On behalf of 15 organizations supporting the rights, interests, and health of parents and pregnant women, The Bronx Defenders Family Defense Practice, along with attorneys at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, sought leave to file an amicus brief in the New York Appellate Division, First Department, last week. Our brief argues that the New York…
Bronx Defenders Social Worker Lindsay Ferguson and Criminal Defense Attorney Jenny Semmel will join a panel discussion at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, entitled “Mass Incarceration and Its Mental Health Implications,” on Thursday, March 19, 2015. The panel will be chaired by Professor George Adreopoulous, Director of the Center for International Human Rights. Jenny and…
Bronx Defenders Managing Director of the Civil Action Practice Kate Rubin, together with Fundamental Fairness Project Director Scott Levy, submitted written comments on behalf of The Bronx Defenders to New York City Council’s Committee on Public Safety on March 3, 2015, discussing key issues to consider in community policing. The testimony describes two critical lenses through which…
Bronx Defenders Managing Director of the Family Defense Practice Emma Ketteringham will be presenting on a panel at Cardozo School of Law’s “Policing, Conflict, and Change” Conference next Thursday, March 12, 2015. The conference will be an all-day event with four panel discussions surrounding the state of policing today, the development of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,…
Melissa wasn’t aiming terribly high: She wanted to be a substitute teacher in New York City’s school system, a job that would combine her passion for education with a decent paycheck. Yet her modest goal had to go on hold thanks to the inability of an upstate court to verify that her almost 20-year-old shoplifting…
On Thursday, March 5, 2015, John Jay College of Criminal Justice will be hosting the fifth installment of the 2014-15 PRI Occasional Series on Reentry Research, highlighting issues raised by the National Academy of Sciences’ groundbreaking report, “The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Causes and Consequences.” Bronx Defenders Managing Director of the Civil…
Bronx Defenders Civil Action Supervising Attorney and Team Leader Runa Rajagopal will be leading a panel on Friday, February 27th at the First National Summit on Collateral Consequences in Washington, DC, presented by the ABA Criminal Justice Section in collaboration with the National Institute of Justice. Runa’s panel, entitled “Real Life Collateral Consequence: Stories from the Field,” will…
But in truth, traditional metrics fail to adequately measure effective representation…We cannot talk about caseloads, qualifications, training, or supervision without taking into account the radical change in our responsibility to our clients. We must first recognize that no matter how well organized, staffed, trained, supervised, and evaluated we are, we are not meeting minimum standards…
Members of the state Assembly and advocates want to expand a public defender program for immigrant New Yorkers who are facing deportation. The New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP) aims to decrease the rate of deportations of New Yorkers who, for the most part, have been living lawful, productive lives despite their unresolved legal…
Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito used her first State of the City address to advocate major reforms to the city’s criminal justice system designed to keep low-level offenders out of jail. Along with a call to issue more tickets rather than arrest people for misdemeanors, in her speech earlier this month the speaker proposed a city-wide…
When John Orlando was released from prison last year, he wanted to get his life back. He’d worked for decades as a funeral director, and he wanted to keep doing that. He loved the work, he needed the money, and he wanted the dignity of paying back the money he stole. “I was guilty. I…
Bronx Defenders Parent Advocate and Focus on Fathers Project Coordinator Keston Jones will be joining a panel discussion at Penn State Law, organized by the Black Law Students Association, on Tuesday, February 3, 2015. Penn State Law is hosting this program as part of Black History Month to address how Black families are treated throughout the…
New York City officials are testing a number of methods to assess the quality of indigent criminal defense, which, they say, is part of a broader attempt to make for a fairer criminal justice system. Though the city now tracks conviction rates, incarceration rates, case duration, charge reduction and disposition at arraignments, officials in Mayor…
The New York City Board of Correction (BOC) is the oversight body tasked with ensuring Minimum Standards for conditions of confinement in New York City’s jails. On January 13th, the BOC approved a series of changes to the Minimum Standards. Much attention has been focused on the BOC’s conditional pledge to end the use of…
As the judge read out the sentence, Jose Santiago and the public defense attorney he’d just met that day listened in an almost empty courtroom. It was 2009, and Santiago spent the next year and a half in prison. Santiago was arrested one month after his 16th birthday for running past a pedestrian and snatching…
The Bronx Defenders truly regrets having been involved with the “Hands Up” video. Our organization does not condone violence against the police. The video was released without The Bronx Defenders authorization or approval. Since the video’s release, we have made numerous attempts through our attorneys to have the video taken down. We will continue in our efforts…
When jury selection began this week in the trial of James Holmes — the man accused of killing 12 people in a Colorado movie theater — he looked different than he had in prior court hearings. He traded his jail garb for khakis and a sport coat. Instead of wearing shackles and chains, he was…
Bronx Defenders Criminal Defense Attorney and Forensic Practice Supervisor Mark Loudon-Brown will be leading a National Association for Public Defense (NAPD) webinar on Thursday, February 5, 2015 at 1:00 pm EST. The webinar, entitled “Cross Examining the DNA Analyst: Themes, Chapters, and Examples” will build on the elements of DNA evidence that were discussed in the previous webinar led…
Recognizing the pain and trauma of family separation, The Bronx Defenders advocates tirelessly in Bronx Family Court to ensure that our clients are given fair access to justice and that their children are not removed merely because their families are over-policed and prosecuted for being poor. Responding to this reality, we launched our Healthy Mothers,…
“We know that young white men, for example, smoke marijuana at rates at least on par or at higher rates than young black or Latino men, and yet 87% of the people arrested for marijuana possession in New York City are black and Latino, and in the Bronx that number is 95%.” The Bronx Defenders’…
The Bronx Defenders Immigration Attorney Conor Gleason joined Abraham Paolos of Families for Freedom to discuss the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP) and the impact on families of deportations post-Executive Action Orders on WBAI’s “On the Count” with guest host Khalil Cumberbatch last Saturday, January 10, 2015. Listen to the segment here:
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all of our supporters, friends, and partners who contributed to The Bronx Defenders Annual Holiday Gift Drive, which allows our clients to give holiday gifts to their families when they otherwise would not be able to afford them. Thanks to the many contributions to our Amazon Wish List,…
As the winter gears up and temperatures drop, many of our clients lack sufficient winter coats to stay warm. In response, The Bronx Defenders carries out a coat drive each winter to make sure that clients or their family members have access to warm winter coats for free. Please consider donating a coat today! For…
Bronx Defenders Fundamental Fairness Project Director Scott Levy appeared on HuffPost Live, hosted by Josh Zepps, earlier today together with Alberto Willmore, a New York teacher who lost his position after a marijuana arrest, to discuss the costs of marijuana arrests in New York City and The Bronx Defenders’ new report “The Hidden Tax: Economic Costs…
The Bronx Defenders serves over 35,000 clients from the Bronx each year, and the voices of these clients and their families — their stories of struggle, strength, and achievement — is what drives our work forward. Here are just a few of these stories: Crystal — herself a veteran of the New York City foster…