Black Life Deserves More Than Meaningless Commissions
This weekend the Trump administration released purporting to offer recommendations on police reform. The findings of this sham commission — composed primarily of police and prosecutors — show what most already knew to be true. The Trump administration never had any plans to implement transformative changes to policing that would curtail police violence, truly hold law enforcement accountable, or conduct any legitimate federal oversight of even the most troubled law enforcement agencies. This report was never meant to enhance safety for all communities; it was meant to advance the Trump administration’s “law and order” political agenda.
The Trump commission’s flawed recommendations are, in many cases, literally the opposite of what's necessary to address the epidemic of police violence and mass incarceration. While the Trump commission simply restates a laundry list of recommendations focused on protecting police, here are a few recommendations for what we need to do instead.
We must transform the role of police and prosecutors in the criminal legal system.
The Trump commission report demonizes reform-minded prosecutors who use their discretion to choose liberty over incarceration and rehabilitation over punishment. These exercises of discretion — including choosing not to enforce and prosecute certain offenses —are exactly what prosecutors should be doing to help end mass incarceration. So are the efforts to end cash bail and wealth based incarceration that the Trump commission links, without evidence, to increased crime. In fact, states that have transformed their bail systems, such as New Jersey, have not only seen a reduction in the use of cash bail, but also a reduction in incarceration and crime.
We must stop the use of racist and invasive face recognition technology.
Jurisdictions across the country, including Portland, Boston, San Francisco, and the State of Vermont have halted law enforcement use of face recognition technology. This effort came after recognizing that the racist technology misidentifies people of color at high rates and threatens to supercharge over-policing of communities of color. But the Trump commission calls for an expansion of these dangerous technologies — exactly the opposite of what we need. By ending law enforcement reliance on face recognition algorithms we can limit of , and ensure community members are free from the threat of pervasive government surveillance every time we leave our homes.
We must abolish qualified immunity.
Across the country there has been a bipartisan effort to reign in qualified immunity — a court-created legal defense that shields police officers from liability for misconduct. Once an obscure legal doctrine, it has become a of activists’ calls for police accountability as recognition of the policy as one of the main doctrines used to defend police officers in cases of police violence has grown. Officer Derek Chauvin, the police officer who killed George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for over eight minutes in a video seen around the world, in a civil suit through qualified immunity. By abolishing the doctrine of qualified immunity, many families, victims, and survivors of police violence will have the opportunity to obtain some form of justice in our legal system. Yet the Trump commission flat-out rejects the idea of abolishing or even limiting qualified immunity.
We need to implement enforceable legal guidelines that clarify when police officers can use force against members of the communities they are charged with protecting.
Policies that limit officers’ use of lethal force so it is used only when absolutely necessary and after exhausting other alternatives such as de-escalation must be implemented on the local, state, and federal level. Instead, however, the Trump commission asserts that “the most effective measure to prevent police from using force remains for citizens to comply with officer commands” and that community members who are being unlawfully abused by police officers should “Comply, Then Complain.” The “comply, then complain” framework means that people in America must bow down to law enforcement, no matter what their behavior may be. This may be true in totalitarian regimes, but in America, the police work for the people.
From its inception, it was clear that the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice was a thinly veiled attempt to use the idea of “police reform” to promote President Trump’s “law and order” agenda, even as historic numbers of people marched in the streets to demand structural changes and an end to police violence. The commission's goal of “promoting public confidence and respect for the law” was a thinly-veiled threat to advocates and organizers fighting to end police violence. Its mandate to look at “refusals by State and local prosecutors to enforce laws” was a rebuke of the movement to fix a corrupt, punitive, and harmful legal system and its mere composition an attempt by the Attorney General to advance a one-sided agenda. This flawed, bad faith approach should be buried along with the rest of the Trump administration’s terrible ideas on Jan. 20.
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Prisoners' Rights
Criminal Law Reform
ACLU Sues Bureau of Prisons for Keeping People in Prison Longer Than the Law AllowsACLU Sues Bureau of Prisons for Keeping People in Prison Longer Than the Law Allows
WASHINGTON – A federal lawsuit brought today by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of D.C., and Jenner & Block LLP challenges the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for unlawfully incarcerating people longer than the law allows under the First Step Act. The lawsuit contends that the BOP’s failure to implement the First Step Act according to its plain language violates the rights of thousands of people who should be returning to their communities and rebuilding their lives but instead remain incarcerated. Signed into law in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump, the bipartisan First Step Act was designed to reduce the population in federal prisons, reform extreme sentencing laws, and provide programming and reentry transition services to people in prison. Central to the First Step Act is a system of earned time credits, which allows people in prison to earn time off their sentences and time out of prison by participating in rehabilitation programs. Through the First Step Act, Congress unambiguously ordered BOP to move people out of prison when they meet certain requirements to use their earned time credits. Instead of faithfully following the mandatory law, BOP adopted a regulation treating the law as optional. As a result, thousands of people, who should already be back in their communities and with their families, remain in prison. “Every extra unlawful day our clients spend in prison is a serious injustice,” said Emma Andersson, deputy director of the Criminal Law Reform Project at the ACLU. “It is egregious that the Bureau of Prisons is imprisoning people for months longer than the law allows. The government must follow through on its legal obligation to get people out of prison on time and back into their communities, where they belong.” Additional comments below from: Vanessa Crowe, plaintiff: “Time is what I owed for my wrongdoing, and I have paid my time. But I should not have to spend more time in prison than the law allows. I often reflect on what I will miss during the months after when I should be out of prison. I will miss work and lose out on wages that would help me get back on my feet. I could be a tax paying citizen instead of a burden on society. But most of all, I will miss more precious time with my family. My family and I are ready to tum the page on this period in our lives — we are all ready to start a new life, a life with purpose, hope, and healing together. I want to start that life when I am legally entitled to start it-not five months later.” Arthur Spitzer, senior counsel at ACLU of D.C.: “There’s no excuse for the Bureau of Prisons to pretend not to understand Congress’s clear command that people who have earned the right to early release must be released. This law has been on the books for six years. The Bureau of Prisons has had plenty of time to understand it. Law enforcers should obey the law.” Betsy Henthorne, partner at Jenner & Block: “It has been six years since the First Step Act was signed, but despite Congress’s clear directives, the Bureau of Prisons continues to hold thousands of people in prison longer than the law allows. We should and do expect better—it’s past time for the BOP to ensure that those who have earned their release are able to return home to their families and communities according to the law Congress passed.” -
Maryland Supreme CourtDec 2024
Criminal Law Reform
Roland Branch v. State of MarylandRoland Branch v. State of Maryland
This petition to the Supreme Court of Maryland asked the court to reconsider its adherence to Whren v. U.S., 517 U.S. 806 (1996), which declared that a traffic stop undertaken for pretextual reasons does not violate the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution so long as the police have probable cause to believe that a traffic violation occurred. The ACLU, alongside the ACLU of Maryland, filed an amicus brief in support of the defendant’s petition, in which the ACLU argued that the court should take up the question of whether pretextual stops violate the Maryland Constitution. In September 2024, the Court denied the petition. -
North Carolina Supreme CourtDec 2024
Criminal Law Reform
State v. WrightState v. Wright
This case in the North Carolina Supreme Court involves the question of whether the police violated the U.S. Constitution when they searched the defendant, Mr. Wright’s, backpack even after he repeatedly said no to the search requests. The ACLU alongside the ACLU of North Carolina filed an amicus brief arguing that the search was unconstitutional because Mr. Wright’s eventual “consent” was the result of police coercion. Our brief urges the court to consider the totality of the circumstances that make one more susceptible to coercion, including race and poverty. -
News & CommentaryDec 2024
Criminal Law Reform
Disability Rights
Incarceration Should Not be a Death Sentence for Individuals Who Use OpioidsIncarceration Should Not be a Death Sentence for Individuals Who Use Opioids
New litigation centered on increasing access to substance-use disorder treatment in jails and prisons is helping to reduce mortality rates among incarcerated individuals.