Criminal Justice & Police Reform

Our work in the criminal justice area is extensive and varied. Through our criminal defense work, we regularly represent clients at trial, on appeal and after sentencing. We have devoted tens of thousands of hours to capital cases and wrongful convictions; and secured numerous sentence reductions and parole releases. Through civil litigation, we vindicate clients whose rights have been violated while incarcerated and challenge unlawful and inhumane conditions of confinement more generally. Our representations also include significant impact litigations challenging discriminatory or otherwise unlawful public safety and policing practices. Below are some recent highlights from each of these areas:

Criminal Defense

• In July 2024, alongside Legal Aid, we leveraged a motion made under New York’s Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act (DVSJA) to negotiate an agreement with the Kings County District Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn to jointly seek the vacatur our client’s conviction for second degree murder, which she had received under a felony murder theory for her role in a robbery that resulted in her abuser killing an elderly woman. The court granted the requested relief.
• In January 2024, following a three-year effort by the firm’s attorneys, Paul, Weiss secured the release of a pro bono client who had served over 27 years in prison, including nearly nine years beyond his final sentence after a judge vacated his felony murder conviction. The release came after the Paul, Weiss team successfully petitioned the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California and the Federal Bureau of Prisons to recalculate our client’s sentence to account for the years he spent in state prison beyond his final sentence after a judge correctly vacated his murder conviction.
• In February 2024, we secured the suspension of our client’s life sentence to all but time served under the D.C. Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act (IRAA), which, under certain circumstances, permits the resentencing of people convicted of crimes committed as youth. Our client was 18 years old at the time of his offense and received a life sentence. He was released after serving nearly 30 years.
• In July 2022, Paul, Weiss won a rare reversal of a first-degree murder conviction for a pro bono client in the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department. Our client, who was serving a sentence of life incarceration without the possibility of parole, was granted a new trial.
• In May 2022, Paul, Weiss and co-counsel Neufeld Scheck & Brustin, LLP successfully resolved a federal civil rights case on behalf of Pablo Fernandez, securing one of the largest-ever wrongful conviction settlements to be paid by New York City. The settlement follows our victory in September 2019, when, after a 15-year fight on his behalf, we secured Mr. Fernandez’s freedom after 24 years of incarceration for a murder he did not commit. 
• In June 2021, we won an important 5-4 Supreme Court victory in Borden v. United States, narrowing the scope of a key part of the Armed Career Criminal Act, the primary federal statute imposing mandatory-minimum sentences. In Borden, the Court determined that a criminal offense committed with a reckless, rather than purposeful or knowing, state of mind does not qualify as a “violent felony” under the Act. Given the many potential predicate offenses involving reckless conduct, the case affects the applicability of the Act’s 15-year mandatory minimum sentence for numerous criminal defendants.
• In March 2020, as part of the Innocence Project, we won the exoneration of pro bono defendant Darrill Henry on charges related to a heinous double murder. Mr. Henry’s release was the culmination of an application for post-conviction relief, along with a motion for DNA testing on several items of evidence recovered from the crime scene, which we filed in Louisiana state court in 2016. In January 2023, in the face of our motion to suppress the identification evidence that had resulted from the unreliable eyewitness procedures, which was the sole basis of the state’s remaining case against Mr. Henry, prosecutors moved to withdraw all charges and dismiss the case.

Prison and Jail Conditions

• With our co-counsel the Promise of Justice Initiative and Rights Behind Bars, we are challenging the “Farm Line,” a punitive form of forced agricultural labor practiced at Louisiana State Penitentiary (“Angola”) that deprives men of basic human dignity by subjecting them to conditions resembling chattel slavery, often under life threatening heat indices. Trial is scheduled for April 2025.
• In September 2023, Paul, Weiss secured an agreement with the New York City Department of Correction (DOC) to promptly and completely restore the 24/7 direct video access to city jails historically held by the New York City Board of Correction, an independent governmental body established under the city charter to provide oversight of the DOC and city jails, after DOC arbitrarily and capriciously stripped the Board of that critically important oversight tool.
• In January 2021, Paul, Weiss, along with co-counsel from the ACLU, ACLU Tennessee, Just City and local counsel from Memphis, obtained final approval of a settlement on behalf of a class of over 400 pretrial detainees at high risk of severe infection or death from COVID-19. According to Judge Sheryl H. Lipman of the Western District of Tennessee, the relief obtained through the settlement “addresses most, if not all, of Plaintiffs’ alleged deficiencies in their confinement in the Jail, given the pandemic, and the Court is not aware of any greater successes in similar litigation.”

Public Safety and Policing

• In partnership with The Legal Aid Society and Disability Rights New York (DRNY), we filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York, challenging New York State’s systemic failure to provide appropriate mental health housing and supportive services for formerly incarcerated individuals suffering from serious mental illness. This failure has resulted in the prolonged confinement of individuals past their lawful release date or, alternatively, their release into homeless shelters or psychiatric institutions that cannot provide appropriate services. After surviving two motions to dismiss and engaging in years of discovery, in June 2024, the district court certified a discharge class.
• In November 2022, we secured the reversal of an entry of summary judgment in the Eighth Circuit in our long-running class action challenging the “Wanteds” program of St. Louis County, Missouri, on behalf of putative class representatives who were arrested and detained under this program. Wanteds is a policing practice through which St. Louis County police officers have the power to execute warrantless arrests and detain suspects for up to 24 hours based on the officers’ own assessment of probable cause, and without any judicial oversight.
• We partnered with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and The Legal Aid Society in a successful lawsuit against New York City and the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). The suit, Davis, et al. v. City of New York, filed on behalf of more than 400,000 NYCHA residents and invited guests, challenged the New York City Police Department’s racially discriminatory policy and practice of routinely stopping and arresting NYCHA residents and guests without reasonable suspicion or probable cause. Following two major rulings in our clients’ favor, we helped negotiate a 2015 settlement that significantly revises police practice and NYCHA house rules.
• Our corporate attorneys represent The Doe Fund and its Ready, Willing & Able program, a residential paid work initiative in New York City serving people with long histories of incarceration, homelessness and unemployment. The program offers paid work in social enterprises, transitional housing and supportive services to re-integrate this marginalized population into the mainstream. Our corporate team has assisted with negotiation and legal agreements for the program, and continues to help with the legal documents needed to launch and grow the affiliates network.