Documents Related to the Implementation of the Racial Justice Act

The Racial Justice Act is a California law passed in 2020 which prohibits the State from pursuing convictions or sentences based upon race, ethnicity, or national origin. The law allows people to challenge any proceeding that may have been infected by racial bias.

For the RJA to be effective, the public must be able to access policies and data from prosecutors.

But this information—which should be readily available—is often difficult or impossible to attain.

With the help of the law firm BraunHagey & Borden LLP, the ACLU is using the California Public Records Act to seek access to prosecutorial records that will ensure a robust implementation of the RJA. We submitted PRA requests to all of the DAs in the state asking for policies (sample request here) and data (sample request here). Getting such records has, however, been a challenging, years-long effort and required ongoing litigation, none of which would have been possible without BraunHagey's support.

The records that we have received are available below.

For more information, please send us a message