AI ETHICS This standard-setting function serves multiple purposes. Internally, clear ethical guidelines protect defenders from inadvertent misconduct and help offices maintain consistent practices. Externally, documented defense standards provide a basis for challenging prosecutorial AI use that fails to meet comparable ethical benchmarks. Defenders who understand AI well can more effectively litigate against improper prosecutorial uses. Challenging the reliability of probabilistic genotyping software, for instance, requires understanding how such algorithms function and where they might fail. Contesting facial recognition identifications demands knowledge of how those systems operate, their error rates, and their documented racial disparities. Defenders who remain ignorant of AI technology cannot effectively advocate for their clients when that technology affects the prosecution’s case. The NACDL’s Task Force on Artificial Intelligence represents one effort to develop collective defense standards. Individual offices and bar associations can contribute by sharing policies, training materials, and litigation strategies. Through coordinated effort, the defense bar can ensure that AI advances ethical justice rather than undermines it.
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Parity in Practice: The Defender’s Duty to Ethically Use AI
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