As organizations committed to due process and the right to counsel, we urge you to oppose the Laken Riley Act. This bill would subject undocumented persons to mandatory, prolonged detention based on mere arrest for theft-related offenses, including shoplifting, and additional offenses added in the Senate. Such sweeping detention would circumvent due process protections, ensnare innocent persons, and greatly interfere with the representation of counsel necessary for the fair administration of justice.

As organizations committed to due process and the right to counsel, we urge you to oppose the Laken Riley Act. This bill would subject undocumented persons to mandatory, prolonged detention based on mere arrest for theft-related offenses, including shoplifting. Such sweeping detention would circumvent due process protections, ensnare innocent persons, and greatly interfere with the representation of counsel necessary for the fair administration of justice.

Written Statement of Steven D. Benjamin, President National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Before the House Committee on the Judiciary Over-Criminalization Task Force Re: “Defining the Problem and Scope of Over-criminalization and Over-federalization”

Written Statement of Norman L. Reimer, Executive Director National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Before the House Committee on the Judiciary Over-Criminalization Task Force Re: “Mens Rea: The Need for a Meaningful Intent Requirement in Federal Criminal Law”

Written Statement of NACDL member John D. Cline, Esq. of San Francisco, CA before the House Committee on the Judiciary Over-Criminalization Task Force Re: Reform of the Federal Criminal Code

Written Statement of Rick Jones, Executive Director Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem On behalf of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Before the House Committee on the Judiciary Over-Criminalization Task Force Re: “Collateral Consequences”

Written Statement of Steven D. Benjamin on behalf of National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Before the House Committee on the Judiciary Over-Criminalization Task Force Re: “The Crimes on the Books and Committee Jurisdiction”

First Vice President and former NACDL Ethics Advisory Committee chair John Wesley Hall's testimony on Focus Questions 1-3 and Focus Question 1(4) to the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice for their consideration.

We strongly oppose A.1065A/S4555B, which would create a category of sex crimes that are unconstitutionally vague. The proposed law fails to give adequate notice of what conduct is prohibited under the law and would lead to unjust application and arbitrary prosecutions and convictions that can lead to a host of lifelong consequences.

The problem of overcriminalization is multifaceted, with many aspects that pervade our criminal legal system, including the criminalization of conduct that is not harmful to society or others; criminal statutes that lack adequate mens rea, or intent, requirements; ambiguous and vague language in criminal statutes that provide insufficient notice and insufficient limitation on what conduct is criminalized; and the imposition of vicarious liability with insufficient requirement that the charged person was involved in, or even knew about, the underlying conduct.

On behalf of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) we call upon the City of Aurora to rescind its Request for Proposals, R-2384, soliciting firms for bids to replace the city’s current public defense provider. The decision to replace the current public defense system with a flat fee contract will undercut public safety, undermine community confidence, and represents poor fiscal responsibility.

We write to voice our opposition to Senate Bill 8, a bill that would replace the multi-stakeholder Louisiana Public Defender Board with a state public defender selected by the Governor. If enacted, this legislation would significantly undermine the independence of the defense function in Louisiana, further eroding the community’s trust in our legal institutions and negatively impacting public safety, while wholly failing to address the core need of the state’s public defense system – a stable and robust stream of funding to insure the provision of constitutionally effective representation.

The undersigned organizations are deeply concerned about the hugely destructive impact of proposed cuts to the federal indigent defense system. To avert the crisis, we are asking that you ensure that the Defenders Services account is fully funded at the requested amount.

We write to ask that you rescind your support, as members of the Virginia Municipal League, for racial profiling practices by Virginia law enforcement—euphemistically known as “pretextual policing”—and to invite you to an informal presentation on this important criminal justice issue.

The undersigned groups urge you to oppose the Stopping Harmful Image Exploitation and Limiting Distribution (SHIELD) Act of 2023 (S. 412), which would create a new federal crime carrying a one-to-five-year prison sentence for sharing intimate photos of a person without that person’s consent. We recognize that this bill is well intentioned, but we are concerned that it will sweep in and criminalize innocent conduct and worsen the trial penalty that many criminal defendants—including many people who are actually innocent—face in our justice system.