The combined impacts of biased policing, discretionary charging decisions, sentencing enhancements, and the continuing impacts of the tough-on-crime movement have created and bolstered a criminal justice system in which people of color, particularly Black people, are more likely to be sentenced to prison and are subject to lengthier periods of incarceration.  

Additional resources on racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

Racially biased policing takes many different forms, from elevated police presences in the neighborhoods of marginalized communities, to disproportionate street and vehicle stops and searches, to use of force, to outright expressions of racism within some police departments.

Race matters in our criminal justice system. It affects how likely you are to be pulled over by police, how likely you are to be released or detained pretrial, how likely the state is to seek the death penalty, and how severely you are sentenced.

NACDL has been committed to examining race as an issue within the criminal justice context.

The events unfolding across our nation today renew a long-standing call for fundamental changes to our nation’s institutions. While today’s cries carry echoes from protests following the deaths of so many Black people killed by police, and the hopes for change from the marches of the Civil Rights Movement, the current story of race, racism, and white privilege in America has its roots firmly planted in over 400 years of history. It is by fully understanding our nation’s legacy of chattel slavery that we can begin to combat our current social structures that perpetuate institutional racism.

An important discussion on the ways in which systemic racism manifests itself in the pretrial process and how we can work towards change.

This conversation examines the ways in which the chattel slavery system of America’s early history manifests itself in the variety of ways in which Black people are literally and symbolically policed today.

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.

Race Data Matters: Using Expert Testimony and Social Science Data about Discriminatory Policing to Win Pretrial Motions: Part I presented by Rahsaan D. Hall, Director, Racial Justice Program, American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts

Race Matters I: The Impact of Race on Criminal Justice
September 14-15, 2017 | Detroit, MI

Race Data Matters: Using Expert Testimony and Social Science Data about Discriminatory Policing to Win Pretrial Motions: Part II presented by Alison Siegler, Clinical Law Professor, University of Chicago Law School

Race Matters I: The Impact of Race on Criminal Justice
September 14-15, 2017 | Detroit, MI

This inaugural Presidential Summit was designed to help practitioners identify and confront issues of racial bias in our courts, the law enforcement community, by prosecutors, and yes, even the defense team. Attendees heard from trial lawyers, academics, and formerly incarcerated individuals who offered their personal perspectives, strategies, and ideas on why Race Matters. This program was created to intentionally challenge you to push the envelope on your understanding of and willingness to attack racial bias in the criminal justice system.

See below for materials referenced during the Policing Black Bodies II: Race and Pretrial Practices program.