Alec Karakatsanis

Alec Karakatsanis (born November 7, 1983) is an American civil rights lawyer, social justice advocate, co-founder of Equal Justice Under Law, and founder and Executive Director of Civil Rights Corps, a Washington D.C. impact litigation nonprofit. Karakatsanis' recent work has targeted the American monetary bail system.[1] He also opposes copaganda.[2]

Alec Karakatsanis
Born (1983-11-07) November 7, 1983
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
EducationYale University (BA)
Harvard University (JD)
WebsiteOfficial website

In 2016, Karakatsanis was awarded the Stephen B. Bright Award by Gideon's Promise[3] and the Trial Lawyer of the Year Award by Public Justice.[4] In explaining their rationale, Public Justice declared Karakatsanis to be "setting the precedent for a new era of criminal justice reform in the age of mass incarceration."[5]

Education and career

Karakatsanis graduated from Yale College in 2005 with a degree in Ethics, Politics, & Economics. He enrolled immediately at Harvard Law School, where he was a Supreme Court Chair of the Harvard Law Review, and graduated with a J.D. in 2008.[6] After law school, Karakatsanis worked as a federal public defender in Alabama and then in the Special Litigation Division of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia for several years. Karakatsanis founded Equal Justice Under Law with fellow Harvard Law School classmate Phil Telfeyan in 2014, but later split to found Civil Rights Corps in 2016.[7] Numerous U.S. media outlets have featured Karakatsanis' work, including The New Yorker,[8] Huffington Post,[9] The Washington Post,[10] The Marshall Project,[11] and The New York Times.[12]

In August 2016, Karakatsanis challenged the use of money bail in Harris County, Texas, in a federal lawsuit supported by the sheriff of Houston.[13] Controversy arose when the attorney representing Harris County argued that "some people want to be in jail".[14] A year earlier, in July 2016, Civil Rights Corps (along with ArchCity Defenders, the St. Louis public defense agency) received a landmark settlement when the city of Jennings, Missouri agreed to pay $4.7 million to 2,000 people incarcerated in its jail for inability to pay traffic fines and other minor fees.[15]

Selected publications
  • Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System. New York: The New Press. 2019. ISBN 978-1-62097-527-5.
  • "The Human Lawyer" (PDF). N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change. 34: 563–593. 2010.
  • "United States v. Hungerford: Ninth Circuit Affirms Mandatory Sentence" (PDF). Harvard Law Review. 120 (7): 1988–1995. 2007. ISSN 0017-811X.
  • "Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers". Harvard Law Review Forum. 128 (6). April 28, 2015.
  • "President Obama's Department of Injustice". The New York Times. August 18, 2015. ISSN 0362-4331.
  • "Why US v Blewett is the Obama Justice Department's greatest shame". The Guardian. July 23, 2013. ISSN 0261-3077.

Awards
  • 2016 Trial Lawyer of the Year (Public Justice)[4]
  • 2016 Stephen B. Bright Award (Gideon's Promise)[3]
  • 2016 Emerging Leader Award (Johnson Institute for Responsible Leadership at the University of Pittsburgh)[16]

References
  1. Zuckerman, Michael (August 15, 2017). "Criminal Injustice". Harvard Magazine. Retrieved October 24, 2022.
  2. Rampell, Ed (October 21, 2022). "Seeing through the Copaganda". Progressive.org. Retrieved October 25, 2022.
  3. Taylor, Bryan (March 16, 2017). "UP Incubator: Alec Karakatsanis". university.pretrial.org. Pretrial Justice Institute. Archived from the original on April 24, 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  4. "Trial Lawyer of the Year Award". Public Justice. Archived from the original on April 24, 2017.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  5. "Public Justice Announces Finalists for 2016 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award". Public Justice. June 8, 2016. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  6. "Alec Karakatsanis, Co-Founder, Equal Justice Under Law". Program in Law and Public Affairs, Princeton University. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  7. McArdle, Elaine (November 24, 2014). "Fighting Unequal Justice - Harvard Law Today". Harvard Law Today. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  8. Eric, Markowitz (August 11, 2016). "The Link Between Money and Aggressive Policing". The New Yorker. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  9. Reilly, Ryan J. (August 26, 2016). "'People Who Work In The System Become Desensitized To How Brutal It Is To Cage Someone'". Huffington Post. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  10. Editorial Board (March 8, 2016). "The District police's unreasonable searches and seizures". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  11. Santo, Alysia (October 1, 2015). "How to Fight Modern-Day Debtors' Prisons? Sue the Courts". The Marshall Project. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  12. Dewan, Shaila (October 23, 2015). "Court by Court, Lawyers Fight Policies That Fall Heavily on the Poor". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  13. "First Amended Class Action Complaint" (PDF). Maranda Lynn Odonnell, Loetha McGruder, Robert Ryan Ford v. Harris County, Texas at al. United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. August 31, 2016. Case No. 16-cv-01414; Document 51-1. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 12, 2018 – via Squarespace.com.
  14. Flynn, Meagan (February 9, 2017). "Claiming Some People 'Want to Be in Jail,' County Loses Argument to Delay Bail Lawsuit". Houston Press. Archived from the original on June 13, 2021.
  15. Robertson, Campbell (July 15, 2016). "Missouri City to Pay $4.7 Million to Settle Suit Over Jailing Practices". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  16. "Alec Karakatsanis, 2016 Emerging Leader Award". Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh. Archived from the original on April 24, 2017.
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