Brennan Center for Justice

In 2008, California voters enacted Proposition 9, which would severely abridge the provision of counsel to parolees and increase the risk that parolees are wrongly or unnecessarily returned to prison. A group of parolees, along with the Brennan Center and other groups dedicated to ending unnecessary incarceration, are now in fighting in federal court for the continued right to counsel in all revocation hearings.

The Brennan Center for Justice, the Sentencing Project, the ACLU of Northern California, and other groups have filed a friend-of-the-court brief in Valdivia v. Brown, arguing that parolees should have the right to counsel in cases that could send them back to jail.