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Access to Justice
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August 15, 2023
2nd Amendment Allows Disarming Abusers, Feds Tell Justices
The Fifth Circuit's decision to strike down a law forbidding domestic abusers from owning guns was "profoundly mistaken" and "endangers victims of domestic violence, their families, police officers, and the public," the federal government has told the U.S. Supreme Court.
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August 11, 2023
Family of NY Man Who Died After Police Beating Wins $35M
A federal jury on Thursday awarded a $35 million verdict to the family of Long Island resident Kenny Lazo, who died in Suffolk County police custody in 2008.
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August 10, 2023
Feds, Rikers Detainees Have Green Light To Seek Receiver
A New York federal judge on Thursday cleared the way for detainees at New York City's Rikers Island and Manhattan federal prosecutors to push for a receiver to take control of the notorious jail complex away from city officials, in the wake of increasingly dire reports of violence and mismanagement.
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August 09, 2023
11th Circ. Revives Claim Over Inmate's Mail To Attorneys
The Eleventh Circuit on Tuesday kept alive a Florida inmate's constitutional claim against two county jail employees, saying the prisoner's argument that his legal mail shouldn't be scanned into a computer because others might read it shouldn't have been dismissed by the district court.
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August 07, 2023
Ark. Suit Over Providing Atty For Bail Hearings Is Kept Alive
An Arkansas federal judge has kept alive a suit challenging a state court's failure to appoint counsel to indigent clients prior to their bail hearings, saying the defendants can't escape the claims based on sovereign immunity and declaring that appointed counsel provides "critical assistance" during a bail hearing.
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August 04, 2023
Court-Appointed Atty Accused Of 'Abysmal Representation'
A 70-year-old Houston man who says he sat in jail without substantial contact from his court-appointed attorney for more than three years before his case was ultimately dismissed — causing him to miss the death and funeral of his wife of 40 years — has sued his former lawyer for legal malpractice.
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August 01, 2023
2nd Circ. Revives Honduran Woman's Rape Case Against ICE
The Second Circuit said Tuesday that a lower court should not have rejected the claims of a Honduran immigrant as time-barred and revived her suit alleging a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer regularly raped her and threatened her with deportation for seven years.
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July 31, 2023
ICE Sued For Records Of Chemicals Sprayed At Wash. Facility
An immigrant rights group filed a lawsuit Friday asking a Washington federal judge to compel U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hand over internal reports of guards at a Tacoma detention facility spewing chemical agents at people being held there earlier this year.
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July 31, 2023
11th Circ. Orders Reopening Of Ala. Convict's Plea Offers
An Eleventh Circuit panel on Friday sided with an Alabama man serving a life sentence for murder, finding there was reason to believe he had never been informed of a plea offer that could have resulted in a 30-year prison sentence instead.
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July 27, 2023
DOJ Hailed For Goal Of Helping Pretrial Inmates Access Attys
The public defender community is praising new recommendations from the U.S. Department of Justice aimed at finding ways to improve the ability of criminal suspects in federal custody to communicate with attorneys and access materials related to their cases.
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July 26, 2023
Mich. Justices Say Pro Bono Status Can't Affect Fee Awards
Pro bono representation should not be a factor in determining a reasonable attorney fee award, the Michigan Supreme Court said Wednesday, finding a judge wrongly slashed Honigman LLP's fee award when it represented a pair of journalists for free in a public records case.
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July 26, 2023
Univ. Research Center Sues DOD For El Salvador Records
The University of Washington's Center for Human Rights has sued the U.S. Department of Defense in Seattle federal court, alleging the Defense Intelligence Agency has withheld records regarding human rights violations that took place amid armed conflict in El Salvador in the 1980s and early 1990s.
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July 26, 2023
Brothers Say Chicago Police Tortured Them For Confessions
Two brothers who spent 26 years in prison before their convictions were vacated in the murder of a 10-year-old boy say in new federal lawsuits that members of the Chicago Police Department used false evidence and torture to force their confessions.
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July 26, 2023
No Early Release For Sick Prisoner Claiming Inadequate Care
There will be no compassionate release for a sick man serving 18 years in prison for collecting more than $9 million from Medicare and Medicaid while banned for fraud, a New Jersey federal court decided.
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July 25, 2023
Advocates Say Tenn. Child Services Fails To Help Immigrants
Several undocumented children and their advocates have accused the Tennessee Department of Children's Services of failing to help them pursue legal status, saying the agency allows vulnerable children in its care to age out of a special pathway to citizenship.
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July 25, 2023
Brooklyn Public Defender Union To Hold 2nd Lunchtime Picket
Nearly two years after eligible employees voted to unionize and be represented by the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, Brooklyn Defender Services employees plan to hold a second lunchtime picket on Wednesday as they remain without a contract.
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July 25, 2023
New EDNY Committee To Give Convictions A Second Look
A New York federal prosecutor announced Monday that his office is forming a committee to look over claims of wrongful convictions.
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July 21, 2023
How Habeas Corpus Ruling May Condemn Innocent Prisoners
To Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson, it sounded absurd: Why would legally innocent people — convicted under interpretations of the law that the U.S. Supreme Court later found to be wrong — be denied a chance to seek release from prison?
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July 21, 2023
'Paper Abuse': How Family Courts Feed Coercive Control
Survivors' rights activists say that abusers use the courts to harass and exert control over their former partners. Some states have sought to pass laws curbing the practice. But the lines are tricky to draw, as they pit concerns about weaponizing litigation against due process rights.
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July 21, 2023
Section 8 Tenants Are Using New Laws To Fight Housing Bias
States and cities are increasingly passing laws barring discrimination against tenants who rely on housing assistance vouchers. Now tenants and their advocates are launching a growing number of lawsuits to enforce them.
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July 21, 2023
Justice Sotomayor Slams Decision To Execute Ala. Prisoner
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor blasted her colleagues early Friday for allowing Alabama to use a death row inmate as a guinea pig following the state's "tortuous attempts" to execute other prisoners by lethal injection.
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July 21, 2023
ACLU Says NJ Judge Safety Law Is Used To Chill Free Speech
Days after he questioned the absenteeism of the Police Department director during a City Council meeting, Charlie Kratovil, a seasoned local journalist and self-described advocate in New Brunswick, a city in central New Jersey, received a cease-and-desist letter.
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July 21, 2023
Judge Tatel On Returning To His Pro Bono Roots
Senior D.C. Circuit Judge David S. Tatel grew up wanting to become a scientist like his father was, but the 1960s "changed everything," he recently told Law360 as he prepares to retire from the bench.
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July 21, 2023
Jersey City Advocates Leave Mark On Right To Counsel Laws
At eviction hearings nationwide, where a tenant's ability to stay in their home is at stake, an average of 97% of tenants come to court with a handicap — they don't have an attorney.
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July 18, 2023
Illinois High Court OKs 1st Law In Nation Abolishing Cash Bail
The Illinois Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that a 2021 state law eliminating cash bail and strictly limiting pretrial incarceration in the state is constitutional, overturning a lower court's decision that had put the legislation in limbo.
Expert Analysis
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Inmate Release Exhaustion Rule Should Be Waived For COVID
The issue at the forefront of many compassionate release applications during the pandemic has been whether federal courts must wait 30 days before they can rule on them due to the statutory administrative exhaustion requirement, and those 30 days could become a matter of life or death, says Jolene LaVigne-Albert at Schlam Stone.
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COVID-19 Highlights Access Injustice In Personal Bankruptcy
In the age of enforced social distancing, the limits on access to electronic filing means bankruptcy is paradoxically only available to those individuals who can afford it, says Rohan Pavuluri at Upsolve.
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Coping With A Pandemic: Pine Tree's Nan Heald
With distancing and isolation the new norm amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Law360 is sharing reactions from around the business and legal community. Today's perspective comes from Maine-based Nan Heald, executive director at Pine Tree Legal Assistance.
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Social Distancing And Right To Jury Trial Must Be Reconciled
It would seem almost obvious to conclude that the internet and proposed e-courtroom venues may be best suited to promote social distancing while ensuring the uninterrupted constitutional right to a trial by jury, but numerous questions exist, say Justin Sarno and Jayme Long at Dentons.
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Tips For Prisoner Release Requests During Pandemic
The 70 compassionate release rulings issued by federal courts in the past three weeks suggest that the chances of securing release from prison premised on COVID-19 are boosted significantly where the defendant is able to accomplish one or more of three goals, say attorneys at Waller.
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States Must Toll Court Deadlines To Ensure Access To Justice
There are several reasons why a state should consider temporarily lifting statutes of limitations during this pandemic, including protecting the rights of litigants who are vulnerable, say Adam Mendel and Rayna Kessler at Robins Kaplan.
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Coping With A Pandemic: ASU's Rebecca Sandefur
With self-isolation and social distancing now the norm during the COVID-19 pandemic, Law360 is sharing reactions from around the business and legal community. Today's perspective comes from Rebecca Sandefur, a professor at Arizona State University and faculty fellow of the American Bar Foundation.
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Coronavirus Crisis Shows Need For Permanent Bail Reform
All states should follow Florida's lead and reduce the number of people held in jails unnecessarily during the pandemic, and use this tragic time as a catalyst to make lasting, long overdue changes in our criminal justice system, says Matt Morgan at Morgan & Morgan.
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Constitutional Lessons For Prisons Amid COVID-19 Outbreak
With the coronavirus already infiltrating certain prison populations, jail officials must look to cases stemming from the 2009 swine flu epidemic for guidance on their legal obligations under the Eighth Amendment, say attorneys at Bradley Arant.
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Weinstein's Survivors Got Justice, But Reform Is Still Needed
While the conviction and sentencing of Harvey Weinstein was a watershed moment, and vindication for the women that he abused, the scales of justice remain tipped against women in cases of sexual assault and harassment in the U.S. and around the world, say Jennifer Klein at Time's Up and Rachel Vogelstein at the Council on Foreign Relations.
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Keep Your Client Out Of The Courtroom During Voir Dire
With Harvey Weinstein's defense team raising allegations of undisclosed bias among the jurors who convicted him, it's a good time to examine why it may be best if your client is not present during the jury selection process, says Christina Marinakis at Litigation Insights.
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Justices' Border Patrol Ruling Could Extend To US Citizens
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Hernandez v. Mesa, barring a Mexican family’s remedies for the fatal cross-border shooting of their son by a federal agent, sweeps broadly toward curtailing constitutional remedies for similarly aggrieved U.S. citizens, says Cori Alonso-Yoder at American University Washington College of Law.
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Weinstein Verdict May Signal Big Step Forward For #MeToo
That a New York state jury convicted Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault and rape — in the absence of substantial corroborating evidence and despite challenges to the accusers' credibility — suggests that society has turned a corner, says professor Stephen Gillers at NYU School of Law.
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Justice Denied For A NY Domestic Violence Survivor
New York's Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act was enacted to reduce sentences for people like Nicole Addimando, who was just given 19 years to life in prison for killing her sadistically abusive partner, so the court’s failure to apply it here raises the question of whether it will be applied at all, say Ross Kramer and Nicole Fidler at Sanctuary for Families.
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Arbitration Is A Flawed Forum That Needs Repair
While arbitration is a good vehicle for ensuring timely dispute resolution, the existing system lacks protections for workers and consumers, and legislative efforts to outlaw forced arbitration prove it’s time to finally fix it, says Gerald Sauer at Sauer & Wagner.