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Access to Justice
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April 11, 2024
Prison Racial Gap Narrowing, No Thanks To Reforms, Study Says
A wide range of changes to criminal sentencing laws that most states have adopted in the last two decades did not play a major role in the reduction of Black-white disparity in imprisonment seen between 2000 and 2020, according to a study released Thursday by the Council on Criminal Justice.
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April 10, 2024
No Damages After Drug Lab Scandal Sinks Case, Court Says
A Massachusetts man is not entitled to compensation from a fund for exonerees after his 2006 heroin distribution conviction was among thousands of drug cases vacated due to misconduct by a chemist at the state crime lab, an intermediate appeals court said Wednesday.
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April 09, 2024
Mo. Gets OK To Execute Man Repped By Flat-Fee Lawyers
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to halt the looming execution of a convicted murderer who claimed that his attorneys' flat-fee contracts incentivized them to push him to plead guilty before they secured promises from prosecutors not to pursue a death sentence.
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April 08, 2024
Calif. Legal Aid Group Leader On Fighting For Those With HIV
Matt Foreman, the new executive director of San Francisco's AIDS Legal Referral Panel, talks with Law360 Pulse to discuss the ongoing challenges faced by people living with HIV and how the organization assists them.
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April 05, 2024
Do New Laws Seek To Regulate Charitable Bail, Or End It?
New legislation aimed at curtailing — some say criminalizing — the use of charitable bail is being considered in multiple states, where the bills' advocates say they're necessary to address crime, but bail reform activists insist they perpetuate an inequitable bail system that makes freedom dependent on wealth.
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April 05, 2024
Flat-Fee Representation Fuels Man's Bid To Avoid Execution
As his execution date approaches on April 9, Brian Joseph Dorsey, who was sentenced to death for first-degree murder in Missouri, has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to find that his trial attorneys' flat-flee contracts resulted in inadequate legal representation that has left him doomed to die.
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April 05, 2024
Study Shines Light On Excessive NY Prison Sentences
A recent report shining a light on excessive felony prison sentences handed down by more than 140 trial judges in New York over a 16-year period has experts and advocacy groups calling for increased transparency to help ensure that courts are imposing fair penalties on criminal defendants in the Empire State.
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April 04, 2024
New Leader Discusses The Next Era For NY Federal Defenders
The Federal Defenders of New York has chosen its new leader, elevating its director of strategic litigation to become the first Black woman serving as the federal public defense organization's executive director.
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April 01, 2024
BOP Drops Accreditation Org After IG, Sens. Raise Concerns
The Federal Bureau of Prisons has let its $2.75 million contract with its accreditation organization expire, after a group of Democratic lawmakers and the bureau's watchdog raised concerns that the group wasn't effective or objective.
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March 27, 2024
Associates Help Ga. Prisoner Beat The Odds In Court
When a team of mostly associates at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Bondurant Mixson & Elmore LLP took on the civil case of a Georgia prisoner who had developed stage 4 hepatitis C as he waited five years for prescribed treatment, they expected they'd have their work cut out for them.
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March 26, 2024
'Landmark' Trans Women Prison Housing Deal Gets Final OK
A Colorado state judge on Tuesday approved a consent decree between the state and a class of transgender women who sued over dangerous housing conditions in state prisons and now hope the plan to accommodate their needs will spread to other states.
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March 25, 2024
Justices Nix Lenient Drug Sentence After 'Safety Valve' Ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday vacated a 100-month sentence given to a woman who pled guilty to drug offenses and remanded the case to the Fourth Circuit after the justices recently clarified which defendants qualify for "safety valve" relief under a 2018 federal law.
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March 22, 2024
MoFo Helps Secure $2B For Calif.'s Forgotten Students
Morrison & Foerster recently helped nab a historic $2 billion settlement to help roughly a million California students — disproportionately from Black, Latino and lower-income families — who say the state failed to provide them meaningful instruction once the COVID-19 pandemic began.
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March 22, 2024
Living With Death: How Judges Experience Capital Cases
When presiding over death penalty cases, judges are called to set aside their political and moral beliefs, and shut out their emotions. It’s easier said than done.
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March 22, 2024
Milbank Pro Bono Counsel On Leading By Example
Milbank LLP attorneys logged more than 54,000 hours of pro bono work across the firm's 12 offices worldwide in 2023, with 96% of its lawyers in the U.S. volunteering their time. According to Anthony Perez Cassino, the firm's pro bono counsel, it's a commitment to public service work that starts at the top.
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March 20, 2024
Study Sees Promise For Gen AI Tools In Closing Justice Gap
Widespread access to generative artificial intelligence tools could help increase access to justice for low-income Americans, according to a new study that found these tools largely boosted productivity for legal aid lawyers.
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March 20, 2024
US Senators Seek Clemency For Native American Activist
A group of mostly Democratic senators is urging U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to release compassionately a Native American activist who is serving a life sentence for his alleged involvement in the 1975 murder of two FBI agents, saying he is suffering from severe health conditions and should be able to live out his remaining days among his own people.
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March 18, 2024
Connecticut Exonerees Ask Lawmakers For Help After Prison
The Connecticut Legislature's joint judiciary committee is considering sweeping changes to the way the state compensates exonerated convicts, and three men who each served more than 18 years in prison urged lawmakers Monday to make one edit that would apply the bill to pending state-level claims.
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March 18, 2024
Bookseller Says Ga. Jail's Book Policy Is Unconstitutional
A Georgia bookseller filed a federal lawsuit Friday accusing an Atlanta-area sheriff of imposing an unlawful policy that only allows books into the county jail from "authorized retailers" under the guise of security concerns, alleging the practice is arbitrary, subjective, and an "unconstitutional permitting scheme."
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March 15, 2024
Justices Back Strict View Of Sentencing 'Safety Valve' Relief
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to let a broader class of nonviolent drug offenders qualify for relief from federal mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines, siding against certain recidivists in a ruling that focused on the meaning of the word "and" in a section of the First Step Act.
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March 14, 2024
Calif. County's Indigent Defense System Is Illegal, Atty Says
A criminal defense program for indigent people run by the bar association in San Mateo County, California, violates a state law prohibiting trade associations from engaging in legal practice and provides constitutionally deficient representation, a member of the association says in a suit in state court.
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March 13, 2024
Mass. Gov. Announces Pardon Plan For Marijuana Possession
Massachusetts Gov. Maura T. Healey has announced plans for sweeping pardons of misdemeanor cannabis possession convictions, following the directive of President Joe Biden, who urged state executives to follow his lead in pardoning low-level marijuana offenses.
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March 12, 2024
Judge Lets Feds Appeal 'Novel' Issues In Asylum Bond Suit
A Washington federal judge allowed federal immigration agencies to seek the Ninth Circuit's opinion on whether the district court can hear a class of asylum-seekers' lawsuit alleging deprivation of bond hearings, saying jurisdictional and constitutional issues in the case seem novel.
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March 12, 2024
NY DAs, Public Defenders Urge Student Loan Aid Expansion
A coalition of 35 district attorney offices, public defender offices, civil legal services providers and unions has urged New York elected officials to pass a bill increasing student loan financial assistance for legal aid attorneys and state prosecutors, many of whom face yearslong debt, Law360 has learned.
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March 08, 2024
'It Erases Us': Sex Abuse Survivors Troubled By Wash. Bill
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is expected to sign into law a bill that eliminates time limits for bringing child sex abuse claims in the future, but survivors say they are disappointed by an amendment stripping the bill's retroactivity, saying the legislation doesn't go far enough to hold abusers accountable.
Expert Analysis
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Understanding Illinois' First-Of-Its-Kind Law Nixing Cash Bail
A new law taking effect Jan. 1 that makes Illinois the first state to eliminate cash bail has been amended to correct some of the many concerns of those who opposed the original, flawed piece of legislation that was rushed through, and will make sweeping changes to how criminal justice operates in Illinois, say Joe Tabor and Perry Zhao at the Illinois Policy Institute.
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Defense Attorneys Can Help Limit Electronic Monitor Overuse
Though electronic monitoring is increasingly promoted as an alternative to incarceration for people awaiting trial, on probation or parole, or undergoing immigration proceedings, its effectiveness is unsupported by evidence and it results in clear harms, so defense attorneys should consider several strategies to challenge its overuse, say experts at the ACLU.
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DOJ Can't Justify Its Failure To Get Data On Deaths In Custody
The U.S. Department of Justice incorrectly claims that a law requiring it to collect meaningful data on how many people die in government custody has somehow limited its ability to do just that — and every failure to study these deaths is a missed opportunity to prevent others, says David Janovsky at the Project On Government Oversight.
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How Civilian Attorneys Can Help Veterans
With legal aid topping the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' annual list of unmet needs of veterans facing housing insecurity, nonmilitary volunteer attorneys can provide some of the most effective legal services to military and veteran clients, say Anna Richardson at Veterans Legal Services and Nicholas Hasenfus at Holland & Knight.
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Prison Abuse Victims May Get Justice In NY Look-Back Term
As New York opens a one-year window for survivors of adulthood sexual abuse to bring otherwise time-barred claims, incarcerated individuals who were abused by prison staff have an opportunity to seek redress, and can rely on a recent federal court decision to assess potential remedies, says Jaehyun Oh at the Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Firm.
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As 4th Circ. Reminds, Carrying Cash Is Not A Crime
The Fourth Circuit’s recent decision in U.S. v. McClellan makes clear that unwillingness or inability to use a bank account does not necessarily make someone a criminal, and that the government needs evidence of wrongdoing before seizing and keeping assets, say Robert Johnson and Caroline Grace Brothers at Institute for Justice.
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Algorithms Have Potential To Reduce Sentencing Disparities
Criminal legal system algorithms have mostly been used to assess the risk posed by defendants in settings like pretrial release, bail determinations, sentencing and parole supervision, but predictable modeling can also be used to reduce sentencing disparities and overly punitive outcomes, say ACLU researchers and collaborators.
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2 Legislative Reforms Would Address Many Immigration Woes
Congress should pass currently pending legislation to create an Article I immigration court and update the registry process — reforms that would shield immigration courts from political pressure, enable many longtime residents to cure their immigration status, and alleviate case backlogs, says retired immigration judge Dana Leigh Marks.
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Mich. Ruling Widens Sentencing Protections For Young Adults
The Michigan Supreme Court’s recent decision in People v. Parks, holding that a mandatory life-without-parole sentence for an 18-year-old violated the state’s constitution, builds on a nascent trend, based in neuroscience, that expands protections for young people over 17 who are charged with serious offenses, says Kimberly Thomas at the University of Michigan Law School.
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Bodega Worker Case Exposes Key Flaw In NY Legal System
The controversial murder case involving bodega worker Jose Alba reveals New York prosecutors’ common practice of charging first and investigating later — a systemic failure that has devastating consequences for individuals and undermines the presumption of innocence, says Michael Bloch at Bloch & White.
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Justices' Resentencing Ruling Boosts Judicial Discretion
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Concepcion v. U.S., holding that federal judges can consider new laws and a defendant’s rehabilitation in resentencing, will enable correction of overlong crack cocaine-related sentences — but this wider judicial discretion may also entrench existing disparities, says Mark Osler at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.
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Justices Leave Many With No Court To Hear Innocence Claims
While bad lawyering is an all too common cause of wrongful convictions, the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Shinn v. Ramirez closes the federal courthouse doors to evidence of ineffective counsel, leaving many without a meaningful opportunity to prove their innocence, says Christina Swarns at the Innocence Project.
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Nonprofit Ruling Is An Important Step For Nonlawyer Practice
A New York federal judge’s recent ruling that will allow nonprofit Upsolve to give legal advice to low-income debtors without a license is a positive development for nonlawyer practice, but presents questions about how to ensure similar programs can exist without fighting dodgy constitutional battles, says Ronald Minkoff at Frankfurt Kurnit.
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DOJ's Cautious Return To Supplemental Enviro Projects
While the U.S. Department of Justice has ended the Trump-era ban on negotiating supplemental environment projects as part of civil and criminal environmental settlements, the process and delay around this change suggest that SEPs may be more limited under the Biden administration than in the past, say attorneys at Sidley.
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Justices' Ruling Makes Some Progress On Cop Accountability
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Thompson v. Clark removes a roadblock that stymied malicious prosecution lawsuits, and could have positive impacts beyond the Fourth Amendment — but suits seeking accountability for police misconduct still face numerous challenges, says Brian Frazelle at the Constitutional Accountability Center.