People enter a San Francisco courtroom. California’s enactment of progressive criminal justice reforms is turning into an empty promise for the state’s poorest defendants.

Imagine spending decades in prison, only for a new law to finally give you the power to prove your trial was corrupted by overt racial bias. You finally have a legal path to freedom, and the law guarantees you a lawyer to help fight your case. But when you show up to court, the judge looks at you and says, “There are no lawyers available.” You are on your own until help arrives, and who knows how long that will be. 

This is not a hypothetical nightmare. It is the reality in California, where a catastrophic, billion-dollar funding imbalance has turned progressive criminal justice reforms into an empty promise for the state’s poorest residents.

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In recent years, California has passed landmark, civil rights-forward legislation like the Racial Justice Act of 2020 and its retroactive expansion, the Racial Justice Act for All. These laws allow incarcerated people to challenge convictions or sentences infected by racism or systemic errors. Crucially, the Legislature wrote a vital safeguard into these laws: If you cannot afford an attorney, the state will appoint one for you.

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But passing a law without funding is just political theater.

The breaking point finally burst........

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