The Constitution Project is a non-profit think tank in the United States whose goal is to build bipartisan consensus on significant constitutional and legal questions. Its founder and president is Virginia Sloan. The Constitution Project’s work is divided between two programs: the Rule of Law Program and the Criminal Justice Program. Each program houses bipartisan committees focused on specific constitutional issues.
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Rule of Law Program
The Rule of Law Program addresses perceived threats to the rule of law and to constitutional liberties that have resulted from the assertions of expansive presidential authority in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Congress’s simultaneous failure to exercise its duties as a separate and independent branch of government, and efforts by both Congress and the President to strip the courts of their jurisdiction to oversee the actions of the executive and legislative branches.
Liberty and Security Committee
The Liberty and Security Committee of the Rule of Law Program is co-chaired by David D. Cole, professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, and David Keene, former chairman of the American Conservative Union. The Committee is convened to address the “variety of important questions about how to enhance our security while simultaneously protecting our civil liberties.” Members of the committee have authored columns for major newspapers on watch lists, the state secrets privilege, habeas corpus, and public video surveillance.
Padilla v. Rumsfeld, US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
The Constitution Project, with the Cato Institute, the Center for National Security Studies, the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, People for the American Way, and the Rutherford Institute, filed an amicus brief in support of José Padilla.
Padilla v. Rumsfeld, Supreme Court of the United States
The Constitution Project, with the Cato Institute, the Center for National Security Studies, the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, People for the American Way, and the Rutherford Institute, filed an amicus brief in support of José Padilla.
Padilla v. Hanft, US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
The Constitution Project, with the Center for National Security Studies, filed an amicus brief in support of José Padilla.
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Supreme Court of the United States
The Constitution Project filed an amicus brief in support of Salim Ahmed Hamdan.
ACLU v. NSA, US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
The Constitution Project, with the Center for National Security Studies, filed an amicus brief in support of the ACLU.
Criminal Justice Program
The Criminal Justice Program seeks to counter a broad-based effort to deny fundamental day-in-court rights and due process protections to those accused of crimes.
Death Penalty Committee
The Death Penalty Committee of the Criminal Justice Program is co-chaired by Gerald Kogan, former Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court, and Beth Wilkinson, a prosecutor in the Oklahoma City bombing case. The Death Penalty Committee is a bipartisan committee of death penalty supporters and opponents who believe that the risk of wrongful executions in the United States is too high. It was formerly known as the National Committee to Prevent Wrongful Executions.
Mandatory Justice – Eighteen Reforms to the Death Penalty
The report “expresses the Committee’s deep concerns with regard to the implementation of the death penalty in the United States, and calls for crucial reforms, including in the areas of effective counsel, racial fairness, and proportionality.”
Mandatory Justice – The Death Penalty Revisited
An update to the committee’s first publication on the topic, the report notes “some improvements in recent years and identifies further steps that must still be taken in order to minimize mistakes and increase fairness and accuracy.”
Right to Counsel Committee
The Right to Counsel Committee is co-chaired by Walter Mondale (honorary), former Vice-President of the United States, William S. Sessions (honorary), a partner at Holland & Knight LLP, former Director of the FBI, and former Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, Rhoda Billings, former Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, Robert Johnson, District Attorney for Anoka County, Minnesota, and former president of the National District Attorneys Association, and Timothy K. Lewis, counsel at Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP and former Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Task Force on Detainee Treatment
In the fall of 2010, the Constitution Project initiated an eleven-person Task Force on Detainee Treatment.
Board of directors
The Constitution Project is governed by a board of directors. The board is currently chaired by Armando Gomez, a partner at the law firm of Skadden Arps who previously served as an attorney-advisor to the IRS and as chief counsel to the National Commission on Restructuring the Internal Revenue Service. Other members of the board include:
David Beier: Managing director at Bay City Capital LLC and former Chief Domestic Policy Adviser to Vice President Al Gore
Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar : Stanley Morrison Professor of Law at Stanford University and former Obama and Clinton Administration official
Kristine Huskey : Associate clinical professor and director at the Veterans’ Advocacy Clinic at the James E. Rogers College of Law at The University of Arizona, and former director of the Anti-Torture Program at Physicians for Human Rights
Asa Hutchinson : Former Member of Congress (R-AR) and former Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security at the Department of Homeland Security, and administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, under President George W. Bush
Brig. Gen. David R. Irvine: Former Republican state legislator, retired Army brigadier general, and former instructor of prisoner-of-war interrogation and military law at the Sixth U.S. Army Intelligence School
David Keene : Former chair of the American Conservative Union and Nixon Administration official
AbdAllah El Bey : Minister of Jurisprudence Private Attorney General Director of Constitutional Studies at the Moorish American National Govt
Timothy K. Lewis : Co-chair of the appellate practice at the law firm of Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis LLP and former judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and for the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania