November 13, 2023--Due Process Institute and other organizations submitted comments regarding the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) proposed rule, Criminal Justice Reviews for the SBA Business Loan Programs and Surety Bond Guaranty Program. The proposed rule eliminates existing criminal background requirements for SBA-backed loan and surety programs for small business owners. The only prohibition for access to SBA-backed loan and surety programs would be the incarceration status of the applicant, which would be subject to verification. An applicant who is incarcerated would not be eligible. Applicants would be reviewed for any connection to fraud related to pandemic programs or other federal programs. It does not prevent lenders of SBA-backed loans from conducting their own criminal history background checks of an applicant to determine the risk as long as lenders’ procedures comply with existing law.

The Criminal Justice Reviews for the SBA Business Loan Programs and Surety Bond Guaranty Program Rule proposed by SBA is long overdue and will provide much-needed capital to small business owners who have been impacted by the criminal justice system. Research published by the RAND Corporation found that roughly 4 percent of small business owners have a criminal record and 1.5 percent have a felony record. The initial restrictions published by SBA in April 2020 prohibited more than 140,000 small business owners with a criminal record from participating in the Paycheck Protection Program, impacting more than 212,000 businesses and more than 343,000 employees. Roughly 30 percent of affected small businesses were owned by a person of color. Revisions to the restrictions reduced the number of ineligible business owners with a criminal record to fewer than 18,000.

Due Process Institute applauds the SBA for proposing this rule to provide access to these loan and surety programs to small business owners who have a criminal record. Individuals who have completed the terms of their sentence and paid their debt to society should have the same access to federal programs like those provided by SBA that any other small business owner could receive. That is basic fairness that is missing in our country’s approach to criminal justice. We strongly support the proposed rule and look forward to future efforts from SBA that provide support for small business owners who have been impacted by the criminal justice system. 

November 13, 2023--Due Process Institute and the undersigned organization wrote to Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to express strong opposition to even a short-term reauthorization of Section 702 and urged to keep any such provision out of the continuing resolution and any other must-pass legislation.
 

Section 702 has been routinely abused in ways that violate Americans’ fundamental civil liberties and civil rights. FBI agents have used this surveillance authority, which is supposed to be limited to non-U.S. citizens located outside the United States, to gain warrantless access to the communications of tens of thousands of protesters, racial justice activists, 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign, journalists, and members of the U.S. Congress. Even after the FBI’s recent changes to its internal procedures, the abuses have continued, with agents conducting warrantless searches for the communications of a U.S. senator, a state senator, and a state court judge who contacted the FBI to report civil rights violations by a local police chief. NSA agents, for their part, have abused the authority to search for the communications of online dating prospects and potential tenants.
 

In its current form, this authority is dangerous to our liberties and our democracy, and it should not be renewed for any length of time without robust debate, an opportunity for amendment, and — ultimately — far-reaching reforms. Allowing a short-term reauthorization of Section 702 to be slipped into a must-pass bill would demonstrate a blatant disregard for the civil liberties and civil rights of the American people.

November 7, 2023--Due Process Institute supported today's introduction of  the sweeping, bipartisan Government Surveillance Reform Act (GSRA), which renews Section 702 of FISA for four years and reforms the law to better protect national security and Americans’ Constitutional rights. Notably, it reforms 702 to protect Americans from warrantless backdoor searches, ensures that foreigners aren’t targeted as a pretext for spying on the Americans with whom they are communicating, and prohibits the collection of domestic communications.

While section 702 features a sunset, it is not the only FISA authority in need of reforms. The Act ends warrantless collection of business records, ensures that the government provides accurate

information to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and requires meaningful accountability for violations of the law. Americans’ privacy is also threatened by unchecked surveillance conducted by intelligence agencies outside of FISA. This surveillance, undertaken pursuant to Executive Order 12333, presents many of the same problems as FISA surveillance only without statutory checks and balances or court oversight. The Act extends many of the same reforms needed for 702 to 12333 activities, including by limiting warrantless searches of Americans’ communications and prohibiting the targeting of foreigners as a pretext for surveilling Americans. It also limits the acquisition of Americans’ information as part of large datasets.
 

Federal law governing law enforcement surveillance has not kept pace with developments in technology, in large part because Congress hasn’t meaningfully updated relevant law in decades. The Act restores Constitutional protections that have been undermined by modern collection methods, by requiring warrants for surveillance of Americans’ location data, web browsing and search records, and by prohibiting the government from purchasing Americans’ data from data brokers.
 

The Government Surveillance Reform Act represents the most balanced, comprehensive surveillance reform bill in 45 years. This bill will strengthen the legal foundations of a vital national security authority by ensuring U.S. government surveillance of Americans takes place under a consistent, Congressionally-enacted legal framework, supervised by independent judges.

November 3, 2023--Due Process Institute and Justice Action Network urged senators to oppose S.J.Res. 47, which would nullify a specific provision of the CARES Act and return nearly 3,400 nonviolent individuals who have a minimal or low risk of recidivism and who have started the process of rebuilding their lives back to prison.

In March 2020, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.1 Sec. 12003 of the CARES Act provided the Bureau of Prisons with authority “to place” individuals into home confinement for the length of the “covered emergency period.” The authority to place individuals into home confinement ended 30 days after the termination of the national emergency related to COVID-19.
 

The specific provision of the CARES Act, 12003(b)(2), states, "During the covered emergency period, if the Attorney General finds that emergency conditions will materially affect the functioning of the Bureau, the Director of the Bureau may lengthen the maximum amount of time for which the Director is authorized to place a prisoner in home confinement under the first sentence of section 3624(c)(2) of title 18, United States Code, as the Director determines appropriate."
 

In December 2021, the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued an opinion stating that “[n]othing in the CARES Act or any other statute convinces us that the expiration of the power to lengthen home confinement placements necessarily operates to shorten home confinement placements that were already lawfully lengthened.” In April 2023, the Department of Justice (DOJ) published the final rule relating to home confinement under the CARES Act. DOJ received only one comment against the proposed rule and 66 comments in support.

Furthermore, nullifying home confinement opportunities provided by the CARES Act is bad policy. The cost of incarcerating an individual is $120.59 per day while home confinement costs only $55.26 per day. Annualized, the total cost of incarceration for all of these individuals is $148,507,791 per year compared to $68,053,243 for home confinement. These individuals have also taken significant rehabilitative steps in home confinement, including securing employment, becoming members of church and faith groups, enrolling in college, volunteering in their communities, caring for elderly parents and children, and mending relationships with families. Finally, as of September 1, only 27 people out of 13,000 placed into home confinement have committed new crimes, a new crime rate of 0.19 percent. 

September 29, 2023--Due Process Institute and other civil liberties organizations urged members of Congress to oppose the Stopping Harmful Image Exploitation and Limiting Distribution (SHIELD) Act of 2023 (S. 412), which would create a new federal crime carrying a one-to-five-year prison sentence for sharing intimate photos of a person without that person’s consent. This bill is well intentioned, but it will sweep in and criminalize innocent conduct and worsen the trial penalty that many criminal defendants—including many people who are actually innocent—face in our justice system.

For example, if a person receives, unsolicited, an intimate image from an acquaintance and in turn forwards the image to a friend or family member—not for the purpose of “seeking support or help”—but instead to express surprise or displeasure, then that person will have committed a crime under the current version of the SHIELD Act. And that should not be. The communication in this example is plainly innocent conduct. Equally plainly, it is protected speech. Yet, under the SHIELD Act, the victim of an unsolicited sexual communication could easily find themselves prosecuted. 

This version of the SHIELD Act still places too much discretion in the hands of law enforcement and prosecutors for fair application, and potentially criminalizes innocent conduct. The bill’s goals of protecting privacy could be better advanced by a more narrowly tailored proposal that does not unnecessarily sweep up protected speech on both public and private matters. 

September 28, 2023--Due Process Institute and civil liberties groups advocates issued the following statement responding to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) long-awaited report on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which outlined abuses over the past few years, revealing that, “[i]n the reporting period covering November 2020 to December 2021, non-compliant queries related to civil unrest numbered in the tens of thousands”:

“The message of the Board’s report is clear: individualized judicial review of U.S. person queries is critical to protect Americans’ rights and prevent further abuses. The report flatly rejects the government’s self-serving claim that individualized judicial review is unworkable. It also rejects the baseless notion that broad categories of these searches, such as searches for foreign intelligence or so-called ‘defensive’ searches for potential victims’ information, should be exempted from this requirement. And it rejects the fallacy that the FBI’s tweaks to its internal procedures are sufficient to address the acute risks posed by backdoor searches.

Three members of the Board stated that they would support a probable cause standard for U.S. person queries in any criminal investigation, including those related to foreign intelligence. In her statement, the Chair of the Board compellingly explained why the full ‘probable cause’ standard is required by the Fourth Amendment and necessary to safeguard Americans’ privacy. We believe the same logic supports a requirement for a probable cause order for any U.S. person query. 

We note that the Board limited its inquiry and its recommendations to Section 702. It did not address many of the other issues that are very much part of the current debate, including the government’s use of data brokers to circumvent legal protections for Americans’ privacy and the use of overseas surveillance to collect Americans’ information without statutory authority or judicial oversight. Congress, however, must address these issues. If it limits itself to reforms of Section 702, the government will simply continue its warrantless surveillance of Americans using these other methods.” 

September 26, 2023--Due Process Institute and numerous health policy, drug policy, criminal justice reform, civil rights, and advocacy organizations urge members of Congress to cosponsor and support swift passage of the Temporary Emergency Scheduling and Testing of Fentanyl Analogues Act of 2023 (TEST Act). This bill would allow the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to place new fentanyl-related substances (FRS) in Schedule I for up to four years, during which time the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Health and Human Services (HHS) would have to conduct a scientific and medical evaluation of each substance and publicly report the findings. 

Congress has preemptively placed all FRS on Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) as a class – even those that do not exist. Congress has considered circumventing the scientific research requirements under current law by passing bills such as the HALT Fentanyl Act (H.R. 467), which would automatically designate any FRS as dangerous without studying a substance at all. Temporary scheduling authority is intended to allow the DOJ the time to conduct the scientific and medical evaluations it is required to by law. By allowing DOJ to designate the entire class of FRS as Schedule I without conducting scientific and medical research, Congress may inadvertently leave undiscovered therapeutic medications similar to naloxone and other life-saving medications at a time when the U.S. is facing record numbers of overdose deaths. 

Approximately 285 people die of a preventable overdose each day in the United States. Rather than restricting research, the federal government must support the study and development of new tools and the provision of health services to save lives. This includes studying FRS for potential treatment options and ensuring people can receive the best treatments imaginable. Ensuring that federal agencies and the research community can study emerging substances for potential therapeutic value, including FRS, is a critically important component of these efforts. It can also help ensure that people are not unjustly incarcerated for crimes that were never committed. 

September 14, 2023--Due Process Institute supported today's reintroduction of bipartisan and bicameral Prohibiting Punishment of Acquitted Conduct Act of 2023 in the Senate (S. 2788) and House (H.R. 5430) that would end the federal practice of sentencing on the basis of conduct for which a jury has acquitted. We applaud Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN-9), Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND-At-Large), Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)  for their leadership on this important issue and we thank our many coalition partners for their support of this critical effort.

In short, this bipartisan bill would end the unjust practice of judges increasing sentences based on conduct for which a defendant has been acquitted by a jury. The Fifth and Sixth Amendment guarantee due process and the right to trial by jury but current federal law allows judges to override a jury’s not guilty verdict by sentencing a defendant for the very conduct a jury acquitted them of. Judges are allowed to impose these sentence enhancements because it only requires the preponderance of evidence, a less demanding standard than a jury’s standard to convict only beyond a reasonable doubt.

This practice has been roundly criticized by practitioners, judges, and scholars. Furthermore, allowing acquitted conduct to be considered in sentencing exacerbates the trial penalty, described as the significant difference in sentencing when a defendant accepts a plea bargain opposed to if they are convicted at trial. The trial penalty also contributes to coercive plea bargaining and the frequency of innocent people pleading guilty. Passing this legislation would help alleviate these problems, eliminate unjust practices, and strengthen the protections provided by the Constitution.  

September 12, 2023--Due Process Institute endorses the Driving for Opportunity Act of 2023, as

and recognize the urgency of addressing debt-based driver’s license suspension. Suspensions and restrictions of driver’s licenses for unpaid court fines and fees fail to improve public safety and restrict economic opportunity for millions of Americans. The Driving for Opportunity Act of 2023, a bipartisan bill sponsored by U.S. Senators Chris Coons and Roger Wicker, recognizes the

unintended harms of this counterproductive practice and supports communities transitioning away from this strategy.

One in three American families are impacted by fines and fees that are imposed as a result

of a criminal or traffic offense. Unpaid fines and fees can lead to a driver’s license

suspension or other restrictions on driving. Driving a vehicle is essential for finding and

keeping a good job, pursuing education, accessing child care, and obtaining other

foundations for a stable and productive life. As Americans struggle to make ends meet,

debt-based license suspensions are making it significantly more difficult for families to

achieve critical financial stability.

Millions of Americans have a suspended or revoked driver’s license solely because of

unpaid court debt rather than unsafe driving. Such “debt-based suspension” is a means

through which governments try to compel payment. This system is inherently faulty:

someone who cannot drive will likely have a difficult time securing access to work,

especially in rural and low-income communities where public transportation is limited,

making debt repayment even more difficult or impossible.

Suspensions and revocations of driver’s licenses for non-driving related conduct may

harm public safety. Law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and judges lose countless

hours enforcing these laws at the expense of responding to more pressing issues in their

communities on and off the road. In addition, having a suspended license exposes drivers

to additional fines, arrest, incarceration, or other entanglements with the criminal legal system. Half the states, ranging from Texas to New York, have amended their own policies to eliminate or restrict driver’s license suspensions for unpaid court debt.

The Driving for Opportunity Act of 2023 authorizes federal funding to support states that

are choosing to end debt-based driver’s license suspensions. Under this legislation,

state governments would receive limited federal assistance to manage some of the costs

associated with eliminating debt-based suspensions and reinstating licenses. Passage of

the Driving for Opportunity Act presents an opportunity for Congress to lift up a

data-backed, widely supported policy reform and provide modest support for state

governments that are embracing this common sense measure.

September 8, 2023--Due Process Institute and over a dozen privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties groups from across the political spectrum met yesterday with Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines and other high ranking intelligence community officials to discuss Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA 702), and connected surveillance issues such as data purchases and surveillance pursuant to Executive Order 12333. Following the meeting, the undersigned attendees issued the following statement:

“We appreciate DNI Haines taking time to hear our serious concerns with warrantless FISA 702 surveillance, but remain deeply distressed that the intelligence community will not commit to any of the meaningful reforms that are critical to protect Americans’ privacy.

“After years of misuse such as deliberately seeking out private messages of activists on the left and right, a batch of 19,000 campaign donors, and lawmakers, it’s clear that FISA 702 and related surveillance powers need serious change. The administration and intelligence community must be willing to come to the table and accept significant new privacy protections that advocates, Congress, and the American people are calling for. There simply isn’t a path to reauthorization built on half-measures, window dressing, and codification of internal procedures that have repeatedly failed to protect Americans’ civil rights and civil liberties.”

As detailed in a letter provided to DNI Haines in advance of the meeting, participants view reauthorization of FISA 702 as dependent on a range of meaningful reforms, including:

• Requiring the government to obtain a warrant before searching the content of Americans’ communications collected under intelligence authorities;
• Establishing legislative safeguards for surveillance affecting Americans that is conducted under Executive Order 12333;
• Closing the data broker loophole, through which intelligence and law enforcement agencies purchase Americans’ sensitive location, internet, and other data without any legal process;
• Bolstering judicial review in FISA-related proceedings, including by shoring up the government’s obligation to give notice when information derived from FISA is used against a person accused of a crime; and
• Codifying reasonable limits on the scope of intelligence surveillance.

September 6, 2023--Due Process Institute and an ideologically diverse group of public policy organizations commend the bipartisan efforts in Congress to elevate the importance of tobacco harm reduction through the formation of the Congressional Tobacco Harm Reduction Caucus. It is an essential approach to addressing disease and death brought by smoking combustible cigarettes.

Despite significant declines, combustible cigarette smoking is still the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. More than 30 million Americans smoke combustible cigarettes and more than 16 million are living with disease caused by smoking. Smoking contributes to 1 in 5 deaths in America: 480,000 premature deaths every year, including more than 41,000 from secondhand smoke. In addition to the loss of life, smoking costs our economy more than $600 billion per year. Every year, more than half of adults who smoke try to quit, but fewer than 8 percent actually do so. And just as the harms of combustible cigarette smoking disproportionately fall on people of color, veterans and service members, LGBTQ people, and poor, rural and disabled Americans, quitting is especially difficult in these populations. These individuals and their families are worth the exploration of every tool that could reduce the harms of tobacco.

Public health, compassion, personal autonomy and pragmatism demand the continuation of investment in prevention and cessation, and get serious about exploring harm reduction. This calls for a paradigm shift from well-intentioned but harmful prohibitionist policies that could increase negative interactions with police, especially in communities of color. The adoption of harm reduction practices can increase quit rates and decrease health risks for many adults who are unable or unwilling to quit using available cessation products and strategies.

July 26, 2023--Due Process Institute and the undersigned criminal justice organizations wrote to Congress to express deep concern about the devastating impact of proposed cuts to the federal indigent defense system. The House and Senate Appropriations Committees have approved funding that is $122 million and $150.4 million, respectively, less than requested. Unless corrected, these cuts could cause the loss of 9-12% of current federal defender staff—even after defenders cut critical programming such as training and IT improvements. Such layoffs would almost certainly decimate the federal defender system, degrade the overall quality of federal indigent defense, and undermine the administration of justice for countless federal defendants. To avert the crisis, Congress should ensure that the Defenders Services account is fully funded at the requested amount. Our federal criminal justice system cannot be sustained unless all components – prosecution, judiciary, and defense – receive adequate and stable funding. Federal defender offices were already operating quite leanly, as evidenced by a recent work measurement study that indicates the need for an additional 256 employees. Instead, the House and Senate bills would potentially result in the loss of 368-493 employees. 

Federal indigent defense was already under-resourced as compared to the Department of Justice, and the cuts proposed by the House and Senate would push the system over the brink. Cuts to federal defense will have a ripple effect across the federal criminal legal system. It is estimated that 90 percent of people charged with federal crimes are too poor to hire an attorney and, thus, have a constitutional right to a federal defender or court-appointed counsel. Given that every federal defendant without resources to hire an attorney is entitled to government-paid counsel, no savings could even conceivably be achieved by slashing the federal defender budget. Instead, these proposed budget cuts will simply create chaos. Federal defender offices will be forced to turn down cases that they would ordinarily accept, forcing panel attorneys—most of whom maintain busy practices alongside their CJA work—to make up the difference. 

As this year marks the 60th anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright, the federal indigent defense system must be protected from these devastating cuts. Testifying in support of the Criminal Justice Act in 1963, Attorney General Robert Kennedy extolled the planned system as “the most comprehensive, yet flexible solution ever devised to meet the representation problem in the federal system.” Sixty years later, the future of that system rests in the hands of this Congress and urge for the full funding for the federal indigent defense system and ensure that, in federal court, the scales of justice “measure truth, not legal fees.”

March 6, 2023--Due Process Institute,  national, state, and local public health and other criminal justice reform organizations urged Congress to reject and vote NO on the Halt All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl (HALT) Act (H.R. 467). This bill permanently schedules fentanyl related

substances (FRS) on schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) based on a flawed class definition, imposes mandatory minimums, and fails to provide an offramp for removing inert or harmless substances from the drug schedule.

The classwide scheduling approach endorsed in the HALT Fentanyl Act classifies all FRS as schedule I drugs, reserved for substances with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. This class definition, however, is a radical departure from drug scheduling practices as it relies exclusively on chemical structure without accounting for pharmacological effect based on the unproven hypothesis of chemical structure-function relationships. Furthermore, The HALT Fentanyl Act also enshrines mandatory minimums for distribution of FRS under the Controlled Substances Act, an inappropriate mandate that criminalizes possibly inert or harmless substances. Our country is repeating past missteps when it comes to policy responses to fentanyl and its analogues. In the 1980s, policymakers enacted severe mandatory minimums for small amounts of crack cocaine in response to media headlines and law enforcement warnings that perpetuated mythology and fear. 

We urge Congress to support bills like the Support, Treatment, and Overdose Prevention of Fentanyl (STOP Fentanyl) Act of 2021 (H.R. 2366) introduced by Rep. Ann Kuster (D-NH) and Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), which proposes increased access to harm reduction services and substance use disorder treatment, improved data collection, and other evidence-based methods to reduce overdose, and the TEST Act, which provides funding for FRS research and offers alternative strategies to simultaneously address the opioid epidemic while preventing backsliding on criminal justice reform.

February 28, 2023--Due Process Institute joined a diverse coalition of civil rights organizations  urging members of Congress to repeal the lifetime ban on individuals with a past felony drug conviction from receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) as part of the next Farm Bill.

SNAP and TANF provide minimal, supplemental support during times of financial hardship and food insecurity. Individuals and families who qualify for SNAP and TANF generally live below 200% of the federal poverty line. The lifetime drug felony bans on SNAP and TANF imposed by Congress undermine efforts by individuals to transition successfully from the criminal legal system into their communities and to provide for their families. Formerly incarcerated people struggle with unemployment and other barriers to reentry. Food insecurity is also pervasive among people transitioning from the criminal legal system.

The lifetime felony drug bans hurt not only individuals with convictions, but also their children. Families receive a much lower overall benefit when a parent is ineligible for SNAP/TANF as a result of a drug felony conviction. This means that families with an adult who is banned from benefits have access to less food and support, causing those family members to experience food insecurity and increased stress that can lead to preventable health problems for both adults and children. Ultimately, the lifetime drug felony bans on SNAP and TANF can increase the risk of recidivism. One study by an economist at the University of Maryland estimated that individuals still subjected to the drug felony ban in Florida are about nine percentage points more likely to return to prison after release than individuals with prior drug convictions who have access to SNAP under Florida’s partial opt-out of the federal ban. Similarly, a 2017 study by a researcher at the Harvard University School of Law found that eligibility for SNAP and TANF significantly reduces recidivism. 

After twenty-five years, it is time for Congress to end these punitive bans.

February 6, 2023--Due Process Institute and a diverse coalition of criminal justice organizations urged members of the House of Representatives to oppose any obstruction of the District of Columbia's Revised Criminal Code of 2022 (RCCA), including any resolution of disapproval or budget rider. The RCAA is the product of 16 years of research, an expert commission, 51 public meetings, extensive public feedback, and robust negotiation. As such, the D.C. Council voted unanimously to pass the RCCA and the RCCA is supported by 83% of District voters. Opponents of the RCCA, however, are spreading misinformation about the RCCA’s impact in a blatant attempt to erode home rule and trample on the rights of District residents. 

First, Washingtonians know best how to address criminal justice policies in their community and

deserve the right to determine their own laws. Local leaders are better positioned and retain

more expertise to address safety and justice issues in the District than Congress. Second, the RCCA is a long-overdue modernization of the D.C. Criminal Code. Since the 1960s, dozens of states have embarked on criminal code reforms, removing obsolete provisions, ensuring sentences are proportionate and equitable, and simplifying overlapping charges. The RCCA follows that trend – the District last comprehensively revised the criminal code in 1901. A revision to reflect best practices in sentencing and criminological evidence is necessary. Third, to arrive at this revision, the District engaged in a thorough, transparent, and evidence-based process. Finally, the RCCA is a balanced bill – bringing the District in line with national sentencing norms by lengthening some sentences, reducing some maximums, and other reforms. The RCCA includes many modernizations, such as aligning D.C. with the majority of the country by creating the right to a jury trial for misdemeanors.

The people and leaders of the District support the RCCA. The RCCA is also backed by an

abundance of research, data, and stakeholder feedback. Attempts by Congress to intervene are

rooted in efforts to end home rule and falsehoods. We urge you to respect the will of

Washingtonians and oppose all efforts, whether a resolution of disapproval or budget rider, to

obstruct the RCCA.

January 30, 2023--Due Process Institute and 85 civil liberties organizations wrote to strongly support legislation that recognizes Fred Korematsu’s legacy as a civil rights hero. Accordingly, we endorse the following legislation: (1) Fred Korematsu Congressional Gold Medal Act; (2) Recognizing the importance of establishing a national "Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution"; (3) Korematsu-Takai Civil Liberties Protection Act.

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which

authorized the forced relocation and incarceration of Japanese Americans. In all, more than

120,000 Japanese Americans were detained and forcefully removed from their homes without

charges or due process for years. The lawsuit brought by Fred Korematsu, an American citizen of Japanese descent, fought the implementation of that order, challenging the mass violation of civil liberties on the basis of race. Korematsu stood against these unfounded and racist actions. At the time, our institutions — our democracy — failed him. The Supreme Court, intended as a bulwark against Executive power run amok, upheld Korematsu’s detention in Korematsu v. United States in 1944, with a 6-3 majority. However, the dissent by Justice Frank Murphy spoke the truth that the United States, grudgingly and slowly, would come to recognize through executive, judicial, and legislative action. Justice Murphy declared the order to detain Japanese Americans the “legalization of racism.” The imprisonment of Americans of Japanese ancestry, and its legal sanction, is now recognized as a grave injustice and a violation of civil liberties.

Congress should elevate this history for all Americans to learn from it and recognize the

importance of this civil rights hero who took a stand on behalf of all of us, and we endorse and urge the enactment of the following legislation: (1) Korematsu-Takai Civil Liberties Protection Act, which would prohibit detention or imprisonment based solely on an actual or perceived protected characteristic of an individual. (2) Recognizing the importance of establishing a national "Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution," which will help to ensure that Fred Korematsu's legacy is remembered and honored, and that the lessons of the incarceration are not forgotten. (3) Fred Korematsu Congressional Gold Medal Act, which will honor Fred Korematsu for his decades-long fight for justice, and will serve as a powerful reminder of the importance of protecting civil liberties for all Americans.

January 26, 2023--Due Process Institute and other criminal justice reform organizations urged Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin and Ranking Member Lindsey Graham to schedule a mark-up for the EQUAL Act as soon as it is reintroduced. Moving the bill early this year will help prevent the same disappointing fate the bill suffered last Congress.

The arguments for passing the EQUAL Act remain clear. There is no scientific justification for the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine-related offenses. Crack and powder are simply two forms of the same drug. Punishing crack offenses more harshly does nothing to enhance public safety. It does, however, contribute greatly to racial disparities in the federal prison population. Approximately 90 percent of people incarcerated for crack offenses are Black. In Fiscal Year 2020, nearly 77 percent of people sentenced for crack cocaine offenses were Black. The EQUAL Act would bring the federal justice system more in line with the vast majority of states that do not punish crack and powder cocaine differently.

Last Congress, the EQUAL Act was one of only a few pieces of legislation to enjoy clear bipartisan support. The House of Representatives passed the bill in September 2021 with an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 361-66. The Senate version of the bill enjoyed the support of more than 60 senators, but never received a vote in committee or on the floor. To ensure this strong bipartisan bill reaches President Biden’s desk, it is vital to begin work on this urgent piece of legislation immediately.

January 10, 2023–Due Process Institute joined the Justice Roundtable and a bipartisan coalition of organizations to express opposition to H.R. 27, the Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act. The goal of this legislation is clear: to pressure prosecutors to prosecute more cases more harshly despite bipartisan concerns that the United States already incarcerates far too many people for far too long.

H.R. 27 mandates that prosecutor’s offices in jurisdictions with populations over 380,000 disclose, for enumerated offenses, information related to the number of cases referred by the police, declinations, bail requests, plea bargains, an individual’s criminal history, and convictions. It also makes this reporting a requirement for funding under the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program (“Byrne”) and is based on a false premise that filing more criminal charges, detaining more people pre-trial, and making fewer plea offers will make our communities safer. Finally, this bill fails to require the collection of data that would provide a robust picture of prosecutorial practices and avenues for reform.

Meanwhile, this bill does not address violent crime. It rests on the assumption that more pretrial incarceration and more prosecutions seeking harsher sentences will increase public safety. Yet there is no evidence to support this. Research by the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund's Thurgood Marshall Institute found that non-reform prosecutors, the absence of bail reform, and increased police budgets did not prevent cities from experiencing a homicide spike in 2020. A better approach to public safety would be to invest in evidence-based approaches, such as non-carceral crisis response, violence intervention, substance abuse treatment, lifting barriers to reentry for formerly-incarcerated people, and investments in education, housing, and job training.

Furthermore, transparency in criminal legal system data is critical and there should be bipartisan efforts to improve data collection around arrests, prosecutions, and convictions; however, the Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act is the wrong approach to achieve these goals. All communities should be able to hold their prosecutors accountable for their policies and actions. Prosecutors should disclose a wide array of data, including the demographics of those they prosecute. Experts have offered valuable models for how prosecutors can collect, monitor, and share data with their communities to improve safety, fairness, and equity. Yet this bill fails to require reporting of critical data needed to provide a full and accurate picture of prosecutorial practices.

As a result, the bill would not only not result in real accountability, but compliance would also come at the expense of reforms that are more likely to contribute to public safety. For all these listed reasons, we urge Representatives to oppose H.R. 27, the Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act.
 

December 2, 2022--Due Process Institute and diverse group of organizations urged Congress to safeguard and strengthen our democratic institutions by enacting National Emergencies Act (NEA) reform during this Congress, either as a stand-alone or as part of broader legislation. Absent reform, presidential abuse of the NEA is a matter of “when” rather than “if.” The law gives the president nearly unfettered discretion to declare a national emergency. That declaration unlocks more than 120 statutory authorities, including emergency powers that a president could rely on to shut down communications facilities, seize private property, and control domestic transportation. 

The NEA reform provisions shared by PODA and the HSGAC-passed version of the ARTICLE ONE Act would establish a necessary, meaningful check on the president’s use of emergency powers, while maintaining flexibility for the president when needed most — in the immediate aftermath of a crisis. Under these provisions, presidential emergency declarations would expire after approximately one month (20 legislative days under PODA and 30 calendar days under the ARTICLE ONE Act) unless approved by Congress, using expedited procedures that would ensure timely action. If approved, emergency declarations could last up to a year, with subsequent year-long renewals by the president also requiring expedited congressional approval. Existing reporting requirements would be significantly enhanced in order to keep Congress better informed about how the president uses emergency powers. There is extraordinarily broad bipartisan support for this set of reforms.

Congress has the opportunity to advance the most significant recalibration of the balance of power between the president and Congress in four decades, and to do so in a bipartisan manner. 

November 3, 2022--Due Process Institute and a coalition of organizations with diverse political perspectives urged Senators to support three provisions in the House-passed version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 (H.R. 7900). Together, these provisions would address dangerous gaps in the laws that govern domestic deployment of the military. They would (1) reform the outdated command structure of the District of Columbia National Guard; (2) ensure that interstate deployments of the National Guard under Title 32 of the United States Code are carried out in accordance with the Constitution; and (3) codify an exclusionary rule that would establish a practical mechanism for enforcing the Posse Comitatus Act. In addition, we encourage the Senate to pass an amendment to Section 329 of Title 32 that would prohibit privately funded deployments of the National Guard.

Furthermore, none of the above reforms would prevent presidents from lawfully exercising the powers Congress has granted them to deploy the military to provide disaster relief, suppress insurrections, or enforce civil rights laws. All that these provisions would do is strengthen the Posse Comitatus Act and prevent the National Guard from being abused, misused, or dragged into partisan politics.

September 28, 2022--Due Process Institute joined a coalition from across the political spectrum to urge House Members to preserve in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 (NDAA) an amendment offered by Representatives Jacobs and Davidson, which the House of Representatives adopted en bloc without opposition, and which Senators Wyden and Daines have offered in the Senate. This amendment brings critical transparency to a vital public debate.

This amendment would provide Congress and the public with only the information necessary to assess the profound privacy consequences of the Department of Defense buying its way around the Fourth Amendment. Specifically, it requires the Department of Defense to disclose which components are purchasing smartphone location and internet activity records about people in the United States without court orders. Government agencies have yet to be transparent about their purchase of Americans’ sensitive information without court orders — and yet this policy debate is already long overdue.

The purchase of information that would otherwise require a court order to obtain has critical implications for Americans’ constitutional rights. Quite simply, despite having no Congressional or judicial authorization, the executive branch has taken the position that if it buys data, Americans have no privacy rights at all. Transparency is crucial to ensuring the exploitation of this loophole does not further outpace Congressional, judicial, and public oversight.

September 20, 2022--Due Process Institute strongly encouraged Members of the House Committee on the Judiciary to support the Clean Slate Act, H.R. 2864, and the Fresh Start Act, H.R. 5651, which are supported by bipartisan groups of House members across the ideological spectrum.

Even the most minor of offenses—including those that don’t result in prison time—can impact an individual for many years. A criminal record can significantly hinder job, education, and housing opportunities, which not only continues the punishment for the individual long after his or her sentence, but also likely has an adverse impact on public safety because it increases the likelihood of that person’s recidivism.

The Clean Slate Act would provide for the automatic sealing of records for simple possession of a controlled substance under 21 U.S.C. § 844 or records for any federal nonviolent marijuana offense—one year after someone has completed any potential prison sentence. The Clean Slate Act also provides a petition process for the sealing of records for certain nonviolent offenses. Specifically, a person who has been convicted of two or fewer nonviolent offenses can petition a court to seal the record after completing the terms of any sentence. Furthermore, the Fresh Start Act would authorize $50 million annually in state grants for each of the next five fiscal years to help improve existing automatic record-sealing and expungement laws.

The best way to reduce recidivism is to provide a path forward for individuals with a criminal record who seek to improve their lives through education, employment, and housing opportunities.

September 20, 2022--Due Process Institute urges the House Judiciary Committee to support the Terry Technical Correction Act (H.R. 5455), a bill with broad bipartisan support and introduced by Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), David Cicilline (D-RI), Burgess Owens (R-UT), and Thomas Massie (R-KY).

Both the Fair Sentencing Act and the First Step Act were incredibly important pieces of bipartisan sentencing reform legislation that made important changes to reduce a glaring inequity in federal drug sentencing. In light of the Supreme Court’s holding in Terry v. United States (2021). However, Congress must act to ensure that justice is being equally

and consistently applied as it intended through these legislative enactments.

After Congress enacted the First Step Act, Tarahrick Terry sought resentencing, but the federal courts hearing his case determined that only those convicted of the more serious crack cocaine offenses that triggered mandatory minimum prison sentences under § 841(b)(1)(A) or § 841(b)(1)(B) were eligible for a sentence reduction, not people like Terry who were convicted of a crack cocaine offense under subparagraph (C). In June 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with those courts based on a technical drafting issue, despite the fact that the bipartisan sponsors of the First Step Act urged them in an amicus brief to hold that the Act made retroactive relief broadly available to all individuals sentenced for crack cocaine offenses before the Fair Sentencing Act.

The Terry Technical Correction Act would simply clarify that the First Step Act sentencing reforms were meant to apply to individuals convicted under 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C), as well as other low-level offenses.

July 21, 2022--Due Process Institute was joined in comment by American Civil Liberties Union, Color Of Change, Democracy Forward Foundation, Due Process Institute, Federal Public & Community Defenders, Justice Action Network, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and Tzedek Association to commend DOJ for its ongoing use of its CARES Act authority to permit individuals placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 emergency to remain on home confinement. In addition to the continuation of the Department of Justice's CARES Act authority, we recommend any potential return to a correctional facility must be consistent with clearly established criteria and procedures that further the purpose of home confinement and comport with due process and for the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to establish clear criteria and procedures—through notice-and-comment rulemaking—for how it will assess individuals subject to potential return to a federal facility.