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 legal system.
NACDL envisions a society where all individuals receive fair, rational, and humane treatment within the criminal legal system.
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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David Cloud, Research Director of AMEND, a University of California, San Francisco-based organization, will discuss AMEND’s unique approach to reforming prison culture. In an incredibly informative event facilitated by defense lawyer and author Jerry Buting, Mr. Cloud will address training prison staff in Norway’s correctional principles, and the public health, medical ethics, occupational health, and international human rights aspects of prison reform.
How do we as defense attorneys and advocates best deal with the psychological issues our clients are facing? One effect of COVID-19 is tremendously heightened anxiety among clients, especially those who are incarcerated.
Special guest host Pat Cresta-Savage is joined by Dr. Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, UNC School of Medicine and Center for Health Equity Research, and co-founder of the COVID Prison Project, which tracks data and policy across the country to monitor COVID-19 in correctional facilities and offers analysis and resources to better understand how coronavirus is impacting justice-involved individuals.
Iris Eytan, Dru Nielsen, and special guest moderator MartÃn Sabelli discuss a recent jury trial in Colorado where they had to navigate the new litigation circumstances in this COVID-19 era and all of the challenges that poses for defense lawyers and the individuals facing charges and trials in courtrooms across the country.
Presented by NACDL President Nina Ginsberg, DiMuro Ginsberg, PC, Alexandria, VA; Stephen Ross Johnson, Ritchie, Dillard, Davies & Johnson, P.C., Knoxville, TN; Todd Pugh, Breen & Pugh, Chicago, IL; and MartÃn Sabelli, Law Offices of MartÃn A. Sabelli, San Francisco
The United States constitutes less than 5 percent of the world’s population yet is prisons house 25 percent of the worldwide prison population. This phenomenon is due large to the War on Drugs.
22nd Annual State Criminal Justice Network Conference August 16-17, 2023 | Held Virtually
In partnership with WACDL and Vital Strategies, NACDL is proud to present this training course on a public health approach to substance use among justice-impacted individuals. This course also explores how defense lawyers can be effective advocates and champions against the harms of criminalization.
NACDL to Focus on Service and Support for Members, Clients, and Community Throughout Virus Emergency
Powerpoint slides by Emma Roth. Presented at the NACDL Post-Dobbs Defender Skills Summit in July 2023
We urge you to vote “no” on S. 1080, the Cooper Davis Act. The bill purports to address the sale of methamphetamine, fentanyl, and “counterfeit substances” by coopting online services to report the alleged or suspected creation, manufacture, or distribution of these substances … Rather than meaningfully addressing the public health crisis caused by such substances, this bill would … undermin[e] the Fourth Amendment and the Stored Communications Act, likely with disproportionate effects on people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and other marginalized communities.
Juan Carlos Barragan had served 16 years of his sentence when a federal judge reduced his sentence to “time served.” His release is one of the success stories of NACDL’s Return to Freedom Project, which files compassionate release motions and clemency petitions on behalf of federal prisoners convicted of marijuana crimes.
The undersigned national, state, and local public health and criminal justice reform organizations write today to urge you to reject and vote NO on the Halt All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl (HALT) Act (H.R. 467). This bill permanently schedules fentanyl-related substances (FRS) on schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) based on a 2 flawed class definition, imposes mandatory minimums, and fails to provide an offramp for removing inert or harmless substances from the drug schedule.
NACDL: Jury Trials Not Safe Until COVID-19 Pandemic Under Control [Released June 2020]
This month John L. Kane reviews American Contagions: Epidemics and the Law from Smallpox to COVID-19 by John Fabian Witt.
NACDL, et al. filed a class action lawsuit seeking release of medically vulnerable individuals from Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County, Calif. The lawsuit seeks to compel Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern to release all medically vulnerable people in custody at Santa Rita or in rare circumstances transfer them to home confinement.
