Sixth Amendment Right to Trial on the Verge of Extinction
Mission
The End the Trial Penalty Coalition will eliminate coercive elements of plea bargaining to restore our fundamental constitutional rights including the right to jury trial.
Who We Are
End the Trial Penalty is an ideologically diverse alliance of individuals and organizations who each believe the Trial Penalty prevents us from achieving a truly just society.
In 2021, NACDL worked with the coalition partners to convene leaders of the criminal legal reform movement for a two-day Summit on the trial penalty. The Summit, "The Constitutional Right to Trial: Organizing a National Movement to End the Trial Penalty," included discussions focused on understanding the root causes of the trial penalty, solutions, and forming the national coalition dedicated to this work. [Released May 2024]
Evidence of a Trial Penalty
U.S. Sentencing Commission data shows that over the past 32 years, the number of federal criminal cases that have gone to trial has decreased 63 percent.
Federal Sentences
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, “The Trial Penalty: The Sixth Amendment Right to Trial on the Verge of Extinction and How to Save it,” 2018, Figure 1.