The Center for Antiracist Research submits amicus briefs in a small number of cases each year, prioritizing cases where racism may be a central issue but is not a focus of the parties’ briefs.
Amicus briefs are brought by individuals or groups who are not parties to a legal case but have a strong interest in its outcome. Due to the multidisciplinary nature of the Center and the vast expertise of its staff and affiliated scholars, we are well-situated to supply meaningful and effective amicus briefs that engage science, data, history, and law to demonstrate how racism manifests in U.S. society and how it can be mitigated. Our practice focuses on filing amicus briefs before the United States Supreme Court and state supreme courts.
If you know of a case that you think we should consider for our next amicus brief, please let us know by filling out this form.
In September of 2023, the Center partnered with the ACLU of Colorado, the law firm Mintz Levin, and other collaborators to file an amicus brief in the Colorado Supreme Court arguing that life-without-parole sentences for felony murder are disproportionate, racially biased, and unconstitutional. Felony murder laws allow the State to convict a person of murder even though they did not kill or intend to kill anyone. These laws come into play when a person is charged with participating in a felony where a death occurred, even if they did not cause or anticipate the death. Felony murder laws are especially susceptible to racially biased application because of the low burden of proof they impose and wide discretion they afford prosecutors. Before 2021, Colorado mandated life-without-parole (also known as death-by-incarceration) sentences for felony murder. Although the Colorado legislature has since reduced the available sentence for felony murder to 16-48 years, that change was only applied prospectively to people convicted after the law passed. We filed this brief in support of petitioner Wayne Sellers and others who have been left to die in prison despite the legislature’s determination that felony murder convictions should no longer result in permanent incarceration. In addition to the ACLU of Colorado and Mintz Levin, the brief was joined by The Sentencing Project; the Sam Cary Bar Association; and the Colorado-Montana-Wyoming Area Conference of the NAACP.
In July of 2023, the Center partnered with the law firm Faegre Drinker, the Community Lawyering Clinic at Drexel University, The Sentencing Project, and other organizations working to address racism in criminal law to file an amicus brief arguing that life-without-parole sentences for felony murder in Pennsylvania are disproportionate, racially biased, and unconstitutional. Felony murder laws allow for a person to be convicted of murder even if they did not kill or intend to kill anyone. The brief was filed in support of Derek Lee’s petition seeking to appeal his life-without-parole sentence in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Mr. Lee is one of approximately 1100 people serving life-without-parole for felony murder in Pennsylvania.
In July of 2023, the Center partnered with the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality and the Complex Appellate Litigation Group to file an amicus brief on behalf of several race centers and social scientists regarding the California Racial Justice Act (CRJA) in a California appellate court. The CRJA was designed to address racial inequities in California’s criminal legal system by reducing the burden on those seeking to prove that their charges or sentences were influenced by racism. While U.S. Supreme Court case law requires proof of racist intent to obtain relief, the CRJA instead allows petitioners to seek relief based on statistical evidence and expert testimony. This brief was filed in support of two Black men facing the death penalty, who were denied an evidentiary hearing under the CRJA despite statistical evidence demonstrating racial disparities in charging and sentencing in Riverside County, where their cases were heard. The Center submitted this brief to emphasize that social science methods can reveal critical information about racism in the criminal legal system, and that statistical evidence alone can establish the need for a hearing under the CRJA. The brief was joined by the Duke University School of Law Center on Law, Race & Policy; Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at New York University School of Law; Center for Law, Equity and Race at Northeastern University School of Law; Center on Race, Law and Justice at Fordham Law School; Nathaniel R. Jones Center for Race, Gender, and Social Justice; and individual professors and scholars Kat Albrecht, W. David Ball, Katherine Beckett, John J. Donohue III, Heather Evans, Jeffrey Fagan, Catherine Grosso, Mona Lynch, and Glenn Pierce.
In June of 2023, the Center joined a coalition of racial justice centers, legal professional associations, and civil rights advocacy organizations to file an amicus brief opposing Florida’s recently passed alien land law, which imposes discriminatory property restrictions targeting Asian persons. The brief provides critical historical context regarding the use of alien land laws as mechanism of anti-Asian racism and exclusion, and calls for ceasing the implementation of this unconstitutional law.
In April of 2023, the Center partnered with leading scholars, advocates, and researchers to file an amicus brief urging the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to abolish the state’s felony-murder rule, which results in life-without-parole sentences that are disproportionately severe and influenced by racism. The felony-murder rule allows for a person to be convicted of murder if they participated in a felony where a death occurred, even if they did not cause, intend, or even foresee the death. Legal scholars have long critiqued felony murder as violating the basic principle that a person should be held accountable for their own conduct and intentions. Moreover, an increasing body of data–including from Massachusetts–illustrates the impact of racism and sexism on prosecutors’ application of the rule. Although the highest court in Massachusetts narrowed the scope of the state’s felony-murder rule in 2017, this brief argues that the law still enables racially biased and disproportionate punishments for accomplices (also known as “joint venturers”) who neither killed nor intended to kill or seriously harm anyone. The Felony Murder Elimination Project, Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women & Girls, Georgia State University Professor Kat Albrecht, and The Sentencing Project joined the Center in filing this brief calling for the abolition of the felony-murder rule or, in the alternative, its substantial restriction.
In January of 2023, the Center partnered with the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at Seattle University, the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School, the NYU Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law, and the law firm Morgan Lewis to file an amicus brief before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in the cases Commonwealth v. Mattis and Commonwealth v. Robinson. These cases raise the issue of whether the state’s constitutional ban on life without parole– or more accurately death-by-incarceration–sentences for children should be extended to 18-20-year-olds. Our brief analyzes data demonstrating extreme racial disproportionality in the imposition of death-by-incarceration sentences for older adolescents in particular, and examines the ways that systemic racism and implicit racial biases contribute to these disparities. We argue that these data illustrate arbitrariness in the imposition of death-by-incarceration sentences for 18 to 20-year-olds, such that these sentences violate the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. Moreover, the advances in developmental neuroscience and developmental psychology show that 18 to 20-year-olds are similar to younger teens in their impulsivity and susceptibility to peer influence, illustrating that the Supreme Judicial Court’s reasoning in banning death-by-incarceration sentences for children applies with equal force to older adolescents.
In January of 2023, the Center partnered with the Coalition for Prior Conviction Impeachment Reform and the Criminal Justice Reform Clinic at Lewis and Clark law school to file an amicus brief in State v. Aranda, which involves a challenge to an evidentiary rule requiring a witness’s prior felony convictions to be disclosed in court—to a judge and jury—if that witness testifies. The rationale for this practice, known as prior conviction impeachment, is that prior convictions make a witness less credible; but that rationale is not supported by logic or empirical evidence. Moreover, prior conviction impeachment is rooted in policies that historically barred witnesses from testifying in United States courtrooms based on racism, sexism, classism, and other forms of bigotry. Today, these rules systematically silence witnesses with criminal records—who are disproportionately people of color, due to racism in policing and the criminal legal system—and impede the core courtroom function of factfinding by introducing evidence that is irrelevant and prejudicial. Oregon’s rule allowing for impeachment by prior convictions, Oregon Evidence Code 609, is more unjust than similar rules in most other states because it requires automatic admission of felony convictions, precluding trial courts from exercising their discretion to exclude prejudicial evidence. The Center joined this brief to emphasize that prior conviction impeachment—and Oregon’s rule in particular—is racist and violates principles of due process, fairness, justice, and equity.
In November 2022, the Center joined an amicus brief in the case Tingley v. Ferguson, which involves a Washington state law that bans conversion therapy for minors. The challengers to the law argue, among other things, that the ban violates the First Amendment by restricting therapists’ professional speech and infringing on therapists’ religious practice. Our amicus brief addresses the long history of racist and bigoted efforts to use First Amendment claims to challenge anti-subordination laws. The brief emphasizes that there is no constitutional privilege to harm subordinated groups, and that states have legislative authority to protect against such harms. The brief also addresses the particular impacts that striking this law down would have on LGBTQ+ youth of color. The Center joined the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality; the Aoki Center for Critical Race and Nation Studies; the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at New York University School of Law; and the Loyola Law school Anti-racism Center in submitting this brief.
In October 2022, the Center partnered with Professor Atiba R. Ellis, a nationally-recognized voting rights expert, and the law firm Brown Rudnick to file an amicus brief in Moore v. Harper, a voting rights case concerning the “Independent State Legislature Theory” (ISLT). Proponents of the ISLT argue that it gives state legislatures near-exclusive authority to regulate federal elections. If implemented, the ISLT would block state courts from fulfilling their important role in our government’s system of checks and balances. In this case, the North Carolina Supreme Court struck down a partisan gerrymandered map for violating the state constitution, and the gerrymanderers appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the North Carolina Supreme Court did not have the authority to do so under the ISLT. Our brief describes the potential racist impact of the ISLT and the important role courts have historically played in checking attempts to suppress and dilute the votes of Black people and other people of color in North Carolina.
In September 2022, the Center joined an amicus brief in Boston Parent Coalition for Academic Excellence Corp. v. School Committee of City of Boston, supporting the Boston’s School Committee’s plan to expand access to the city’s top-ranked “exam schools.” Challengers of the plan contended, among other things, that the Committee’s consideration of equity when developing the plan amounted to an equal protection violation—an argument based on the false premise that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits race consciousness, when in fact it prohibits racial discrimination. As this amicus brief illustrates, there is no question that a governmental body may consider the racial impact of its policies without triggering strict scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause. The Center joined 15 other prominent local and national civil rights organizations in signing this brief, which was filed in the First Circuit Court of Appeals by LatinoJustice PRLDEF, Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC) and Brown Rudnick, LLP.
In June 2021, the Center filed an amicus brief in Thompson v. Clark, regarding a procedural loophole–the “indications-of-innocence” standard–which shielded police officers from accountability for pursuing false criminal charges when those charges were ultimately dismissed. Our brief addressed a long history of police pursuing false charges against Black and Latinx people, frequently to cover up officers’ excessive use of force. Under the “indications-of-innocence standard” a person could not seek redress for malicious prosecution under Section 1983 if the criminal charges against them resulted in a dismissal, as opposed to an acquittal or some other “affirmative indication of innocence.” This approach was nonsensical, since false and meritless charges ostensibly should result in dismissal. Moreover, this approach ignored the serious harms that come with being falsely charged, particularly for Black and Latinx people, even if the charges are later dropped. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled in Mr. Thompson’s favor, rejecting the “indications of innocence” standard and holding that a person seeking federal civil rights redress for being falsely charged need only show that their prosecution “ended without a conviction.”
In October 2022, the Center partnered with Professor Atiba R. Ellis, a nationally-recognized voting rights expert, and the law firm Brown Rudnick to file an amicus brief in Moore v. Harper, a voting rights case before the U.S. Supreme Court that will have significant implications for democracy and racial justice. This case concerns the “Independent […]
This essay examines how the indications-of-innocence standard serves as one thread in a vast invisible web of legal protections that enables racialized police misconduct.
The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the “indications-of-innocence” standard, which clears a path for people who have been targeted by false criminal charges that are later dismissed to seek police accountability under federal civil rights law.