- 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
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.
Unlike other states, New York has not yet enacted legislation authorizing courts to revisit long sentences imposed on adolescents and young adults. Serving their decades-long sentences with years to go before having any hope of release, these clients have haunted us since CAL’s doors opened.
The YEARS Project creatively uses existing tools to right this wrong. YEARS recognizes that young people, with incredible capacity to mature, are too often introduced to criminal activity after years of struggle, adversity, and peer influence, yet the details of their past were rarely presented as they should have been to the sentencing court. The YEARS Project, therefore, challenges lengthy sentences by bringing resentencing motions in trial court on two legal theories: (1) that a client received ineffective assistance of counsel at sentencing when defense counsel failed to investigate and present mitigating evidence (i.e., information about their background, childhood, and past traumas) that would have reduced their moral blameworthiness and influenced sentence; and (2) that his or her life or de facto life sentence was unconstitutional as applied to a juvenile or “emergent adult,” who recent science shows is no different than a child with the potential for rehabilitation.
YEARS cases are interdisciplinary in nature. Lawyers work in close collaboration with mitigation specialists, who are experienced in compiling and poring over documents and records from our clients’ pasts and interviewing not just our clients but the many people from their past and present who can speak to their backgrounds and growth. With this essential mitigation support, our legal theories allow us to present the full scope of our clients’ trajectories: the often-horrific circumstances of their youth and the near inevitability of their criminal entanglements followed by the inspiring proof of their evolution and growth despite the brutal conditions of incarceration. Exactly as the neuroscience says, children and young adults have an incredible capacity for change, and none of our clients were “permanently incorrigible” so as to deserve in any way, shape, or form, the virtual life sentences imposed on them.
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.