Constitutional Accountability Center Constitutional Accountability Center

Criminal Law

Ensuring that our criminal justice system treats all in America with fairness, dignity, and equality
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Alcatraz Prison | miss_millions, Flickr

Summary

CAC works to ensure that all who interact with the criminal justice system enjoy the rights to which they are entitled and are treated with the dignity and equality promised to them by the Constitution.

Criminal Justice in Brief

Courtroom | Clyde Robinson, Flickr

On issues from policing and qualified immunity to cash bail, CAC works to redeem the promises of our Constitution — amended in the wake of the Civil War and the scourge of chattel slavery — that the law will be enforced equally for all in America.

Featured Case

Criminal Law September 11, 2025

Parada v. United States

Despite a consensus stretching back hundreds of years that a “jury” consists of twelve people, in 1970 the Supreme Court held in Williams v. Florida that juries as small as six are constitutionally permissible under the Sixth Amendment.  After being convicted by an eleven-person jury in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, the petitioners in this case alleged that a jury of that size violated their Sixth Amendment jury trial right, which they argue ensures the right to a verdict by a jury of no fewer than twelve. They argued, among other things, that Williams is inconsistent with the 2020...

Case Timeline

Current
  • CAC files amicus brief in the Supreme Court

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