Raise the Age Louisiana: SB 324

On March 14th, 2016, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards announed that he supports raising the age!  "We will hold children accountable for violations of the law in age-appropriate settings by including 17-year-olds in our juvenile justice system,” the governor said in his State of […]

The Public Defender Crisis: Part 1

Every single day across the width and breadth of America Public Defenders struggle to provide representation and insure fairness in the operation of our Criminal Justice System in thousands of cases, with the potential for erosion of the respect for law and […]

Thou Shalt Not Ration Justice

This article was co-written by Tamara A. Steckler, Attorney-in-Charge of the Juvenile Rights Practice at the Legal Aid Society. Brooklyn DA Ken Thompson recommended Peter Liang, the rookie police officer convicted of manslaughter in the death of Akai Gurley, be […]

The Worst of The Worst

With roughly 12,000 murders in the United States and only 49 death sentences and 28 executions, we have to wonder: Why these 28 men and women?  According to the U.S. Supreme Court in Kennedy v. Louisiana: Evolving standards of decency must […]

Systemic Racism in the System: What PD’s Can Do to Change It

During my 29 years of experience in criminal defense, I have not been blind to the racial bias baked into the system. But seeing the actual data has brought home the stark clarity of what can only be called racism. […]

National Juvenile Defender Center and NAPD Release Juvenile Defense Self-Assessment Tool

Note: This message was co-written by Tamara Steckler (NAPD Juvenile Committee Co-Chair and Attorney-in-Charge, at the Juvenile Rights Practice of the Legal Aid Society) and Kim Dvorchak (Executive Director of the National Juvenile Defender Center). Juvenile delinquency defense is an […]

The 50th Anniversary of Kent: The decision that sparked the transformation of juvenile defense

You never get used to the feeling. You’re there, standing beside your young client at a waiver hearing. His future is resting in the hands of the Judge, who must decide whether treatment in the juvenile system is possible, or […]

Hidden Racial Bias – Why We Need to Talk to Jurors about Ferguson

Reprinted by special permission of Northwestern University School of Law, Northwestern University Law Review Online. The citation for this article is Patrick C. Brayer, Hidden Racial Bias: Why We Need to Talk with Jurors About Ferguson, 109 Nw. U. L. Rev. Online 163 (2015) As […]

It’s #PublicDefenseDay

Today it is #PublicDefenseDay and there’s a palpable energy in the air. With press from Nevada to New York and many points in between, this is a day to affirm the transformative services that public defenders provide for poor people, […]

We Ignore Canaries in the Coal Mine of America’s Criminal Justice System at Our Peril

From Washington, D.C., to Cleveland, Charleston, and Chicago – and every other state, city and hamlet – criminal justice reform is the topic of national discussion as we enter 2016. Yet all the talk about police shootings, mass incarceration, and […]