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

Argument: This case asks whether a reasonable jury could find that police officers use excessive force when they kill a shackled and handcuffed arrestee inside of a jail cell by compression asphyxiation. The Eighth Circuit’s decision departs from an otherwise uniform national rule established by all other courts of appeals that have addressed the issue that the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments categorically prohibit the asphyxiation of a restrained arrestee or pre-trial detainee who poses no threat to officers or others. The national rule applied outside of the Eighth Circuit is the only rule that conforms to the Supreme Court’s cases governing the use of deadly force, is deeply rooted in the Fourth Amendment and prevailing common-law rules, and is consistent with statutes and law enforcement policies already in effect across American jurisdictions. Categorically prohibiting the use of deadly force, such as compression asphyxia, on restrained citizens is essential to the fair administration of criminal justice. 

Attorney-client communications caselaw at the U.S. Supreme Court

Brief of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as Amicus Curiae in Support of Petitioner.

Argument: Certiorari is warranted because the Third Circuit’s decision prohibits a whole class of crack-cocaine offenders from being eligible for resentencing under the First Step Act while identically situated defendants in other circuits may be resentenced.  The Third Circuit’s rule is inconsistent with Congress’s goal of providing relief to low-level drug offenders because it excludes the lowest-level offenders and those with uncertain drug amounts from resentencing while allowing those who possessed greater amounts of crack cocaine to obtain relief.  Defendants convicted for possessing lower-quantities of crack cocaine could receive substantial sentence reductions even though they remain eligible for the same sentence.  The Third Circuit’s rule frustrates Congress’s goal of providing relief to the disproportionate number of Black Americans incarcerated for crack-cocaine offenses.

Brief of National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and California Attorneys for Criminal Justice as Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioner.

Argument: NACDL and CACJ join to support a petition to the United States Supreme Court to review a California State Appellate Court decision expanding the “community caretaking” exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement to the home in all misdemeanor cases. The case involved a domestic dispute in which the wife viewed the husband as potentially suicidal and called officers.  While the petitioner/husband was taken for examination (and later released), the officers entered the home and seized petitioner’s guns.  Authorities refused to return the guns until petitioner sued for numerous constitutional violations.  The trial court dismissed the suit on caretaking grounds, as did the court of appeals.  The amicus brief, following an extensive review of warrantless entries in misdemeanor cases (especially “failure to obey” cases) details numerous instances in which grievous and unnecessary harm resulted from the warrantless entry.

Brief of Amicus Curiae National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in Support of Petitioner.

Argument: Non-unanimous juries are fundamentally different and less deliberative than the Sixth Amendment requires. Non-unanimous juries also fundamentally skew the decision of whether to exercise the jury trial right. The pernicious racial origins of the non-unanimity rule further undermine the Sixth Amendment jury trial right.

Brief of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as Amicus Curiae in Support of Petitioner.

Argument: Like Gideon v. Wainwright (the only case the Supreme Court has recognized as falling within Teague v. Lane’s watershed rule exception), Ramos v. Louisiana is a watershed rule and therefore, under Teague v. Lane, applies retroactivity to cases on collateral federal review.  Ramos, like Gideon, overturned a badly flawed, errant precedent to restore a bedrock Sixth Amendment right.  Ramos, like Gideon also increases the accuracy of convictions, when accuracy is properly understood to refer to the fairness of the process and the likelihood that the defendant received procedural protections guaranteed by the Constitution, rather than the likelihood that actual guilt or innocence is determined.

Brief of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as Amicus Curiae in Support of Petitioner. 

Argument: The Eleventh Circuit reaffirmed that a person violates the CFAA by using a computer to access information for an improper purpose, even if otherwise authorized to access that information.  This reading goes beyond the CFAA’s text, fails to account for Congress’ intent in enacting it, and flouts the rule of lenity, which requires that ambiguous criminal statutes be construed in a defendant’s favor.  The decision below also interpreted the CFAA in a manner that raises due process concerns, both because it is an unconstitutionally vague reading of the statute and because it invites arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement, and thus the doctrine of constitutional avoidance requires that Petitioner’s reading of the statute prevail.  Further, an expansive reading of the CFAA would contribute to the trend of overcriminalization and give courts and prosecutors a backdoor method of updating criminal laws in response to changed technological—or potentially cultural, economic, or political—realities, something our constitutional structure reserves for Congress.

Brief of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Mississippi Office of the State Public Defender, and Mississippi Public Defenders Association In Support of Petitioner.

Argument: The Supreme Court has held that life without parole is appropriate only for a “permanently incorrigible” juvenile offender.  States like Mississippi that do not require a finding of permanent incorrigibility are not reliably implementing that command because offenders receive life-without-parole sentences even if they are capable of change.  Mississippi’s approach also produces arbitrary sentencing outcomes, because a juvenile’s sentence depends on whether his sentencer independently comprehends Miller, not on whether he is actually permanently incorrigible.  States that require a finding of permanent incorrigibility ensure that juvenile offenders only receive life-without-parole sentences when the sentence is proportionate and lawful.  Sentencers can still impose life-without-parole sentences when an offender is actually permanently incorrigible. 

 Brief for Amicus Curiae National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in Support of Petitioner.

Argument: Taylor's categorical approach applies to all ACCA predicates. A prior conviction that lacks a mens rea element cannot constitute a "serious drug offense." ACCA's legislative history affirms that state drug convictions lacking a mens rea requirement do not qualify as "serious drug offenses." ACCA will continue to have a geographically disparate impact unless the categorical approach is applied. 

Brief for Amici Curiae National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and National Association of Federal Defenders in Support of Petitioner.

Argument: Criminal Court records of conviction are often ambiguous, particularly in misdemeanor cases. In many lower criminal courts, misdemeanor convictions are not "on the record." Misdemeanor records often omit key information about the conviction. Even where misdemeanor records once existed, they may have been destroyed or may be otherwise inaccessible. Because criminal records are often ambiguous, the Eighth Circuit's approach leads to inconsistent immigration outcomes. Under the Eighth Circuit’s approach, two noncitizens convicted of the same divisible misdemeanor offense in different counties in the same state could face different immigration outcomes depending on the completeness of the Shepard documents from their criminal cases. When noncitizens are faulted for the paucity of these records, it creates a system in which immigration outcomes are tied to the bureaucratic decisions of county clerks’ offices and the idiosyncrasies of courts’ guilty plea processes. Such a system is wholly inconsistent with the categorical approach, which seeks to guarantee that “all defendants whose convictions establish the same facts … be treated consistently, and thus predictably, under federal law.” Moncrieffe, 569 U.S. at 205 n.11. 

Brief of National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as Amicus Curiae in support of petitioner.

Argument: Because Oklahoma law allows challenges to the subject-matter jurisdiction of a criminal court to be raised at any time, the procedural bar applied by the state court of last resort was not an adequate ground in state law to avoid jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1257. The Court should reverse the decision of the state courts and remand with instructions to dismiss the charges against petitioner, because Congress has the sole prerogative to set the limits of state criminal jurisdiction in Indian country, and Congress has never given Oklahoma the authority to prosecute crimes committed by Indians in Indian country in that state.

Brief of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as Amicus Curiae in Support of Petitioner (on Petition for a Writ of Certiorari). 

Argument: In this case, the Eleventh Circuit reaffirmed that a person violates the CFAA by using a computer to access information for an improper purpose, even if that person is otherwise authorized to access that information. This holding warrants review because it reinforces a conflict of authority regarding the meaning of “authorized access” under the CFAA and because the Eleventh Circuit was wrong on the merits. Review also is warranted because the question presented is important. Computers are ubiquitous in daily life. It is important that the Court clarify that ordinary deviances from terms-of-use requirements— whether imposed by internet websites or private company use guidelines, to name but a few—are not criminal. Review also is necessary because the Eleventh Circuit’s decision deviates from settled practices for construing federal criminal statutes. Because the Eleventh Circuit’s decision and those courts on its side of the open and acknowledged split of authority break from this approach at every level, this Court should grant review.

Brief of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioner (on Petition for a Writ of Certiorari).

Argument: Law enforcement officers testifying on matters based on their professional experience or training should be treated as expert witnesses under Federal Rule of Evidence 702, rather than Rule 701.  Law enforcement officers have scientific, technical, or specialized knowledge within the scope of Rule 702.  There is an intractable Circuit split on this issue and the Supreme Court should grant certiorari.  The question presented arises in a wide variety of cases.  Permitting law enforcement officers to furnish lay opinion testimony leads to unfair applications, including law enforcement officers being allowed to offer opinions no other lay witness would be permitted to give.

Brief of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as Amicus Curiae in Support of Petitioner (on Petition for a Writ of Certiorari).

Argument: The Fourth Circuit’s holding in this matter warrants review for the additional and important reason that that it allows officers to conduct searches for weapons despite the fact that the officers’ reasonable suspicion went only to drug use. Blanket rules of reasonable suspicion based upon drug use alone violate this Court’s precedent and the Fourth Amendment, which require greater respect for individual liberty from search and seizure. Moreover, as this Court articulated in Richards v. Wisconsin, stereotypical inferences about drug use and firearm risk create both “over-generalization” and bootstrapping concerns that would allow the reasonable suspicion requirement to expand so broadly that it would provide no meaningful check on potential Fourth Amendment violations. Finally, the Fourth Circuit’s holding denies Petitioner independent appellate review (i.e., without deference to the trial court determination) of ultimate determinations of reasonable suspicion, as this Court requires pursuant to Ornelas v. United States.

Brief of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and National Association of Federal Defenders as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondent. 

Argument: 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv)’s criminalization of a person who “encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact” that it would be in violation of the law is unduly broad under the First Amendment.  The prohibition also violates the void-for-vagueness doctrine under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.  “Encouragement” and “Inducement” are indefinite terms and depend on subjective determinations.  This provides insufficient notice to the public and invites arbitrary and selective enforcement.  The statute’s failure to specify a mens rea for “encourages or induces” exacerbates this problem.  The statute would also chill First Amendment-protected speech.