Challenging LGBTQIA+ Bias in the Criminal Legal System

This program will discuss legal issues of, and bias against, LGBTQIA+ people in the criminal legal system and legal strategies to address anti-LGBTQIA+ bias. Panelist Ethan Rice will explain juror and judicial bias, and how education, jury selection, and judicial codes of ethics can safeguard from bias. Panelist Valena Beety will discuss wrongful convictions of queer people, how LGBTQIA+ defendants can be wrongly convicted where no crime occurred, and her book Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights. Panelist Candace Bond-Theriault will discuss reproductive justice for queer people, how LGBTQIA+ folks are left out of the abortion and miscarriage management criminalization discussion, how incarcerated women of color are more likely to be forced to work after giving birth, and her book Queering Reproductive Justice: an Invitation. Panelist Richard Saenz will discuss policing and incarceration of LGBTQIA+ people, including Lambda Legal's landmark publication Protected and Served?.  Saenz co-authored and led the creation of Protected and Served?, which looks at data - quantitative information and personal stories - gathered from over 2,500 LGBTQIA+ people and people living with HIV, about their experiences with police, courts, prisons, jails, and other government actors in the criminal legal system. 

This program will benefit criminal defense attorneys, civil rights litigators, and queer members of the bar in addressing the bias they themselves may face.

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify how LGBTQIA+ individuals experience bias in policing, prosecutions, and incarceration and legal strategies to address them
2. Prepare to challenge LGBTQIA+ bias in the courtroom
3. Review inter-connecting aggressions against bodily autonomy and the coercive role of the criminal legal system
4. Discuss how LGBTQIA+ people can be convicted where no crime occurred - "no crime" wrongful convictions
5. Highlight the importance of including the reproductive experience of LGBTQIA+ individuals who are seeking reproductive healthcare that is becoming increasingly criminalized as well as the experience of pregnant and postpartum women of color experiencing incarceration