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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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Amicus curiae brief the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Brennan Center for Justice, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, the Southern Center for Human Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union is support of petitioner.
Argument: Providing counsel to an indigent individual facing jail time in a civil contempt hearing is essential to prevention of wrongful incarceration. Indigent contemnors lack the courtroom skills to effectively represent themselves in complex proceedings; presence of counsel helps to ensure that only willful contemnors are incarcerated. The Supreme Court should provide clear guidance to the states that the Constitution requires appointment of counsel whenever personal liberty is threatened; appointment of counsel for alleged contemnors will ensure due process and help prevent wrongful incarcerations without imposing a significant burden upon the states.
Colorado statute mandated an accused requesting court appointed counsel must meet with a prosecutor before the court consider their eligibility for appointed counsel. In 2010 NACDL challenged the statute in Colorado Defense Bar v. Hickenlooper.
Amicus curiae brief of the ACLU Foundation, South Carolina National Office, the Brennan Center for Justice, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, and the South Carolina Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in support of appellant Michael Turner.
Argument: Because the Sixth Amendment requires that courts appoint counsel for indigent defendants where imprisonment is a possibility, South Carolina family court are required to appoint counsel to represent indigent defendants in family court child support nonpayment proceedings where imprisonment is a possibility.
Brief of Amicus Curiae National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in Support of Plaintiffs-Appellees and Affirmation.
Argument: Detention negatively impacts the attorney-client relationship and results in less effective representation of indigent defendants. Harris County pressures indigent detainees to plead guilty rather than raise a defense. Indigent defendants suffer lasting effects from the poverty-imposed, disadvantaged path through the Harris County system.
