Photo credit: Jirel McClinton
On September 9, 2021, the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), announced the appointment of Mr. Darius Charney, one of the country’s leading civil rights lawyers, as the Director of a new unit which will investigate racial profiling and bias-based policing.
Mr. Charney will be leaving his position as a Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, bringing with him his expertise on police misconduct and litigating racial justice cases. He has long championed the fight against racial profiling in New York City, namely in his role as lead counsel on Floyd v. City of New York, the landmark federal civil rights class action lawsuit that found the New York City Police Department’s stop-and-frisk practices racially discriminatory and otherwise unconstitutional. Mr. Charney has continued the fight in cases across the country making him a leading expert in bias based policing and racial profiling.
Prior to working for the Center for Constitutional Rights in 2008, Darius spent two and a half years as an associate at the New York law firm of Lansner & Kubitschek, where he litigated federal civil rights cases challenging various aspects of New York City and New York State’s child welfare and foster care systems. Darius received his J.D. and M.S.W. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley in 2001. From 2003-2005, he was law clerk to the Honorable Deborah A. Batts, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York.