Criminal Justice

Some of the nation's leading defense lawyers have been trying to wrap their heads around what they consider abnormal behavior by the U.S. Department of Justice over the past year.

Now, they're debuting a tool to help track criminal cases that appear to involve irregular charging practices, including aggressive legal theories and possible political retribution against President Trump's foes.

"We created the Case Tracker because you cannot defend against an enemy you cannot see," said Steven Salky, a lawyer in the Washington, D.C., area who oversees the project. "The Tracker is intended to spotlight for the next several years the unusual cases being prosecuted by the Department of Justice."

The new database includes the federal cases against Sean Charles Dunn, who threw a sub sandwich at a federal immigration officer, and Jacob Samuel Winkler, a homeless man accused of directing a laser pointer toward the Marine One presidential helicopter. Juries in Washington, D.C., acquitted both men. Nekima Levy Armstrong holds up her fist after speaking at an anti-ICE rally for Martin Luther King Jr. on Jan. 19 in St. Paul, Minn. National Anti-ICE protest at Minnesota church leads to 3 arrests but no charges for a journalist

The tracker, sponsored by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), also monitors cases where government charges of resisting federal law enforcement have been undercut by videos and eyewitness accounts from protesters.