ArchCity Defenders (ACD) is a legal advocacy organization in
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...
.
History
ArchCity Defenders was co-founded by three graduates of
St. Louis University School of Law in 2009, modeled after
The Bronx Defenders
The Bronx Defenders is a public defender office located in the South Bronx neighborhood of New York City. At the Bronx Defenders, criminal defense lawyers work together with civil lawyers, family defense lawyers, immigration lawyers, non-attorney ...
, to address gaps in civic and criminal justice services. ACD primarily operated on volunteer service and donated office space. They expanded operations in 2013 through a contract from mayor
Francis Slay's initiative to end chronic homelessness.
In 2017,
Blake Strode was named the new executive director after two years on staff through the
Skadden Fellowship.
In 2018, ACD was awarded the
Thomas Merton Award.
Activities
Between 2015 and 2018, ACD filed class action lawsuits against seven cities in St. Louis County for civil rights violations, reaching a settlement of over $20 million.
Lawsuits describe the violations as a
debtors' prison
A debtors' prison is a prison for people who are unable to pay debt. Until the mid-19th century, debtors' prisons (usually similar in form to locked workhouses) were a common way to deal with unpaid debt in Western Europe.Cory, Lucinda"A Histor ...
scheme in which plaintiffs were charged with minor infractions and held in prison when unable to pay
cash bail
In economics, cash is money in the physical form of currency, such as banknotes and coins.
In book-keeping and financial accounting, cash is current assets comprising currency or currency equivalents that can be accessed immediately or near-imm ...
without due process. In 2024, ACD produced a report on St. Louis municipal courts demonstrating the impact of reforms and presenting an argument for court consolidation.
In 2018–2020, ACD participated in the ''Close the Workhouse'' campaign.
References
External links
Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:ArchCity Defenders
Public defense institutions
Criminal defense organizations
Legal aid in the United States
Criminal justice reform in the United States
Legal advocacy organizations in the United States
Non-profit organizations based in St. Louis