- About Us
- What We Do
- Special Projects
- Clemency
- Federal Litigation Advisory Group
- Forensic Science Project
- Immigrant Justice Practice
- Impact Litigation Project
- Access to Appeals
- Justice First Project
- Legislation Committee
- Racial Justice Project
- SORA
- Survivors Advocacy Practice
- The Plea Project
- Youth and Emergent Adult Resentencing Project
- Youthful Offender Reapplication Project
- For Clients & Families
- For the Legal Community
Justice First Project
There is no longer any debate that the criminal justice system generates wrongful convictions, cases in which innocent people are sentenced to long periods of prison for crimes they did not commit.
But in the absence of DNA evidence, proving actual innocence is a difficult undertaking.
Traditional appellate practice cannot address the plight of the wrongfully convicted, because new evidence cannot be relied upon on appeal. To address this problem, in 2002, CAL developed Justice First-The Collateral Relief Project, a program designed to detect wrongful convictions and aggressively pursue claims of actual innocence.
The Mission
Justice First's mission is to ensure that wrongful convictions are detected and investigated as early in the appellate process as possible. Cases referred to the project typically involve issues such as mistaken identifications, unreliable confessions, ineffective assistance of counsel, and prosecutorial misconduct.
Through careful screening, those cases that warrant additional factual investigation are quickly identified so that effective strategies can be developed and implemented. Teams of attorneys, law student interns, and legal fellows work together to ensure that no possible avenue of investigation goes unpursued. This approach has been remarkably successful, resulting in numerous reversals.
Recent Justice First Victories
- Robbery conviction vacated where our client had been convicted of robbing two commercial stores based on eyewitness identifications and surveillance videotape. Upon reinvestigation, we learned that an uncalled eyewitness at one of the stores, who did not identify our client at a lineup, would have testified that our client was definitely not the perpetrator. Also, a closer examination of the surveillance videotapes from both robberies showed that the perpetrator had to have been appreciably shorter than the perpetrator. This was the first case ever presented to the New York County District Attorney's Conviction Integrity Panel. Upon review, the DA's office consented to vacate the conviction on the grounds of newly discovered evidence and prosecutorial misrepresentations at trial. The charges were eventually dismissed.
- Robbery conviction vacated where our client had been convicted based on a single eyewitness identification. Upon a reinvestigation, we discovered documentary evidence indicating that our client had left New York City to go to Connecticut to visit his family on the weekend of the robbery. Further investigation showed that a distinct series of events occurred in Connecticut on the weekend of the crime that definitively placed our client in Connecticut on that particular weekend. This case was the second case ever presented to the New York County District Attorney's Conviction Integrity Panel. After a four-day hearing before Justice Bruce Allen, the court granted our motion to vacate the conviction and ordered a new trial.
- Robbery conviction vacated where our client was convicted based on a single-witness identification and the prosecution had failed to prosecute his alleged co-defendant. Suspecting a Brady violation, we conducted an extensive investigation, which included interviewing the co-defendant and his attorney and determining that our client and the co-defendant were strangers to one another. We asked the Bronx District Attorney's office to look into the matter. They conceded that a Brady violation had occurred: the complainant had told the trial assistant that he had wrongly identified the co-defendant. The conviction was vacated on consent, and the prosecution did not go forward with a retrial. The case was ultimately dismissed.
- Attempted murder conviction vacated based on ineffective assistance of trial counsel, who, among other things, failed to discover evidence of our client's developmental disabilities and mental illness. Following a hearing, the court vacated the conviction, and our client subsequently received a much-reduced sentence.
Other Special Projects
CLEMENCY PROJECT
Executive clemency is powerful tool for those who are still suffering the consequences of past convictions.
FEDERAL LITIGATION ADVISORY GROUP
Although CAL legal advocacy for its clients often ends at the Court of Appeals, it is essential that we devote meaningful attention to criminal federal court proceedings.
FORENSIC SCIENCE PROJECT
Started in 2018, FSP litigates (and supports the litigation of) claims involving forensic science.
IMMIGRANT JUSTICE PRACTICE
Our Immigrant Justice Practice (IJP) zealously pursues post-conviction relief for noncitizen clients to advance their rights and protect them from the threat of immigration incarceration and deportation as a result of their criminal conviction.
Impact Litigation Project
The Impact Litigation Project develops and implements impact-litigation strategies for changing the law by fighting for legal rulings in criminal and civil cases that bolster liberty.
IN FORMA PAUPERIS & ACCESS TO APPEALS
After an indigent individual pleads guilty or is found guilty at trial, they are all too often forgotten about and lost to the system
JUSTICE FIRST
There is no longer any debate that the criminal justice system generates wrongful convictions, cases in which innocent people are sentenced to long periods of prison for crimes they did not commit.
RACIAL JUSTICE PROJECT
The criminal legal system is a particularly stark and sobering example of the myriad ways in which racial bias and inequity infect our society.
SORA
In New York, individuals who are released from prison after completing their sentences for sex offenses must register with the Division of Criminal Justice Services.
SURVIVORS ADVOCACY PRACTICE
CAL’s Survivors Advocacy Practice represents survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking who are seeking post-conviction relief.
Youthful Offender Reapplication Project
Youthful Offender Adjudication is an immensely important disposition for young people since a "YO" adjudication is not a conviction.
Youth and Emergent Adult Resentencing Project
Haunted by the reality that young adults whom CAL represented years and sometimes decades earlier are still serving the crushing sentences imposed by the trial court and unremediated on appeal, CAL developed the YEARS project.