The Pay to Play Project
Documenting how power distorts justice.
Level the Playing Field · Restore the Presumption of Innocence · Make the System Answerable
Project Overview
Restoring Fairness to Federal Justice
The Pay to Play Project is the Foundation’s research, accountability, and reform initiative. It documents how money, influence, and institutional incentives have pulled the federal justice system out of balance — and it advances a multi-year agenda to make that system fair again. This is not a left or a right cause. It is a fairness cause, and fairness is something every American already believes in.
Resources & Media
The Pay to Play Book
Pay to Play — the gripping memoir by Stephen L. Keller that exposes how money, influence, and institutional power can distort federal justice. The book that inspired The Pay to Play Project.
Pre-order the BookA System Out of Balance
The numbers tell a cautionary story.
97% of federal convictions now come by guilty plea, not trial — the adversarial system is effectively gone.
99%+ federal conviction rate, with no defense voice inside the grand jury room.
< 15 Hyde Amendment awards in 29 years for Americans the government prosecuted and failed to convict.
The Fairness Agenda — Eight Fronts
Where the federal system has lost its balance.
Eight fronts where the federal system has lost its balance — and where we are building reform, in sequence, as the coalition grows.
Grand Jury & Charging — a real check before indictment: recorded proceedings, mandatory exculpatory evidence, and an end to coercive overcharging.
Discovery & Trial — open-file discovery, genuine Brady compliance, and an end to the trial penalty that punishes the exercise of a right.
Defense Equity — parity of counsel and early expert access, so an accused American can mount a real defense, not an assembly-line plea.
Prosecutorial Accountability — real consequences for willful misconduct, and genuine skin in the game when the government brings a case and loses.
Post-Conviction & Restoration — pathways to review coerced pleas, meaningful compensation for the wrongly prosecuted, and a fair road back.
Restitution & Asset Seizure — an end to pre-trial seizures that bankrupt the accused, and to forfeiture used as a prosecutorial tactic.
Reputational Reform — the government must publish dismissals and acquittals as prominently as it published the original charge.
Congressional Oversight — standing hearings and public transparency on prosecutorial misconduct and sentencing disparity.
Flagship Campaign
Restore the Promise: Reforming the Hyde Amendment
Where we start. The most achievable, least deniable fairness fix in the system: a 1997 law meant to repay Americans the government prosecutes and cannot convict — which has produced fewer than fifteen awards in twenty-nine years. Fix it, and we begin to change the incentives that drive every other abuse. When an American wins, he should not lose his life in the process.
The four reforms
A prevailing-party standard · no net-worth cap · real market-rate fees · a mandatory award.
Media / Documentary Vision
Research, public education, and storytelling.
The project will use research, media, public education, and storytelling to examine incentives, document patterns, and elevate the human cost of corrupted systems without reckless or defamatory claims.
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