Samuel Kuhn

Sam Kuhn will be joining the New York State Office of the Attorney General as a Justice Catalyst/Public Rights Project fellow. He will be jointly placed in the OAG’s Civil Rights Bureau and Special Investigations and Prosecutions Unit, where he will leverage enforcement powers granted to the OAG in the aftermath of the 2020 uprisings to bring civil rights litigation against police departments exhibiting a “pattern or practice” of unconstitutionality and criminally investigate and, where appropriate, prosecute police officers who kill New Yorkers. He will also spearhead the development of the OAG’s policing policy portfolio, including formulating state- and local-level legislation and policy reforms, litigation remedies, and other projects. Sam graduated from Yale Law School, where he served returning citizens and fought for bail reform and incarcerated voter access with the New Haven Legal Assistance Reentry Clinic, helped direct the YLS Civil Rights Project, served as Executive Editor of the Yale Law and Policy Review, and taught as an Affiliated Fellow of the Institute for Social and Policy Studies. While in law school, Sam supported litigation on water access, police brutality, and the criminalization of poverty with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. and Civil Rights Corps, worked on federal criminal justice, gun, drug, and immigration policy with Senator Richard J. Durbin’s Judiciary Committee Staff, and consulted organizations like the Council on Criminal Justice and Impact:Peace on policing issues. Before law school, Sam worked with the federal, state, and local governments to reduce gun and police violence with the National Network for Safe Communities at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He is a graduate of Cornell University.

Fellowship type: Justice Catalyst/Public Rights Project Joint

Organization: New York State Attorney General's Office

Project name: Combining Civil Rights Litigation, Criminal Prosecution, and Policy Advocacy to Advance Structural Reform of Police in New York State