ABA adopts range of new policy on criminal justice, military personnel, regulation of boot camps and more

During its debate Monday morning, the House adopted a series of recommendations on effective criminal sanctioning, including a resolution encouraging jurisdictions to develop community supervision programs that allow all but the most serious offenders to avoid an incarceration record.  In addition to Stephen A. Saltzburg, chair of the ABA Commission on Effective Criminal Sanctions, which brought the recommendation to the House floor, National District Attorneys Association Delegate Mathias Henry Heck Jr. took to the floor to express the support of the NDAA for the resolution.

Other recommendations brought by the commission that earned the support of the House of Delegates included urging jurisdictions to develop and implement meaningful graduated sanctions for violations of probation or parole; urging state agencies and licensing boards to develop and enforce policy on the employment of people with convictions; urging jurisdictions to develop systemic reporting systems that will maximize reliability, integrity, authenticity and accuracy of criminal records; urging jurisdictions to assist defenders in advising their clients of collateral consequences of conviction; and urging governments to support professional associations and organizations in developing programs to train criminal justice professionals in understanding and utilizing factors that promote the sound exercise of their discretion.. 

The House also adopted a model rule on providing legal services after a disaster such as a hurricane.  The ABA Task Force on Hurricane Katrina, shortly after its creation last year, realized the difficulties that out-of-state lawyers have in providing pro bono legal services in an area after an emergency that has affected the justice system.  The recommendation also provided guidance for lawyers whose practices have been disrupted in allowing them to practice in another jurisdiction.

The ABA has new policy urging regulation of so-called boot camps, the unregulated residential facilities to which thousands of at-risk youth are sent each year.  The policy urges licensing, regulation and monitoring of such facilities that offer treatment to youth. 

Responding to comments by a government official who decried efforts by lawyers who perform pro bono services in assisting Guantanamo detainees, the House adopted policy reaffirming the ABA’s commitment to pro bono provision of legal services; commending lawyers who meet their professional responsibility to provide legal services to disfavored individuals and groups; urging public education efforts in explaining that lawyers who volunteer in defense of disfavored individuals are performing a vital role under our system of justice; and condemning  attacks on the independence of the profession.  (Cully Stimson, then Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, later apologized for his remarks and subsequently resigned.) 

In an effort to assist military personnel, the ABA House of Delegates reaffirmed its earlier policy urging Congress to make mandatory civil legal assistance to low-income active duty service members and their dependents.  In a related matter, the House adopted policy urging lawmakers to respond to the social and family support needs of the young and teenage children of deployed American military members by enacting laws entitling designated caregivers of children of deployed American service members to use employment leave or sick time that such employees have earned or accrued to provide support to those children.

The ABA supports efforts to repeal laws and policies that punish homeless persons for performing otherwise non-criminal life-sustaining practices, such as sleeping, in public, when no alternative private spaces are available.  Finally, the ABA adopted policy urging states to enact “apology legislation” to make apologies by medical providers or their staff for unanticipated outcomes of medical care inadmissible as evidence of an admission of liability.

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