Amicus Populi

"[T]he security and protection of the community is the bedrock on which the superstructure of individual liberty rests. [¶] . . . [¶] Preserving the peace is the first duty of government, and it is for the protection of the community from the predations of the idle, the contentious, and the brutal that government was invented."
(People ex rel. Gallo v. Acuna (1996) 14 Cal.4th 1090, 1102, 1126.)

Amicus Populi at the United States Supreme Court

Amicus Populi at the California Supreme Court

What We Do

Amicus Populi (Friend of the People) is a project of former prosecutors who were part of the golden age of criminal justice in California — and want to preserve it.

By 1993, there were approximately 3,000 more homicides each year and 250,000 more violent crimes per year than there would have been had the crime rate stayed where it was 30 years earlier. By 2014, these rates had completely reversed; there were 3,275 fewer homicides and 256,400 fewer violent crimes – in one year alone – than there would have been had the 1993 crime rates continued.

In other words, tens of thousands of people lived, and were not killed, while millions of people avoided being the victim of a violent crime like rape, assault with a deadly weapon, or kidnaping, in the course of a single generation. But waves of legal changes threaten a perfect storm that could undo all the progress we made.

Contact Mitchell Keiter at mk@amicuspopuli.org with any questions!

By 2014...

The homicide rate was 30.6 percent of its 1980 peak;
The rape rate was 42.3 percent of its 1980 peak;
The robbery rate was 30.2 percent of its 1992 peak;
The aggravated assault rate was 38.4 percent of its 1990 peak;
The burglary rate was 22.9 percent of its 1980 peak;
The arson rate was 15.4 percent of its 1980 peak;
And the total violent crime rate was 35.6 percent of its 1992 peak.

Crime dropped this fast thanks to case decisions by appellate courts, statutes enacted by the Legislature, and initiatives approved by the electorate. These legal reforms reshaped the legal landscape and generated “Phase Three” in the history of California criminal law. (Mitchell Keiter, How Evolving Social Values Have Shaped (And Reshaped) California Criminal Law (2009) 4 California Legal History 393.)

These changes are threatened by changes new laws and leadership. Through appellate advocacy before the Supreme Courts of the United States and California, Amicus Populi works to preserve the public safety benefits achieved over the last generation — for the next.

Director Biography

Mitchell Keiter is a certified appellate law specialist, with his own civil appellate practice at Keiter Appellate Law. He started his career as the youngest Deputy Attorney General in the California Attorney General’s Criminal Division. He then worked at the California Supreme Court as a Chambers Attorney, before becoming a law professor teaching criminal law, criminal procedure, evidence, and appellate advocacy. His publications have been cited by the Parliament of Victoria. Australia, the Harvard Law Review, the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the Maryland Court of Special Appeals (its highest court).

He has argued six cases on behalf of the People of the State of California, and has filed briefs in ten more. He filed his most recent amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief on behalf of former California Senator Ray Haynes, who had been instrumental in limiting the exculpatory effect of the intoxication defense in California. The brief successfully urged the Supreme Court to affirm the conviction of Joaquin Soto, who broke into an apartment and stabbed Israel Ramirez to death as Ramirez’ family hid in the bedroom. Soto contended he should be guilty of only manslaughter because he had consumed so much methamphetamine, marijuana, and alcohol that he honestly, albeit unreasonably, perceived and acted on a need to defend himself against his Ramirez. The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction by a 5-2 vote. The result adopted a position urged by Keiter in 1999.