Try our Advanced Search for more refined results
Access to Justice
-
June 23, 2023
More Cases Involving Convicted Ex-Cops Axed In Manhattan
While the Manhattan District Attorney's Office announced this month that it would throw out over 300 mostly misdemeanor convictions tied to discredited New York City cops, information gathered by local advocates suggests prosecutors have a long road ahead of them in accounting for damage done by police officers they no longer trust.
-
June 23, 2023
New Maine Law Protects Atty-Client Privilege In Jail Calls
The Maine Legislature approved a bill this week that seeks to protect attorney-client privilege for incarcerated people using jail phones. The legislation came in response to outrage over recent revelations that authorities had eavesdropped on confidential calls at several jails in the state.
-
June 23, 2023
How Simpson Thacher Beat Kansas Vote-By-Mail Restrictions
When Kansas lawmakers enacted legislation that made it a crime for out-of-state groups to send mail-in ballot applications to voters, attorneys with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP sprang into action and recently notched a major First Amendment victory in challenging the law.
-
June 23, 2023
Minnesota Joins Prosecutor-Led Resentencing Law Movement
Joining a growing number of states beginning with California in 2018, a newly adopted law in Minnesota is set to give prosecutors a chance to ask courts to resentence convicted criminals who have shown rehabilitation during their time in prison.
-
June 23, 2023
DC Circ. Judge Tatel To Join Hogan Lovells' Litigation Practice
After serving for 29 years, Senior D.C. Circuit Judge David S. Tatel will step down from the bench in August to join Hogan Lovells' litigation practice in Washington, where he'll focus on pro bono work.
-
June 23, 2023
Justices Side With Gov't Over Use Of Redacted Confessions
The Supreme Court ruled in a split decision Friday that a criminal defendant's constitutional rights were not violated when the trial judge allowed prosecutors to admit into evidence the confession of a non-testifying codefendant, since the defendant's name was redacted and jurors were given limiting instructions.
-
June 22, 2023
5th Circ. Axes Challenge To Louisiana Bail System
The Fifth Circuit has sent a Louisiana lawsuit that challenged bail practices in the state back to district court for dismissal, ruling that because relevant challenges were still possible on the state level, the lower federal court had moved too fast when it denied relief.
-
June 22, 2023
Justices Say No Habeas For Retroactively Innocent Inmates
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that federal prisoners are barred from petitioning federal courts to get their sentences overturned after new case law makes them retroactively innocent, dealing the latest blow to a legal process known as habeas corpus.
-
June 20, 2023
Young Thug Trial Illustrates System's Strain On Jurors
Prospective juror No. 1,616 sits in the witness box of the downtown Atlanta courtroom and tells the judge he has three children, ages 2, 4 and 6, making it especially difficult for him to serve in what is expected to be Georgia's longest trial.
-
June 16, 2023
Justices Say Gun Crime Sentences Can Run Parallel To Others
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday unanimously ruled that criminal defendants convicted of certain federal gun crimes could be allowed to serve concurrent sentences if they were also convicted of other crimes, rebuking the government's view that sentences must run consecutively.
-
June 15, 2023
Wash. High Court Asks If Police Evictions Trigger AG Scrutiny
Washington Supreme Court justices asked Thursday how far-reaching local civil rights violations needed to be before the state attorney general could get involved, as they considered the state's claims that a small city police force had a practice of illegally evicting residents.
-
June 15, 2023
Arizona Releases Man Who Spent 29 Years On Death Row
An Arizona man who spent 29 years on death row for the murder of a little girl he said he didn't commit was freed on Thursday after the state admitted that he was never given a fair trial.
-
June 13, 2023
Conn. AG Talks Unregulated Cannabis 'Danger,' Abortion
Explaining that unlicensed and unregulated THC products pose a "danger" because they could subject consumers, especially youths, to medically unsafe doses, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said during a wide-ranging interview with Law360 that his office would continue to target cannabis sellers who try to skirt his state's recreational marijuana laws.
-
June 08, 2023
Businesses Sue Seattle Over 2020 Protest Response
A Seattle-based ice cream chain and a property owner sued the city in federal court this week, accusing officials of encouraging and condoning a protest zone in 2020 that shut down parts of the business's neighborhood, which they say resulted in lost revenue and an illegal taking by the local government.
-
June 07, 2023
Homeowners Say NY Courts Defy Law On Foreclosure Aid
Two Brooklyn homeowners accused New York's court administrators and justices of the state's Supreme Court in Brooklyn of failing to implement a state law requiring courts to assess if homeowners who are facing foreclosure and cannot afford an attorney should be given free legal representation, according to court documents filed Wednesday.
-
June 06, 2023
Legal Ethicists Back Inmate's Innocence Case At High Court
A group of renowned legal ethics scholars has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case of an Oklahoma death row inmate whose murder conviction has been deemed by the state's attorney general to be plagued by errors and possible prosecutorial misconduct, court filings show.
-
June 05, 2023
Davis Wright Among ABA's 2023 Pro Bono Honorees
Davis Wright Tremaine LLP and four individuals are set to receive honors from the American Bar Association later this year for their pro bono efforts in areas such as gender-based violence and Social Security disability fraud, the ABA announced Monday.
-
June 02, 2023
Venable Wins Resentencing For Last Md. Death Row Inmate
The last Maryland resident on federal death row is now awaiting resentencing for the fatal 2002 kidnapping of a Washington, D.C., police officer's son after a Venable LLP team recently helped persuade a judge to vacate his death sentence and three firearms convictions.
-
June 02, 2023
More States Turn To Paraprofessionals To Fill Justice Gap
The number of states implementing programs to license paraprofessionals to practice law has swiftly multiplied over the last three years, growing from two states to six and counting as courts seek ways to meet the legal needs of low- and moderate-income residents.
-
June 02, 2023
COVID Bottleneck Continues To Delay Federal Courts
Though new filings fell dramatically over the course of the pandemic, the length of time it took cases to resolve rose, a sign that though the public health emergency has ended, COVID’s effects are still being felt in federal courts, raising access to justice concerns for both litigants and criminal defendants.
-
June 01, 2023
NY Legal Aid Orgs. Cheer New Law Ditching Civil Notarization
New York could soon become the latest state to eliminate the process of requiring documents to be notarized in civil matters, a move that civil legal aid organizations say will improve people's access to the state's court system.
-
June 01, 2023
40 DC Firms Honored In Effort To Improve Access To Justice
Forty law firms in Washington, D.C., have qualified for an annual campaign recognizing those that donate a certain percentage of their revenue to local legal services organizations, the D.C. Access to Justice Commission announced Thursday.
-
May 30, 2023
Ariz., Utah OK Nonlawyer Program For Housing Advice
A new legal service model that aims to keep more low-income families in their homes has received approval from the Arizona and Utah supreme courts — which have waived restrictions on the unauthorized practice of law.
-
May 25, 2023
Texas Man Exonerated Of Sex Assault After 26 Years in Prison
Tyrone Day inside Dallas County Criminal Court on May 24, 2023 after a judge exonerated him from sexual assault charges for which he spent 26 years in prison. (Montinique Monroe/Innocence Project)
-
May 22, 2023
Civil Rights Suit Against NYC Cop Tossed After High Court Win
A New York federal judge dismissed a civil rights suit against a New York City Police Department officer brought by a Brooklyn man who won the right to present his claims last year by the U.S. Supreme Court, ending a nearly decade-long legal battle, attorneys confirmed on Monday.
Expert Analysis
-
5 Most-Read Access To Justice Law360 Guests Of 2019
On topics ranging from public trial rights to electronic monitoring technology to the rules of evidence in the context of sexual harassment trials, 2019 brought a wide array of compelling commentary from the access to justice community.
-
Inside The Key Federal Sentencing Developments Of 2019
Raquel Wilson, director of the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s Office of Education and Sentencing Practice, discusses this year's developments in federal sentencing, including new legislation in the Senate and U.S. Supreme Court cases invalidating certain statutes.
-
ODonnell Consent Decree Will Harm Criminal Justice In Texas
In Odonnell v. Harris County, a Texas federal court ordered that misdemeanor offenders could be released without bail, marking a fundamental deterioration of the Texas criminal justice system, says attorney Randy Adler.
-
Judges Cannot Rehabilitate Offenders With Extra Prison Time
Although they may mean well, federal judges should stop attempting to help criminal defendants get into drug rehabilitation programs by unlawfully sending them to prison for longer than their recommended sentences, says GianCarlo Canaparo at The Heritage Foundation.
-
Time To Rethink License Suspensions Without Due Notice
In North Carolina, one in seven adults has a suspended driver’s license, but our research suggests that many of them never received actual notice of their license suspension, or of the court proceeding that led to it, making this a fundamentally unfair sanction, say Brandon Garrett, Karima Modjadidi and William Crozier at Duke University.
-
Changing The Way We Dialogue About Justice Reform
Dawn Freeman of The Securus Foundation discusses why humanizing the language used to discuss justice-involved individuals is a key aspect of reform and how the foundation’s upcoming campaign will implement this change in mainstream publications and on social media.
-
High Court Should Restore Sentencing Due Process
If the U.S. Supreme Court grants certiorari in Asaro v. U.S. and rules that sentencing judges cannot consider uncharged, dismissed and acquitted conduct, a peculiar and troubling oddity of criminal and constitutional law will finally be rectified, say criminal defense attorney Alan Ellis and sentencing consultant Mark Allenbaugh.
-
Book Review: Who's To Blame For The Broken Legal System?
The provocative new book by Alec Karakatsanis, "Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System," shines a searing light on the anachronism that is the American criminal justice system, says Sixth Circuit Judge Bernice Donald.
-
High Court Should Affirm 3-Strikes Rule For Prisoner Pleading
The U.S. Supreme Court in Lomax v. Ortiz-Marquez should hold that any case dismissed for failure to state a claim should count as a strike for purposes of Section 1915(g), which allows incarcerated people to file three complaints free of charge, says GianCarlo Canaparo at The Heritage Foundation.
-
Acquitted Conduct Should Not Be Considered At Sentencing
Congress should advance the Prohibiting Punishment of Acquitted Conduct Act, which seeks to explicitly preclude federal judges from a practice that effectively eliminates the democratic role of the jury in the criminal justice system, says Robert Ehrlich, former governor of Maryland.
-
Thank A Female Veteran With Access To Legal Services
Women returning from military deployment often require more legal assistance than their male counterparts, and Congress can alleviate some of these burdens by passing the Improving Legal Services for Female Veterans Act, says Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa.
-
California Should Embrace Nonlawyer Providers
Despite criticisms from the legal profession, a California proposal to allow some legal service delivery by nonlawyers is a principled response to the reality that millions of Americans currently must face their legal problems without any help, says Chris Albin-Lackey, legal and policy director at the National Center for Access to Justice.
-
Calif. Law Offers New Hope For Child Sexual Abuse Victims
The recent passage of A.B. 218 in California — extending the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse cases — will pose challenges for the justice system, but some of the burdens posed by abuse will finally be shifted from survivors to accused abusers and the organizations that enabled them, says retired Los Angeles Superior Court judge Scott Gordon.
-
Core Rights Of Accused At Issue In High Court's New Term
The U.S. Supreme Court's upcoming decisions in several criminal cases this term will determine whether certain rights of the accused — some that many people would be surprised to learn are unsettled — are assured by the Constitution, say Harry Sandick and Jacob Newman at Patterson Belknap.
-
Bill Limiting Forced Arbitration Is Critical To Real Justice
Real justice means having access to fair and independent courts, but that will only be a reality when Congress bans predispute, forced arbitration under federal law with the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act, which passed the House on Friday, says Patrice Simms at Earthjustice.