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Access to Justice
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October 27, 2023
Is The State Court System Setting Judges Up To Fail?
Around 98.5% of America’s legal disputes are filed in state courts, yet the judges tasked with deciding them are often appointed or elected to the bench without any formal judicial training. Here, Law360 explores the challenges for state court judges and efforts to better prepare them for the role.
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October 25, 2023
Venable Donates $250K To Unaccompanied Minor Legal Fund
The philanthropic arm of Venable LLP, the Venable Foundation, has awarded a $250,000 grant to the Kids in Need of Defense fund, an organization that provides legal services to migrant children who come to the country unaccompanied by or separated from their guardians, the firm announced Tuesday.
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October 24, 2023
NJ State Police Sued For Failing To Clear Expunged Records
The New Jersey State Police has failed to timely remove expunged criminal records from the background checks of tens of thousands of individuals, preventing them from getting jobs, housing and other opportunities, the state's Office of the Public Defender claims in a proposed class action.
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October 13, 2023
How Church's Ch. 11 Bid Could Shut Out Abuse Victims
Anticipating a flood of lawsuits from a new state law ending the statute of limitations on child sex abuse claims, the Archdiocese of Baltimore took refuge in bankruptcy court last month to shield itself from liability as it tries to ensure its solvency. It’s a strategy that dioceses around the country are using more frequently in what some attorneys say is a bid to escape the tort system.
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October 13, 2023
Snapshot: Police Union Casts NYPD Protest Deal Into Doubt
Approval of a settlement that could significantly change the way the New York Police Department handles protests has been thrown into doubt after the city's largest police union filed objections in Manhattan federal court last week.
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October 13, 2023
NY's Top Court To Decide Who Can Discipline Police
The New York State Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments this month in a case that could have statewide implications on who is entrusted to review complaints against police and impose discipline.
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October 13, 2023
Atty's Secret Courtroom Meeting May Upend NY Murder Case
A secret conversation held in an empty courtroom in New York’s Hudson Valley has left a judge, his clerk and a local attorney facing ethics questions that could result in a manslaughter conviction being tossed.
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October 13, 2023
Attys Spotlighted In HBO Documentary On Charlottesville Suit
A team of boutique and BigLaw attorneys and their clients are the stars of a documentary legal thriller that debuted on HBO this week capturing the battle they fought against the white nationalist forces that helped fuel 2017's deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
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October 13, 2023
Resolute Lawyers Help South Sudanese Dissident Win Asylum
Two Paul Hastings attorneys recently helped a South Sudanese peace activist and his family navigate a three-year bureaucratic odyssey to secure asylum in the U.S. following their escape from government hit squads in their home country.
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October 13, 2023
NY Court OKs Disclosure Of Past Police Misconduct Records
A New York state appeals court has ruled that a 2020 state action authorizing the public disclosure of police misconduct records can be applied retroactively, opening the door to more scrutiny of police actions that have previously been hidden from the public, court records show.
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October 12, 2023
Prosecutor Disbarred In Drug Lab Scandal Seeks Reprieve
A former Massachusetts assistant attorney general who was ordered disbarred by the state's highest court in August for failing to disclose evidence of misconduct by a state drug lab chemist is asking that her disbarment be imposed retroactively to 2018.
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October 05, 2023
Pot Legalization Doesn't Always Mean Justice, Report Says
A report from the Last Prisoner Project, a nonprofit advocating for criminal justice reform regarding cannabis, shows that equal justice doesn't always accompany the freedom to use the drug in states that have legalized it recreationally.
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October 10, 2023
5th Circ. Judge Airs Dissent In 'Alternative' Majority Opinion
A dissenting federal appellate judge took the seemingly unusual step of issuing a mock majority opinion this week to illustrate his disagreement with the actual majority ruling to keep a pause on a convicted murderer's execution in Texas, calling his decision "the Fifth Circuit panel opinion that should have been issued."
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October 04, 2023
Wash. Tribal Board To Study State's Boarding School History
Five members of Washington's tribal nations will lead an advisory committee aimed at studying how the state can address harms caused to Native Americans by the government's role in Native boarding schools, the state's attorney general says.
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October 02, 2023
Calif. Cities Sue To Block Pre-Arraignment Zero Bail System
Several cities sued the Los Angeles County Superior Court in California state court over its pre-arraignment zero bail system for arrestees detained for low-level offenses, alleging it doesn't consider public safety and emboldens criminals to seamlessly continue criminal activity "with impunity and with little actual imminent consequences."
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September 28, 2023
Federal Court Finds 'Psychotic' Texas Man Unfit For Execution
A federal judge has found that a Texas man with a long history of severe mental illness is unfit for execution under the Constitution, the latest episode in a long legal saga that included a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the man's favor in 2007, his attorney told Law360 on Thursday.
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September 28, 2023
2 Philly Officers Sued Over Killing After 1 Beat Murder Rap
Fresh off of evading murder charges, Philadelphia Police Officer Mark Dial has been sued along with his partner for wrongful death by the family of Eddie Irizarry, who was shot and killed by Dial while sitting in his car in August.
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September 27, 2023
Civil Rights Attys Tell 4th Circ. Prisoners Owed Min. Wage
A group of civil rights, anti-poverty and employment law groups urged the Fourth Circuit to revive claims that Baltimore County is obliged to pay minimum wages for work that county jail inmates perform at a recycling plant, arguing the work is profit-driven rather than rehabilitative.
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September 27, 2023
Bipartisan Bill Seeks To Address Nationwide Rape Kit Backlog
A pair of congressional representatives from rival parties on Wednesday announced the introduction of a bill that would increase accountability and transparency on rape kits that have been piling up in police storage across the country.
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September 25, 2023
Ill. Woman Wins $19.3M From Jury In Prison Sex Abuse Case
An Illinois federal jury has awarded more than $19 million to a woman who alleged her counselor raped and sexually assaulted her for seven months while she was serving a prison sentence at Logan Correctional Center.
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September 22, 2023
Access To Justice Cases To Watch This Term
In the term beginning next week, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to return to some of the most hot-button issues concerning civil rights: guns, free speech, race discrimination, and potentially more.
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September 22, 2023
Legal Aid Funder Awards $5M For Pro Bono Services
The Legal Services Corporation announced this week it will award more than $5 million in grants to 17 legal organizations around the U.S. in an effort to expand and improve pro bono legal services across the country.
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September 22, 2023
Suits Shed Light On Alleged Baton Rouge 'Torture Warehouse'
An unmarked warehouse down the road from a Baton Rouge, Louisiana, police station has become the subject of lawsuits alleging that some police detainees have been subjected to clandestine and sometimes violent interrogations. The allegations are serious enough that the FBI is investigating, authorities say.
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September 22, 2023
How Robins Kaplan Helped Protect Minn. Wilderness Area
Attorneys with Robins Kaplan LLP recently helped an environmental group defeat a suit brought by a mining company seeking to extract copper and nickel upstream from a massive, federally protected Minnesota wilderness area including some of the most pristine waterways in North America.
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September 22, 2023
Georgia DAs' Fear Of 'Witch Hunt' Unfounded, Judge Told
Counsel for members of Georgia's new commission tasked with investigating complaints against prosecutors urged an Atlanta judge Friday to reject an attempt by four district attorneys to halt the commission's work before it starts accepting complaints Oct. 1.
Expert Analysis
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Finding A Path Forward To Regulate The Legal Industry
Gerald Knapton at Ropers Majeski analyzes U.S. and U.K. experiments to explore alternative business structures and independent oversight for law firms, which could lead to innovative approaches to increasing access to legal services.
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Remote Court Procedures Can Help Domestic Abuse Victims
Courts have recently adopted remote procedures to make domestic violence victims feel safer during the COVID-19 crisis, but they should consider preserving these trauma-sensitive adaptations post-pandemic as well, say Ashley Carter and Richard Kelley at the DC Volunteer Lawyers Project.
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Law Commission's New Idea For Confiscation Orders Is Unfair
The recent proposal by the Law Commission of England and Wales to recall prisoners who fail to settle their confiscation orders when they have already served a sentence for nonpayment would, in effect, punish them twice for the same act, says Brian Swan at Stokoe Partnership.
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Barrett Should Be Questioned On Children's Access To Courts
At a time when children's lives are so threatened by avoidable climate change chaos, understanding U.S. Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett's views on what standing future generations have to seek declaratory relief in Article III courts should be an essential part of her confirmation hearings, says Julia Olson at Our Children's Trust.
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A Smarter Approach To Measuring Prosecutorial Success
To improve their ability to dispense justice, prosecutors should measure the efficacy of their work based on metrics such as caseload distribution, timely case handling and racial disparity trends — instead of the traditionally used conviction rates and number of trials, say Anthony Thompson at the New York University School of Law and Miriam Krinsky at Fair and Just Prosecution.
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States Shouldn't Hinder Local Gov'ts In COVID-19 Tenant Aid
In the face of increasing state preemption and absent other government intervention, states should explicitly allow city and county policymakers to help renters in order to avoid a pandemic-prompted eviction crisis, say Emily Benfer at Wake Forest University School of Law and Nestor Davidson at Fordham University School of Law.
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An Abuse Of Prosecutorial Discretion In Breonna Taylor Case
The prosecution's decision in the Breonna Taylor grand jury proceedings to present a crucial, disputed fact — whether the officers knocked and announced themselves when they arrived at Taylor's apartment — as a settled question represents the partiality police officers often enjoy from prosecutors, says attorney Geoffrey D. Kearney.
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Immigration Appeals Proposal Would Erode Due Process
A recent Trump administration proposal to limit appellate review of immigration cases would eviscerate the few existing legal protections for immigrants and asylum seekers at a time when they are already routinely denied due process in court, says Lynn Pearson at the Tahirih Justice Center.
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11th Circ. Ruling Doesn't Lower Qualified Immunity Bar
While a video recording in Cantu v. City of Dothan — a recent Eleventh Circuit case involving a fatal shooting by a police officer — allowed the plaintiffs to clear the difficult qualified immunity hurdle, the court's ruling does not make it easier for most victims to surmount the defense, says Adriana Collado-Hudak at Greenspoon Marder.
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Reforming Public Defense Is Crucial For Criminal Justice
By resisting investment in public defender offices, states and counties are overlooking the best opportunity to ensure justice for vulnerable criminal defendants and ferret out police, prosecutors and judges who cut corners — but there is some movement on the ground that warrants cautious optimism, says Jonathan Rapping at Atlanta's John Marshall Law School.
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COVID-19 Crisis Should Steer NY Toward Better Court System
Over the last six months, it has become clear that many New York court proceedings can happen remotely, and we can use these new technological capabilities to create a more humane, efficient and economically responsible court system, says Joseph Frumin at The Legal Aid Society.
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Pretrial Risk Assessment Is Biased And Indefensible
The Conference of Chief Justices' continuing support for the use of problematic pretrial risk assessment algorithms designed to predict criminal behavior has exacerbated disparities in the justice system and has likely increased incarceration across the U.S., says Jeffrey Clayton at the American Bail Coalition.
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To Eliminate Food Inequality, We Must Confront The Past
To tackle low-income communities' decadeslong struggle with access to healthy food, which the COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated, we must first understand how food deserts are a product of policies that perpetuate racial segregation, says Jessica Giesen at Kelley Kronenberg.
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Cincinnati's Progress Can Be A Model For 2020 Police Reform
Cincinnati has come a long way since the 2001 unrest following the police killings of two unarmed Black men, and the city's comprehensive revision of police practices can inform local and state policymakers seeking a way forward from the current turmoil, says former Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken now at Calfee Halter.
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Legal Deserts Threaten Justice In Rural America
Many small towns and rural counties have few lawyers or none at all, which threatens the notion of justice for all Americans and demands creative solutions from legislators, bar associations and law schools, says Patricia Refo, president of the American Bar Association.