The Brennan Center participated as a friend of the court in an important right to counsel case pending before Maryland’s highest court, which will determine how early in a criminal case counsel must be provided to a low-income person facing criminal charges.  

The Ninth Circuit held that Washington's criminal disenfranchisement law violates the Voting Rights Act. The decision is the first in the country to find that, due to racial discrimination in the state's criminal justice system, the felony disenfranchisement law results in the denial of the right to vote on account of race.