Are California Courts Really Delivering Racial Justice?

Mona Lynch, University of California-Irvine Chancellor’s Professor of criminology, law & society, was awarded a $178,851 grant from the Russell Sage Foundation to study how California’s landmark Racial Justice Act provides access to racial justice for criminal defendants. Titled “Access to Racial Justice in Criminal Courts,” the research project will examine the implementation and impact of the California Racial Justice Act (CRJA), which prohibits the state from prosecuting, convicting, or sentencing criminal defendants based on race, ethnicity, or national origin.

“Our research will help determine whether and how the CRJA actually enhances access to racial justice in practice across California’s diverse jurisdictions,” Lynch says. According to a release, Lynch and her research team will:

• Conduct an original survey of criminal defense attorneys across all 58 California counties to assess knowledge about the CRJA, access to relevant data and resources, and outcomes of CRJA claims
• Examine how variations in social-structural, geographic and legal contexts shape CRJA implementation
• Conduct a qualitative comparative study of selected counties through court observations, in-depth interviews with legal actors and case file analysis/

The study, Lynch says, will pay particular attention to under-resourced and rural jurisdictions that face unique challenges in implementing the new law.

“We thought this study was especially important to do, because this law, on the books, promises to address longstanding racial injustices in the criminal legal system. But, what we know from a long line of sociolegal research is that laws are only as effective as their real-world implementation,” she says. “If there are major barriers to the CRJA’s implementation, it is important to identify them so they can be addressed by policy-makers.”

The project extends scholarship on access to justice in criminal legal contexts by explicitly examining the possibility for access to racial justice through laws like the CRJA. It also aims to advance understanding of how criminal defense work is transformed when attorneys have new tools to mitigate the severity of outcomes for clients while managing already substantial caseloads.

“By moving beyond quantitative analyses to focus on the dynamic processes and contexts of legal decision-making, our research will provide crucial insights into how legal actors respond when racial bias in their own operations is identified,” Lynch explains. The findings will ideally inform policy recommendations and budget allocations, she says, particularly addressing how access to justice can be achieved in the diverse counties in the state, which vary considerably in indigent defense systems, legal cultures, data capacity and resource levels. Results will be shared with lawmakers, relevant attorney organizations, and courts.

The research team also is engaged in practitioner training efforts and will aim to address knowledge gaps among legal actors through additional training activities.