How Years of Strengthening Support Networks and Chipping Away at Carceral Power Took DNC Mass Defense to the Next Level
By Joan Steffen, NLG Chicago Board Member and former member of NLG Massachusetts
The Chicago DNC created a unique moment for protester legal support. It illuminated the combined success of the city’s radical support network and NLG Chicago’s role within that system. NLG Chicago followed the standard playbook for mass defense at a national security event. The chapter has done and continues to do a fantastic job supporting DNC protesters, including recruiting, training, and dispatching dozens of volunteers to: educate organizers of their rights; document law enforcement conduct as Legal Observers; track arrestees and operate a 24/7 legal hotline; and represent protesters facing criminal charges. By weaving these tried and true services into Chicago’s system of arrestee support and progressive reforms, NLG Chicago became part of a stronger network of interventions in the criminal legal system.
Chicago boasts a rich landscape for radical infrastructure, with robust organizing traditions and recently-won criminal legal reforms. Since 2020, Chicago organizers installed and defended durable supports for arrestees. They forged new partnerships and changed the key players in Cook County’s criminal courts. The net positive effect helped protect DNC protesters as they moved through the early stages of the carceral system.
From the 2020 uprisings, Chicago organizers established two key supports for arrestees: attorney access and jail support. After documenting the Chicago Police Department’s systematic failure to honor arrestees’ right to counsel and state law guaranteeing phone access, the #LetUsBreathe Collective and others won a groundbreaking consent decree. The resulting ongoing community oversight forced CPD into improved compliance with the law requiring signage in police stations informing people of their rights and how to contact the Public Defender’s Arrest Hotline. This in turn facilitated dozens of calls to the NLG hotline, helping volunteers more quickly identify protesters following a mass arrest.
As protesters were released from the police station, Chicago Community Jail Support (CCJS)greeted them and specially trained legal liaisons collected information for NLG follow-up. During the 2020 uprisings, protest jail support teams waited for their comrades’ release and recognized similar (if not more serious) needs among other community members leaving jail. CCJS formed to extend this mutual aid beyond explicitly political arrests and began providing daily support to previously detained people and their loved ones outside Cook County Jail. They built infrastructure for sustainable jail support, including internal communications systems, training resources, and even a supply van. Thus, CCJS was ready in 2024 to cover multiple sites simultaneously and welcome DNC protesters leaving police custody, even into the early hours of the morning.
The Pretrial Fairness Act and the end of cash bond also altered the terrain for political arrestees. These pretrial reforms have already significantly reduced the number of people incarcerated in jails throughout the state. The law meant that DNC arrestees charged with ordinance violations, misdemeanors, and some felonies were not detainable beyond the initial custodial arrest. Generally, they were released on the same evening as their arrest without first appearing in court. Of the 20 arrestees who did appear in court, only two detention petitions were filed and both were denied. By Friday of the DNC week, every single arrestee had been released without having to raise bail money. Almost all were freed within 24 hours of arrest.
Organizing to eliminate money bond also shaped the leadership of two powerful courtroom forces: prosecutors and public defenders. Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx was elected as a “progressive prosecutor” in 2016 amidst organizing to eliminate money bond. Political critiques of progressive prosecutors abound, but Foxx’s policies materially changed the handling of protester cases. She reduced the severity of charges against protesters, opting to bring charges as misdemeanors rather than felonies and filing fewer aggravated battery of a police officer charges—cases that could previously result in lengthy pretrial detention or require tens of thousands of dollars in bond. She also adopted a policy of presumed dismissal for some of the most common protest charges. Foxx’s policies seem to have reduced the severity of charges against DNC protesters and will likely result in presumptive dismissal for many misdemeanor cases.
Shortly after the passage of the Pretrial Fairness Act in 2021, Cook County appointed one of the Act’s greatest champions, Sharone R. Mitchell, Jr., to be the Chief Public Defender. Mitchell’s organizing background opened new possibilities for collaboration with NLG Chicago. The chapter worked with the PD’s office and their Arrest Hotline team to track detained protesters and coordinate station visits. NLG volunteer lawyers who made station visits collected information which helped prepare PDs to represent arrestees in court the next morning.
The system, however, is already fighting back. The City of Chicago found workarounds that insulate legal proceedings from certain protections. Of the 76 people arrested during the DNC, 60 are charged with only Class L City Ordinance Violations. They are ineligible for public defenders because these violations are non-jailable, fine-only offenses. Because the City Attorney, not the State’s Attorney, prosecutes these charges, Foxx’s automatic dismissal policy does not apply. NLG Chicago formed a team of attorneys to defend against these charges and the fight continues.
With each confrontation between protesters and the state, Chicago organizers are strengthening radical infrastructure and chipping away at the state’s carceral power. NLG chapters across the country can multiply their impact by connecting to local support systems and facilitating radical infrastructure development. As part of a larger whole, NLG can forge a stronger, broader shield for protesters in the streets as they fight for social change.
