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Stash House Impact Litigation: Fighting Racially Selective Law Enforcement

From 2014 through 2018, the FCJC spearheaded complex, nationally-recognized systemic litigation on behalf of 43 clients in Chicago who were charged in twelve federal criminal “stash house” sting cases, before nine U.S. District Court judges. Working with the Federal Defender Program for the Northern District of Illinois—including attorneys Paul Flynn and now-Seventh Circuit Judge Candace Jackson-Akiwumi, as well as panel attorneys including Steven Saltzman and Matthew Madden—Professors Alison Siegler, Judith Miller, and Erica Zunkel and scores of Clinic students filed and litigated Motions to Dismiss for Racially Selective Law Enforcement for all 43 clients, alleging that the ATF unconstitutionally discriminated on the basis of race in targeting people of color for in these cases, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Of the 94 people selected by the ATF to commit this offense from 2006–2013, approximately 91% were Black or Hispanic. The FCJC’s groundbreaking litigation resulted in dramatically lower sentences for all clients and changed discovery law in the Seventh Circuit and beyond.

The FCJC approached the legal issue of selective law enforcement in an innovative fashion by coordinating across cases and bringing empirical evidence to bear. The Clinic retained an expert witness who is one of the nation’s premier authorities on race discrimination in policing—Professor Jeffrey Fagan of Columbia Law School. Professor Fagan conducted a statistical analysis on behalf of all 43 clients which found that the ATF discriminated against people of color in our cases. (Motions and expert report available.)

When the FCJC began working on this litigation, clients were facing 15–25 year mandatory minimums and far higher sentences under the Sentencing Guidelines. Soon thereafter, in an unprecedented move, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois dismissed the most serious of the mandatory minimum drug charges. In the wake of the evidentiary hearing, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago went even farther and made highly unusual plea offers in all of the cases, offering to dismiss all of the remaining mandatory minimum gun and drug charges. See Jason Meisner, Under pressure by judges, prosecutors to offer plea deals in controversial drug stash house cases, Chicago Tribune (Feb. 21, 2018). These offers came on the heels of then-Chief Judge Rubén Castillo urging prosecutors to end fake stash house cases and relegate them “to the dark corridors of our past.” United States v. Brown, 299 F. Supp. 3d 976, 984 (N.D. Ill. 2018).

The litigation concluded during the 2018–2019 academic year, resulting in time-served sentences for almost all of the 43 clients and substantially below-Guidelines sentences for the rest. Clients on bond were allowed to remain with their families, clients in custody were promptly released, and our clients collectively were spared hundreds of years in prison. FCJC faculty and students directly handled three of the sentencings, and coordinated with other clients and their attorneys on several others. Under the supervision of Professors Siegler and Zunkel, and Lecturer in Law James DuBray, FCJC students prepared outstanding oral and written sentencing presentations for their clients, focusing on the clients’ impressive post-offense rehabilitation and the questionable way in which they were targeted by the ATF.

All of the FCJC’s clients received were given time-served sentences, a dramatic reduction from the 15–25 year minimums they were originally facing. All 43 clients who participated in our litigation received sentences far below the decades they otherwise would have served behind bars. During one sentencing, Judge Gettleman issued an opinion “express[ing] this court’s disgust with the ATF’s conduct in this case.” United States v. Paxton, 2018 WL 4504160, at *2 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 20, 2018). This chart depicts some of these incredible outcomes.

The Stash House litigation was a resounding success. When the FCJC first took on these cases pro bono, no one in the country had successfully litigated a systemic selective prosecution or enforcement challenge. As a result of the FCJC’s litigation, the Seventh Circuit, Third Circuit, and Ninth Circuit instituted lower standards for defendants seeking discovery regarding racially selective law enforcement. In addition, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the ATF entirely stopped bringing stash house cases in Chicago and in some other districts nationwide.

The FCJC received the 2020 Clinical Legal Education Association Award for Excellence in a Public Interest Case for this litigation. As CLEA wrote in announcing the award: “The FCJC’s district court Stash House litigation used statistical evidence to save their 43 clients from hundreds of years in prison. The FCJC’s appellate litigation dramatically improved the legal standard for people seeking discovery about race discrimination by police, ushering in a new wave of litigation challenging racial bias. The project exemplifies individual client representation as a vehicle for systemic change. It was helmed by Professor Alison Siegler, FCJC’s Founder and Director, along with FCJC Associate Director, Professor Erica Zunkel, and Professor Judith Miller, and was litigated by FCJC students over four years.

Litigation Documents

Please contact Professor Miller if you would like to discuss litigating a racially selective enforcement or selective prosecution challenge. The following litigation documents below may help with any such litigation; similar documents were filed in all of the stash house cases. Additional documents are available upon request.

Publications

Selected Press