Events Calendar - Future Events View

Incorporating the realities of race and the impact of racial injustice at every stage of a client’s case is a critical component in providing holistic, effective, client-centered legal advocacy to Black and brown youth. Defenders and advocates contribute to systemic reform when they challenge racial injustice in their legal advocacy on behalf of individual clients. Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is ripe for these types of arguments. This session will encourage participants to shift the reasonable-person standard that underpins current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence to one that focuses on the actions of the “reasonable Black child.” Incorporating knowledge of implicit racial bias, adolescent development, and the relationship between Black and brown youth and the police, this session will help participants identify strategies to raise issues of race and adolescence in Fourth Amendment practice. Trainers will urge participants to consider the commonsense judgments and inferences that flow readily from the unique interplay between race and adolescence in a police-youth encounter. Participants will discuss: How race and adolescence affect every critical question in the Fourth Amendment analysis; The extent to which a child’s race affects the court’s objective inquiry about whether a police-youth encounter ventures from a “contact” into a seizure; The extent that a child’s race affects the voluntariness of consent; The extent that a child’s race affects the officers’ interpretation of a child’s behavior; and The importance of raising our client’s narrative and experience in courtroom advocacy to empower our clients and effect change in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. This training is available to all juvenile defense professionals, including juvenile defenders, policy advocates, investigators, social workers, mitigation specialists, paralegals, clerks, legal secretaries, and other staff members in support of this work.

Tori Franklin (USA Track & Field) and Zach Banner (Offensive Tackle, Pittsburgh Steelers), will be hosting a virtual discussion for players, coaches, leagues, owners, teams and strategic partners to connect with and learn from experts and organizations directly serving justice impacted youth to lift up the critical importance of young people’s rights, while also highlighting Players Coalition’s youth justice framework and speaking to the challenges and needs of youth. NJDC Deputy Director Ebony Howard and other youth advocates will discuss the critical importance of youth rights.

Over the last several years, sweeping policy changes have been made to the Illinois criminal legal system with respect to bond reform, addressing violence by investment in disinvested communities (Restore, Reinvest and Renew [R3]), and police accountability. The implementation of these policy changes are now underway.


Often in the policymaking process, a great deal of time and effort is directed to the development and codification of policy, however, without rigorous attention to the policy's interpretation and implementation, the principles incorporated in the policy and its mandated outcomes can be lost or distorted.



This year, the Collaborative will focus on implementation of these three areas of change to assess the consistency between the original intent of recent policy changes and intent incorporated in the implementation. The Collaborative will examine the existing mechanisms for implementation, their operations, and how they impact people affected by policy changes. Subject matter experts, people impacted by the policy implementation, those responsible for implementing the policies, and advocates will engage in discussion about the implementation process, possible course corrections, potential obstacles, and effective monitoring and evaluation.


Since 2008, members of the Collaborative have worked to make our state and local criminal justice systems better serve the needs of those involved in the justice system and the communities in which they reside. Through research, public education and committee work, the members of the Collaborative have played a role in producing recommendations for stakeholders at the city, county and state levels to incorporate best practice policies and programs into their criminal justice and public safety initiatives.

Approximately 13 million misdemeanor charges are filed each year in the United States, representing around 80% of all cases. Today, law enforcement’s unchecked discretion allows them to use the extensive collection of misdemeanor offenses as a pretext to stop, search, and arrest individuals—disproportionately Black and Latinx individuals— for behaviors that have little or nothing to do with public safety. In serving as the justification for these stops, misdemeanors often function as a gateway to police violence, as in the cases of Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Daunte Wright, and George Floyd, each of whom was stopped for a suspected misdemeanor.

Lisa Wayne, Past President of NACDL and the current President of the NACDL Foundation for Criminal Justice, will moderate a discussion around Brave New Films’ recently released documentary Racially Charged: America’s Misdemeanor Problem. This short film traces America’s modern misdemeanor system back to the post-civil war period, unpacking the criminalization of certain conduct as a means for social and economic control over Black Americans. Panelists will include Alexandra Natapoff, the Lee S. Kreindler Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and author of Punishment Without Crime: How Our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal; and Calvin Booth, Chair of the Drug Policy Working Group at The People’s Commission to Decriminalize Maryland.

This event is presented by NACDL.

Please note: They will not be screening the film during the event on June 30th and are encouraging all attendees to watch it prior to the discussion. The film is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm2PxE0HMr4

ACS will host its annual panel discussion reviewing the current Supreme Court Term as it draws to a close. Leading experts will discuss the Court's noteworthy decisions and analyze emerging trends.

Welcome Remarks:
Russ Feingold, ACS President

Featuring:
Thomas Goldstein,?Partner, Goldstein and Russell; Co-Founder and Publisher,?SCOTUSblog;?Moderator
Debo Adegbile, Partner, WilmerHale
Rachel Barkow, Vice Dean and Charles Seligson Professor of Law; Faculty Director, Center on the Administration of Criminal Law; NYU School of Law
Sarah Harris, Partner, Williams & Connolly
Elizabeth Sepper, Professor of Law, The University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Pratik Shah, Partner, Akin Gump

Please join the ACS Chicago Lawyer Chapter, the ACLU of Illinois, and Mayer Brown LLP virtually for our annual Supreme Court Term in Review. Hear directly from National Board of Directors member Aziz Huq, the Frank and Bernice J. Greenberg Professor of Law at University of Chicago Law School, and other legal experts about important cases from the U.S. Supreme Court’s latest term – including cases on free speech rights, voting rights, and LGBTQ rights – and upcoming cases to watch. The panelists will also share insights on significant SCOTUS trends, how the judiciary could play a major role during the Biden-Harris Administration, and answer questions from the audience.

CLE credit is pending for Illinois attorneys. Following this event, please email LCEmails@acslaw.org by Tuesday, July 20th with your Illinois Bar number to receive CLE credit.

Featuring:

Nusrat Choudhury, Roger Pascal Legal Director, ACLU of Illinois
Aziz Huq, Frank and Bernice J. Greenberg Professor of Law, University of Chicago; Member, ACS Board of Directors and Board of Academic Advisors
Steve Sanders, Professor of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law

The Southwest Juvenile Defender Center invites youth defenders and advocates from across the country to join a virtual training: Street Law, presented by Prof. Ellen Marrus and Lisa Cohen of the University of Houston Law Center. Street Law empowers youth with legal knowledge, skills, and confidence to bring about positive change and awareness for themselves and others. This training will provide information on the fundamentals of Street Law and how to institute it in your community.