Press Releases
about Criminal Law Reform

In 2023, the State of Colorado admitted to the public that a state DNA analyst, Missy Woods, had manipulated data and tampered with evidence in potentially thousands of criminal cases. But the State did not learn of Woods’s malfeasance in 2023. In fact, Woods’s supervisors had been aware of it since 2014. Instead of investigating her fraud and disclosing it to defendants in affected cases, however, the supervisors covered it up and allowed her to continue working on cases—including Daniel Eatinger’s case here—for another decade.   The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, the ACLU of Colorado, and the Exoneration Project filed an amicus brief with the Colorado Supreme Court arguing that Woods and her supervisors violated their constitutional duty to disclose her misconduct, and that the Court should order systemic remedies for the thousands of defendants who have been harmed.

Section 131 of the newly enacted Enhance Law Enforcement Integrity Act gives Coloradans a cause of action to seek damages or equitable relief when state or local police officers violate the Colorado Constitution. In 2022, Christopher Mosley sued Officer Brendan Daves for conducting a warrantless search of his car, which Daves argued was lawful under the federal protective sweep doctrine. After Mosley prevailed at trial and the court of appeals affirmed, Daves appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative and the ACLU of Colorado filed an amicus brief agreeing with Mosley’s argument that Daves has misapprehended the federal doctrine whilst focusing on a separate point: the Court’s interpretation of Section 131 is not bound by federal law.

In 2013, Michigan passed the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission Act (MIDCA) to ensure that indigent criminal defendants—that is, those who cannot afford to pay for counsel themselves—received constitutionally adequate counsel, paid for by the state. This case concerns whether and under what circumstances trial courts can, consistent with MIDCA, order indigent criminal defendants to pay the state back for their attorneys. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, the ACLU of Michigan, and the Michigan State Planning Body filed an amicus brief in the Michigan Supreme Court arguing that MIDCA, properly construed, partially abrogated a different statute authorizing trial courts to assess attorney fees against indigent defendants and explaining that allowing such orders would undermine Michiganders’ right to counsel.

Anybody is susceptible to being stopped, searched, or worse; AI makes new forms of abuse possible