Race and Racism so often have an impact on our litigation strategies as criminal defenders. We owe it to all of our clients to push ourselves to see these issues in our cases.

Our own NCDC faculty member Paul Rudof is doing just that in a powerful motion for a new trial in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. “For black women, state-sanctioned violence against them is deeply rooted in this nation’s history, which further illuminates why a reasonable black woman might perceive a racially-charged threat to call the police as an imminent threat,” Rudof wrote in a motion filed last year.

Read more about the case taking place in Massachusetts here:

https://www.berkshireeagle.com/crime/convicted-of-murder-in-pittsfield-woman-seeks-new-trial-arguing-she-was-provoked-by-racist-sexist-epithet/article_c651affe-82c3-11ec-8161-a36b51f9246d.html