Racial Justice Act Tool
Leveraging technology to identify potential racial bias in legal proceedings and expand access to justice under California's Racial Justice Act
About the RJA Tool
The Racial Justice Act (RJA) tool allows users to upload legal documents for a criminal case and identifies potential RJA claims that may be present. By training on prior RJA cases and broader legal frameworks, the tool searches for and identifies instances of racial bias within court transcripts and related paperwork.
Additionally, it compares conviction and sentencing in a given case with similar cases in the same county, producing evidence of potential RJA violations under claims 3 and 4 of the act.
This tool aims to assist public defenders by relieving the burden of searching through lengthy transcripts to find potential RJA claims. It streamlines the prima facie process by making preparatory work more efficient. The tool can also help family members and loved ones of incarcerated Californians identify necessary evidence for a habeas petition.
How It Works
Judicial Bias Detection
Identifies instances where a judge, attorney, police officer, or expert witness showed bias based on race, ethnicity, or national origin.
Racially Coded Language
Detects racially coded statements made against the defendant during trial, including contextual nuances specific to local communities.
Charge Comparison
Compares severity of charges against similar cases in the same county to identify potential disparities in prosecution.
Sentencing Analysis
Analyzes whether the court imposed a more severe sentence compared to similarly situated cases in the same county.
Project Goals
Justice for the Incarcerated
With California's incarcerated population at approximately 90,000, our goal is to help bring more RJA cases to court, providing justice for those who may have experienced racial discrimination in their legal proceedings.
Develop Legal Precedent
Increasing the volume of RJA cases will help develop precedent regarding the barrier for successful Habeas Petition and Prima Facie filing, strengthening the legal framework for future cases.
Overcome Structural Barriers
By automating document analysis, our tool addresses the structural barrier of reviewing over 1,000 pages of legal documents per case, making the RJA more accessible and practical for mass implementation.
Expand Access to Justice
We aim to make the tool accessible to attorneys, loved ones of those incarcerated, and incarcerated individuals themselves, democratizing access to RJA evaluations.
Current Progress
Project Status
The RJA tool has been in development for nearly a year now. The technology has been developed to identify racial bias in documents, however more data is needed for comparison capabilities regarding convictions and sentencing.
Development Progress: 80% Complete
Next Steps
- Working with public defenders to begin implementation
- Focused data collection through outreach to the attorney general's office, court reporters, trial courts, and lawyers
- Building a substantial database of materials to train the tool and enable comparison functionality
- Finalizing back-end coding work for the pilot county implementation
- Expanding the tool to other California counties after successful pilot
Try the Demo
Drag and drop case files here or click to upload
Supported formats: PDF, DOC, DOCX, TXT (Max size: 50MB)
Demo functionality coming in future updates
