Preparing Your Client & Yourself for the Good, Bad, and Unfathomable with Richard S. Jaffe and Special Guest, Randal Padgett, Death Row Exoneree [Engage & Exchange Series] 

NACDL encourages counsel not to abdicate their responsibility to provide effective representation to their clients and to continue to make a full record of work that cannot be achieved during the pandemic. NACDL supports its members and others who adhere to fundamental capital practice standards during this pandemic and refuse to undertake substandard in-person work.

Brief of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as Amicus Curiae in Support of Petitioner (cert. stage).

Argument: The Court should grant the writ to protect the Sixth Amendment right to an unbiased jury. The critical question is whether a trial court must, at a minimum, ask potential jurors who admit exposure to highly prejudiced pretrial publicity if they have formed opinions about guilt and allow further questioning to uncover bias. The Alabama Supreme Court said no, holding that courts may rely on those jurors' collective, untested assurance that they can be fair. That ruling conflicts with decisions of this Court and must be corrected.

Brief of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the American Civil Liberties Union as Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioner. 

Argument: Federal Habeas case law is replete with examples showing the importance of funding for investigation and experts – funding that is all but impossible to obtain under the Fifth Circuit’s approach. The Fifth Circuit’s standard discourages attorneys who rely on the Criminal Justice Act from seeking resources or even accepting capital habeas cases altogether.