington, DC (July 10, 2019) – The Federal Sentencing Reporter, published by University of California Press, has released a double issue covering April and June 2019, edited by NACDL Executive Director Norman L. Reimer and NACDL Second Vice President Martín Antonio Sabelli, entitled “The Tyranny of the Trial Penalty: The Consensus that Coercive Plea Practices Must End.”

NACDL Calls on Members to Protect People Accused of Crimes and their Communities from COVID, and Join Fight to Oppose the Trial Penalty –​ Washington, DC (Dec. 23, 2021) – Two days ago, the Commissioner of New York’s Department of Corrections issued an unprecedented statement regarding the COVID crisis for individuals housed in Rikers Island. 

New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Publish Groundbreaking Report on Trial Penalty in New York — Washington, DC (March 26, 2021) — Today, the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NYSACDL) and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) released the first-ever report on the decades-long impact of the trial penalty in New York State—The New York State Trial Penalty: The Constitutional Right to Trial Under Attack...