Prosecutors play a significant role in determining the trajectory of individual cases and shaping system-wide outcomes in the criminal legal system. NACDL partnered with Fair & Just Prosecution to host a discussion about racial disparities in prosecution, how to reduce these disparities, and ways to center racial equity in prosecutorial reform efforts.

Progressive prosecutors want to reduce the jail and prison population, eliminate disparities, and make the system fairer. Angela J. Davis points to a clear benefit of the movement: Progressive prosecutors do much less harm than traditional law and order prosecutors. What does less harm mean? Shorter prison sentences and fewer people with convictions. 

Progressive prosecutors want to reduce the jail and prison population, eliminate disparities, and make the system fairer. Jonathan Rapping says there is a lack of discussion regarding the damage the progressive prosecutor movement causes. He adds that the movement ignores the role of defense counsel in achieving justice. Is the progressive prosecutor movement here to stay, and is that a good thing? 

Board member Tim Evans' statement to the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property regarding Ethical Standards for Federal Prosecutors Act of 1996 (H.R. 3386).

Alafair S. Burke, Talking About Prosecutors, 31 Cardozo L. Rev. 2119. This is a work from the Cardozo Law Review Symposium New Perspectives on Brady and Other Disclosure Obligations: What Really Works? (2009).

Prosecutors in the Orleans Parish, La., district attorney’s office deliberately withheld exculpatory evidence from the plaintiff, a former defendant in a criminal case, in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and the office was found liable for failure to train its prosecutors in their Brady obligations. Brief argues that a “single violation” is sufficient to incur municipal liability (“Canton liability”) for failure to train prosecutors in their Brady disclosure obligations.