Constitutional Accountability Center Constitutional Accountability Center

Access to Justice

Ensuring that the courthouse doors remain open to all Americans
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Jury | Valerie Keinsley / Indiana Humanities, Flickr

Summary

The Constitution guarantees citizens the ability to vindicate their rights in court. CAC fights to protect that right and ensure that all Americans get their day in an impartial court of law.

Access to Justice in Brief

U.S. Supreme Court | Ken Lund, Flickr

When the Constitution was framed, the promise of access to the federal courts was at the heart of a new system of government accountable to the people. The federal judiciary, with the Supreme Court at its head, would be the “keystone of the arch.” CAC works to defend the right of the people to have their day in court.

Featured Case

Access to Justice December 10, 2024

Gutierrez v. Saenz

For the past thirteen years, Ruben Gutierrez, a person in Texas prison who has been sentenced to death, has sought DNA testing of crime scene evidence, which he claims will prove him ineligible for the death penalty. Texas courts have repeatedly denied his requests under Texas’s post-conviction DNA statute, which allows for DNA testing only when such testing could prove innocence of the crime itself, as opposed to a reduction in punishment to a non-capital sentence.  In 2019, Gutierrez filed a federal lawsuit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (“Section 1983”), a landmark Reconstruction-era statute that creates a federal remedy for...

Case Timeline

Current
  • CAC files amicus brief in the Supreme Court