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NACDL is committed to enhancing the capacity of the criminal defense bar to safeguard fundamental constitutional rights.
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NACDL’s mission is to serve as a leader, alongside diverse coalitions, in identifying and reforming flaws and inequities in the criminal legal 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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The S Visa is a special program designed to allow law enforcement to provide legal status to remain in the U.S. to non-citizens cooperating with investigations and prosecutions, in exchange for that cooperation. This report and its recommendations shine the light on the failure of government to properly administer the S Visa Program. Currently, eligible individuals who might provide information and cooperation are discouraged, and their attorneys find themselves unable to assure clients of the government’s ability to timely follow through on the exchange. [Released June 2021]
Informers are government witnesses, and their testimony is untrustworthy due to their self-interested motives. Though it is common for pattern jury instruction to include some note of caution about informers’ testimony, no instruction sufficiently alerts the jury to the incentives informers are given to lie. How can counsel fight against cooperation agreement provisions that prejudice the defendant?
One might think that the link between jailhouse informant testimony/wrongful convictions and the magnitude of the incentives offered to jailhouse informants would be enough to neutralize informants in the eyes of the jury. On the contrary, jailhouse informant testimony is persuasive to jurors. The defense must find a way to impeach the jailhouse informant and educate jurors on the dangers of this type of testimony.
President Gerald Goldstein's written statement to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and House Government Reform and Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs and Criminal Justice regarding government and law enforcement conduct in the 1993 confrontation between Branch Davidians and law enforcement in Waco, TX, and proposed changes in Exclusionary Rule Reform Act of 1995 (H.R. 666) and Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Improvement Act of 1995 (S. 3).
Materials for arguing against government informant and ex parte discussions regarding the conspiracy and closing off discovery regarding the informant's statements regarding the alleged conspiracy.
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA: USA v. Herrera et al.
US District Court Northern District of California: United States of America v. Cerna et al.
Amicus curiae brief of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
