Attorneys General Take Action on Proposed ABA Postconviction Standards

Washington, D.C. —The National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) sent a letter signed by a bipartisan group of 38 state and territorial attorneys general to the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Criminal Justice Section (CJS) expressing concerns over ABA’s proposed “Standards Relating to Postconviction Remedies.” The NAAG letter follows July comments already submitted by five members of the NAAG Criminal Law Committee. The NAAG committee provided analyses of many of the ABA’s proposed Standards, showing how they would dramatically change current law and why those changes would impair important state interests.

We have “deep concerns over the sweeping changes to established law and practice that the proposed Standards advocate.” And we join in our NAAG Criminal Law Committee members’ “concern about the impact these Standards would have on the finality of criminal convictions and the interests of crime victims,” the NAAG letter reads.

After a draft of the NAAG letter was provided to ABA’s CJS, the proposed Standards were not passed by CJS.