Criminal Law 3: NACDL's Objectives, Issues and Trial Penalty Analysis

This essay delves into the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), an American criminal defense organization. It begins with an introduction to the NACDL, its membership, and its role in advocating for legal reforms and submitting amicus curiae briefs. The essay highlights the NACDL's primary objective: preserving fairness within the American criminal justice system, achieved through advocacy, protecting attorney-client privilege, and upholding defendant's rights. It discusses the organization's official journal, The Champion magazine, which provides informative articles on various legal topics. The essay then addresses a critical issue faced by the NACDL: the trial penalty, defined as the disparity between pre-trial offers and post-trial sentences, and its potential impact on the Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial. The essay concludes by summarizing the key points discussed, emphasizing the NACDL's role in addressing crucial issues within the criminal justice system.

Running head: CRIMINAL LAW
CRIMINAL LAW
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
NACDL is considered to be an American criminal defense organization. The members
include various private criminal defense lawyers or any lawyers, public offenders, active military
defense counsel, the professors for law along with judges and other defense counsel in the
international criminal tribunals. The organization is considered to work to build the coalitions
regarding legal organizations as such would aim to provide a platform for the significant legal
issues. The NACDL are often considered to submit amicus curiae briefs, which would be in
support of the litigants and such, would be at the state as well as the federal level (Love, 2018).
This paper discusses the present issue regarding the NACDL and why such has happened.
It also discusses briefly about the primary objectives of the NACDL. In conclusion, it
summarizes the points that have been dealt in the paper.
Discussion
The official journal of the NACDL is considered to be The Champion magazine and it
offers some timely as well as informative articles which are written for and by the criminal
defense lawyers and it also features the latest developments which are in search and seizure laws
or the grand jury proceedings along with the habeas corpus and the exclusionary rule, the death
penalty or the racketeer which are influenced along with the Corrupt Organizations Act. It also
deals with the federal sentencing guidelines along with the forfeiture and the white-collar crime
(Berman, & Adler, 2018). The primary objective of this organization is to preserve the fairness
that prevails within the American criminal justice system and it tries to do so through advocating
the reforms and by providing strong protections towards the attorney-client privilege and

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guarantees the defendant’s rights through the amicus curiae briefs as it can be understood from
the case of Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004).
It had launched The Criminal Docket podcast in the year 2012 and such featured the
rundown of the criminal justice news along with the stories and the interviews where the leaders
were considered to be in the legal practice, academia, public policy, journalism and the others
who were considered to be related to the field of the criminal justice system. There are few issues
which are being faced by the NACDL. It has discussed about the Trial Penalty issue where the
Sixth Amendment Right in order to trial is on the verge of extinction and they are trying to come
up with initiatives on how to save such an issue. The trial penalty is considered to refer to the
substantial differences between the sentences which have been offered before the trial as
opposed to the sentence the defendant receives after the trial. This kind of penalty is considered
to be very severe as well as pervasive therefore, such has virtually eliminated the right which is
constitutional in a trial. In order to prevent the penalty the offender have to surrender their
fundamental rights which are considered to be essential and primary to the justice system which
is fair. Therefore, whether such should prevail in this criminal justice system are being
deliberated upon through research (Shaeffer, 2019).
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be understood from the above discussion that the NACDL has its own
journal which provides with various news and talks about several issues. Therefore, in order to
provide with information through the articles it comes upon various issues and such needs to be
discussed.

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References
Berman, G., & Adler, J. (2018). Toward Misdemeanor Justice: Lessons from New York
City. BUL Rev., 98, 981.
Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004).
Love, M. C. (2018). Forgiving, Forgetting, and Forgoing: Legislative Experiments in Restoring
Rights and Status (Editor's Observations).
Shaeffer, R. (2019). The trial penalty: An international perspective. Federal Sentencing
Reporter, 31(4-5), 321-330.