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Access to Justice
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August 22, 2023
Ex-Judges Say Abuser Disarmament Is Constitutional
A group of former chief state judges is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to undo a Fifth Circuit decision holding that a law allowing the disarmament of domestic abusers violates the Second Amendment, saying the law and others like it serve to protect vulnerable people as well as the integrity of the courts.
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August 17, 2023
Washington Sued Over New Law On Shelter For Trans Youth
Two anti-trans groups are suing the state of Washington in Seattle federal court over a new law that policymakers say is intended to ensure shelter for teens seeking gender-affirming care and reproductive health services, alleging that the measure tramples parents' "constitutional rights to direct the upbringing of their children."
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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.
Expert Analysis
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Illinois Must Do More To Protect Consumers In Debt
A recent Illinois Supreme Court order limiting debt collectors' ability to freeze personal bank accounts during the pandemic is progress, but it does not solve the underlying issue that debt courts are rigged against low-income people, says Ashlee Highland at CARPLS Legal Aid.
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The Case Against Solitary Confinement During Pandemic
Prisons and corrections systems must ensure that medical isolation during the pandemic does not devolve into prolonged solitary confinement that unduly burdens the individual liberty of people behind bars, says Marc Levin at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
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Coping With A Pandemic: McCarter & English's Abdul Rehman
As society continues to adapt to COVID-19, Law360 is sharing reactions from around the business and legal community. Today's perspective comes from Newark-based Abdul Rehman Khan, pro bono fellow for the city of Newark at McCarter & English.
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Legal Aid Needs Law Firm Support Now More Than Ever
With the need for pro bono services expected at unprecedented levels in the wake of the pandemic, and funding sources for legal aid organizations under severe stress, law firm leaders need to take measures to fill the gap, says Jeffrey Stone, chairman emeritus at McDermott.
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Coping With A Pandemic: Cleveland Legal Aid's Colleen Cotter
As society continues to adapt to COVID-19, Law360 is sharing reactions from around the business and legal community. Today's perspective comes from Colleen Cotter, executive director at The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland.
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Problems With Tolling The Speedy Trial Act During Pandemic
A plethora of federal courts have responded to social distancing requirements by entering blanket orders tolling compliance with Speedy Trial Act deadlines, but because there is no case-by-case analysis of their need and other factors, the orders raise questions about whether such tolling efforts are valid, say attorneys at Winston & Strawn.
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Guantanamo 9/11 Trial Is A Failure
The Guantanamo military commissions — seemingly a contrived attempt to avoid federal criminal court and thereby insulate the CIA from the legal implications of its torture program — appear fatally flawed, so Congress should have the 9/11 defendants tried in civilian criminal court, says Patrick Doherty at Ropes & Gray.
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Data Is Key To Stopping COVID-19 Spread In Prisons
There is an urgent need for state and county officials to publicly share accurate data about COVID-19 testing, infections and deaths in jails and prisons, so that effective, life-saving changes can be made to the criminal justice system, say criminologists Oren Gur, Jacob Kaplan and Aaron Littman.
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A Proposal For Efficient Post-Pandemic Justice In New York
The litigation backlog in state courts due to COVID-19 will make swift, orderly and fair resolution of disputes almost certainly impossible, but thankfully in New York, there are three nontraditional avenues to justice that can inform a post-pandemic emergency tribunal, says Joseph Gallagher at Harris St. Laurent.
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Downturn An Opportunity For Law Firms To Boost Pro Bono
While now hardly seems like the time for law firms to be volunteering their attorneys’ services, it is the right thing to do and a sensible investment that would likely not be made at any other time, says Martin Pritikin, dean of Concord Law School.
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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.