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Access to Justice
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June 21, 2024
Justices Keep Domestic Abusers Disarmed, Clarify Bruen
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Texas man's constitutional challenge to a federal law prohibiting people subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms Friday, providing limited guidance to lower courts on how to apply the high court's Second Amendment historical analogue test.
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June 11, 2024
DC Firms Honored For Local Legal Services Donations
The D.C. Access to Justice Commission is recognizing 39 law firms for their financial contributions to legal aid providers in Washington, saying the private bar's support is crucial to meeting the community's needs.
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June 10, 2024
New 'Access DOJ' Aims To Nix Barriers, Boost Accessibility
The U.S. Department of Justice has announced the launch of an initiative to improve access to its programs and services, including an upcoming project to make it easier to report tips about crime or other violations of law.
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June 07, 2024
Judge Doubts Ethnicity Questions Deserve Jury Bias Probe
A Washington appellate judge pushed back Friday against a Filipino family who claimed a hospital's questions about their ethnicity at trial required a bias inquiry, noting race is "something that can't be ignored" in any courtroom filled with people who look different from one another.
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June 06, 2024
Judge Seems Likely To Make Denver Face 2020 Protest Claims
A Colorado federal judge on Thursday appeared inclined to reject Denver's bid to end claims that it encouraged police to use excessive force against social justice advocates in 2020, pressing the city to explain how its law enforcement policies didn't amount to indifference to violating protesters' rights.
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June 06, 2024
Some Colo. Justices Call For Nixing Peremptory Strikes
Three Colorado Supreme Court justices said this week that eliminating peremptory challenges would help remove "the taint of impermissible discrimination" from the jury selection process, writing in two cases involving the dismissal of Black jurors that the strikes often facilitate racism that can be near impossible for a court to address.
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June 04, 2024
SDNY Taps Nonprofit To Run Clinic For Pro Se Litigants
The City Bar Justice Center announced Tuesday that it has been enlisted to take over the Southern District of New York's 8-year-old legal assistance clinic's services for self-represented litigants, as many low-income Americans face the civil legal system alone.
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June 03, 2024
Ga. Sheriff Wants Bookstore Suit Over Jail Book Policy Tossed
A Georgia sheriff and jail commander asked a Georgia federal judge to toss a lawsuit brought against them by a bookstore that alleges the jail instituted an unconstitutional and arbitrary policy of only allowing books into the county jail from "authorized retailers."
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May 31, 2024
DOJ Looks To End A Legacy Of Bias In Sex Assault Cases
The U.S. Department of Justice says that legal fallacies and misogynistic stereotypes often lead prosecutors to decline to charge alleged perpetrators of sexual violence, but new guidance from the department is pushing prosecutors to give more credence to victims and see that their claims are more thoroughly investigated.
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May 31, 2024
Do Jails' 'Approved Vendor' Rules Keep Out Drugs, Or Books?
Jailhouses and other correctional facilities are increasingly banning books not because of what they say, but because of who sent them, a practice that officials say is designed to keep drugs out of facilities, but which advocates for incarcerated people say only keeps out books.
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May 31, 2024
Small Town Va. Firm Wins Big Pro Bono Recognition
Decades ago, the leaders of a small law firm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley decided to focus on the pro bono legal needs of their community. Its work, including at least one case the firm won before the state Supreme Court, recently earned the firm a national award from the American Bar Association.
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May 31, 2024
Migrant Influx Fuels Push For Right To Immigration Counsel
Amid a soaring backlog of asylum cases in the United States, pro-immigrant advocates have intensified their push for legislation that would give noncitizens the right to legal representation in deportation proceedings.
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May 30, 2024
Insurance Atty Fights For Lone Woman On Death Row In Miss.
Attorney A. Kate Margolis lives a double life: one, in which she fights on behalf of insurance policyholders as counsel at Bradley, and another, spent trying to save convicted murderer Lisa Jo Chamberlin, the only woman on Mississippi's death row.
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May 29, 2024
2nd Circ. Unsure If Error Kept Murder Exonerees' Case Alive
A Second Circuit judge expressed doubt Wednesday that a lower court erred in declining to grant qualified immunity to two Connecticut police officers whose actions allegedly contributed to the wrongful convictions of two men for a 1985 murder, noting that a key piece of evidence challenging prosecutors' theory remains shrouded in mystery.
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May 29, 2024
Non-Atty Advice To Debtors Is Unprotected, 2nd Circ. Told
New York urged the Second Circuit on Wednesday to find that stopping a nonprofit focused on bankruptcy education and the South Bronx pastor it's working with from advising low-income debtors represents a content-neutral regulation on who can practice law that does not violate the First Amendment.
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May 28, 2024
Gorsuch Unhappy Court Won't Rethink Jury Size Precedent
In a strongly worded dissent Tuesday, Justice Neil Gorsuch said the U.S. Supreme Court needs to rethink precedent that "made the unthinkable a reality" by permitting juries of fewer than 12 people to decide cases involving serious criminal offenses.
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May 23, 2024
High Court Sides With Gov't Over Repeat Offender Sentencing
A state drug conviction can trigger a mandatory 15-year sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act if it involved a drug on the federal schedules at the time of that conviction, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
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May 20, 2024
Lethal Injection 'Not Rocket Science,' Ga. Says As Trial Begins
As Georgia began a bench trial Monday against a death row inmate who is suing to be executed by firing squad, counsel for the state told a federal judge that she expected the inmate to have "a hard road to hoe" in disproving that the state's use of lethal injection is safe, effective and can be carried out with relative ease.
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May 17, 2024
NY Discovery Reform Feud Simmers Between DAs, Defenders
Four years after New York imposed new requirements on prosecutors to more promptly hand over evidence to defendants in criminal cases, data suggests that district attorneys’ offices are still struggling to comply. In the meantime, experts and advocates say many are quietly working to tweak the reforms or potentially scale them back.
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May 17, 2024
Reid Collins Helps Score Verdict For Teen In La. Policing Case
Nearly four years to the day when Louisiana teenager De’Shaun Johnson recorded his mother’s arrest in their Slidell driveway, attorneys with Reid Collins & Tsai LLP and the ACLU help convince a federal jury that a local sheriff’s deputy who threatened to Tase him had intentionally inflicted emotional distress.
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May 17, 2024
Inside The New Legal Push To End Calif.'s Death Penalty
In a first-of-its-kind case in the Golden State, the California Supreme Court is being asked to permanently dismantle the nation’s most populous death row on grounds that capital punishment has been administered in a racially discriminatory manner that disproportionately harms people of color.
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May 16, 2024
Lowenstein Sandler Pro Bono Head Leaves Legacy Of Service
As she winds down her tenure leading Lowenstein Sandler LLP's Center for Public Interest this month, Catherine Weiss is leaving behind a legacy as a fierce public advocate for immigrants and reproductive rights at a time when public interest law as a whole faces new challenges.
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May 13, 2024
Jackson, Sotomayor Would Have Taken Up Jury Pool Dispute
U.S. Supreme Court Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor dissented Monday from the other justices' refusal to review a case in which a defendant and his counsel were excluded from attending initial juror qualification in his capital murder case, calling the circumstances "significant and certworthy."
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May 13, 2024
Justices Reject Incarcerated Man's Atty Abandonment Claim
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear the case of a Texas man incarcerated on death row who says his court-appointed lawyer deprived him of a fair chance at challenging his conviction in a 2005 double homicide.
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May 09, 2024
Justices Uphold Civil Forfeiture Standards Amid Abuse Fears
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that people whose property is seized during criminal investigations of others aren't entitled to a quicker process to seek its return, even though a majority of justices expressed concerns about the constitutionality of civil forfeiture systems in general.
Expert Analysis
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How Attorneys Can Help Combat Anti-Asian Hate
Amid an exponential increase in violence against Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, unique obstacles stand in the way of accountability and justice — but lawyers can effect powerful change by raising awareness, offering legal representation, advocating for victims’ rights and more, say attorneys at Gibson Dunn.
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Well-Equipped Public Defenders Can Help Reduce Recidivism
Public defenders are uniquely positioned to connect clients with essential services that are proven to address the root drivers of crime, thus reducing recidivism and promoting public safety — but they need adequate resources to bring about this change, says Emily Galvin-Almanza at Partners for Justice.
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Inside Immigration Court: Making The Case For Bond Release
Immigration Judge Samuel Cole offers a guide to help attorneys practicing in immigration court — against a backdrop of high stakes and fast-moving dockets — better prepare for bond hearings, so proceedings run more smoothly and with less delay.
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LA County Should Loosen Strict Reentry Program Criteria
Los Angeles County’s recent fair chance ordinance proposal is an important step toward reducing recidivism, but the county should also make its reentry programs available to all formerly incarcerated individuals and focus on prerelease job training, say Sophia Lowe, Eleanor Pearson and Samuel Mistrano at USC.
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Why Trump Sexual Abuse Verdict May Be Hard To Replicate
Survivors of sexual assault may be emboldened to file suit after writer E. Jean Carroll’s trial victory against former President Donald Trump, but before assigning too much significance to the verdict, it’s worth noting that the case’s unique constellation of factors may make it the exception rather than the rule, says Jessica Roth at Cardozo School of Law.
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New Ideas For Using Litigation Finance To Close Justice Gap
Bob Koneck at Woodsford outlines new ways in which the growing litigation finance industry could work with foundations, law firms and schools to address the urgent access to justice crisis.
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Meeting The Legal Aid Needs Of Human Trafficking Survivors
Human trafficking survivors have a wide range of unmet legal needs, but there are several ways law firms and attorneys can provide more comprehensive and trauma-informed support, say Sarah Dohoney Byrne at Moore & Van Allen and Renata Parras at Paul Hastings.
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Broader Problems Remain After Justices' DNA Test Ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this week in Reed v. Goertz straightforwardly resolves a statute of limitations question on post-conviction DNA testing, but it does not address the underlying issue that judges remain hostile to granting access to new evidence of innocence, much less relief based on that new evidence, says Brandon Garrett at Duke University.
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It's Time For Lawyers To Stand Up For Climate Justice
The anniversary this week of the Deepwater Horizon disaster offers an opportunity for attorneys to embrace the practice of just transition lawyering — leveraging our skills to support communities on the front lines of climate change and environmental catastrophe as they pursue rebuilding and transformation, says Amy Laura Cahn at Taproot Earth.
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Lessons On Litigating Wrongful Death Cases Against The BOP
With the process of litigating wrongful death claims against the Federal Bureau of Prisons littered with roadblocks, attorneys at HWG share some key lessons for navigating these challenges to ensure families can pursue justice for loved ones who died in custody.
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Eviction Cases Need Tiered Legal Help, Not Unlimited Counsel
The concept of right to counsel in civil cases, particularly in the context of evictions, is hotly debated, but rather than giving every tenant full representation regardless of the merits of their case, we should be focused on ensuring that everyone has the right amount of legal help, says Bob Glaves at the Chicago Bar Foundation.
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US Self-Defense Law Is Neither Overly Harsh Nor Disappearing
The inaccurate caricatures of U.S. self-defense law distract us from engaging in a more fully informed debate about the appropriate role of, and justification for, self-defense in a modern, pluralistic society, says Markus Funk at Perkins Coie.
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High Court Death Penalty Ruling Presents A Troubling Future
While the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Cruz v. Arizona — which said the Arizona high court misinterpreted state criminal procedure and warranted federal review was — came as a pleasant surprise in its prioritization of due process, the 5-4 ruling also portends poorly for the future with a low bar in death penalty cases, says Christopher Durocher at the American Constitution Society.
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What Landmark Ruling Means For Civil Rights Suits In Nevada
The Nevada Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Mack v. Williams ends the use of qualified immunity in the state, and though the defense will likely be revived by the Legislature, the decision provides a framework for litigants to hold state actors accountable for violations of state constitutional protections, says Austin Barnum at Clark Hill.
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We Can Ensure Public Safety And Still Reduce Incarceration
Recent progress toward reducing jail and prison populations remains fragile as tough-on-crime policies reemerge, but American history shows that we don’t have to choose between less violence and lower incarceration rates — we can have both, says Jeffrey Bellin at William & Mary Law School.