New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI), Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP, and The Bronx Defenders, all leading civil rights advocacy groups and law firms, announced that the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York has approved their request to equally distribute nearly $165,000 in remaining class-action settlement funds…
Earlier this week, Bronx Defenders Trial Chief Karen Smolar accepted the “Community Organization Award” on behalf of The Bronx Defenders from the Brooklyn Law School National Lawyer’s Guild Chapter and the Brooklyn Law School Public Service Office. The Community Organization Award is given to an institution or group which is dedicated to social justice and has…
The Bronx Defenders works with a number of pro bono law firms on a range of matters, from isolated client case issues to ongoing projects. This support plays a crucial role in advancing our mission to combat the systemic challenges driving indigent people into the justice system, and to redefine public defense. To highlight just…
Bronx Defenders Social Work Intern Chun Rosenkranz published this moving op-ed in The Guardian on the real life consequences of living in a country whose criminal justice process is not color blind: My friend Hanuman was cremated two weeks ago, his ashes now sit in a wooden box on his parent’s alter. The cause of his death is…
The Bronx Defenders Managing Director of the Civil Action Practice Kate Rubin presented written and oral testimony to the New York City Council Committee on Courts and Legal Services yesterday, April 15, in support of Intro 736, a local law to establish the Office of Civil Justice. The Bronx Defenders supports Intro 736 because an…
Two years before Ferguson attracted national attention for racial tension and questionable court practices, a group of volunteer lawyers calling itself the ArchCity Defenders was already concluding that something was off about the city. Today the group is at the forefront of a legal movement to overhaul municipal courts regionally — one that has already…
Three Bronx Defenders advocates — Social Worker Sarah Knight, Parent Advocate Keston Jones, and Civil Legal Advocate Maria Monica Andia — will be presenting at the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), New York City Chapter conference “Social Work in the City: Dreams and Realities of Life in New York” on April 8, 2015. The conference aims…
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…