Policy Change through the Courts
A Reflection on the Amicus Work
of the New England Innocence Project 2020-2021
By Radha Natarajan,
Executive Director
Impacting policy and systems is a vital part of the mission of the New England Innocence Project (NEIP) and has fueled our strong amicus practice. We weigh in on cases where the issues at stake impact the people we serve, such as racial justice, reliability of evidence, presumption of innocence, official misconduct, the administration of justice, and the list goes on. Many people think of policy work as the work that happens in the legislature, and it certainly includes that; however, amicus work is policy work too, using litigation tools to inform judicial policy that can create systemic change.
In Latin, amicus curiae means “friend of the Court.” As an organization committed to exposing failures of the criminal legal system, it may seem counterintuitive that we would so often play the role of “friend of the Court,” but I suppose it depends on how you characterize friendship. We are decidedly not the placating type of friend, affectionately praising or celebrating the Court’s wisdom or history. Instead, we aim to be the friend who is authentic and honest, adding a perspective that might otherwise be missed, and who will hold our “friend” (the Court) accountable to its highest vision of itself. Our friendship, defined in this way, has been consistent and persistent over the last year, and includes these highlights among many:
Race and Policing: With the Massachusetts Association for Criminal Defense Lawyers, Lawyers for Civil Rights, and the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School (CHHRJ), we sought an overhaul of the Court’s approach to the significant racial disparities in traffic enforcement. The Court’s decision in this case, if faithfully applied, has the potential to breathe life into the Equal Protection Clause, ensuring that implicit and explicit racial biases resulting in individual and community harms to people of color are neither sanctioned nor ignored. Commonwealth v. Edward Long
Reliability of Technological and Identification Evidence: With CHHRJ, we addressed the injustice of this conviction that was based on unreliable, suggestive, and racially biased evidence. Here, critical evidence that the prosecutor used to convict Mr. Davis - speed data from a GPS device - had never been tested for its accuracy, even by the manufacturer. In addition, the prosecutor urged the jury to identify Mr. Davis from a blurry image in which you could not even make out the person’s face. The Court reversed Mr. Davis’s conviction and affirmed that it is a prosecutor’s and the court’s duty to ensure the reliability of evidence used to take away someone’s freedom. Commonwealth v. Matthew Davis
Police Misconduct: With the Innocence Project and the Boston College Innocence Program, we are seeking a comprehensive and independent investigation of misconduct by the Springfield Police Department. Specifically, after the Department of Justice found widespread abuse and falsification of evidence within the Springfield Police Department, the Hampden County District Attorney’s Office has neither investigated the scope of that misconduct nor disclosed it to people whose cases may have been affected. To prevent and correct wrongful convictions, as well as confront racial disparities, we supported the Petition requesting the Court’s intervention. Graham et al., v. District Attorney of Hampden County
I am incredibly proud of NEIP’s amicus work, and I am indebted to the pro bono partners who have represented us in this work as well as the coalition partners who have been steadfast about their commitment to transformative, not only incremental, change.
As an organization whose staff and supporters have witnessed significant injustice alongside our community, we are committed to speaking out and demanding better from an institution that is supposed to ensure justice for all. Our amicus work is just one of the ways that we amplify those demands, and with the impact we have achieved, we intend to keep it going.