Seven Months In, Race-Blind Charging Faces Test In Calif.

By Marco Poggio

In January, California adopted race-blind charging as a statewide policy, after a law passed in 2022 went into effect. Now, seven months into the program's statewide rollout, race-blind charging is showing both promise and limitations.

Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Analysis

High Court Term Yields Gains For Criminal Defendants

By Marco Poggio

The U.S. Supreme Court addressed several contentious issues this term, with the conservative majority prevailing in numerous high-profile cases. Yet, in a notable trend, the court also issued multiple rulings favorable to criminal defendants, including expanding prisoners' rights in civil lawsuits and reinforcing due process protections in capital cases.

Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Q&A

Mass. Public Defender On Burnout, Bias And Legal Shifts

By Chris Villani

Carla Barrett has spent the past 19 years working for the Committee for Public Counsel Services, Massachusetts' public defenders. She told Law360 the job comes with challenges both structural and legal, adding that even among her prosecutorial counterparts, her work can often be misunderstood.

Read full article » | Save to favorites »

More NY Public Interest Attys And Advocates Authorize Strikes

By Andrea Keckley

Eight chapters of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys — a union that represents thousands of public interest attorneys and advocates in the New York City metro area — have voted to authorize strikes as workers hope their sectoral bargaining strategy will lead to more favorable deals with managers.

Read full article » | Save to favorites »

NYC Legal Services Strike Continues To Grow

By Andrea Keckley

A strike by hundreds of legal service workers in New York City grew even larger on Friday after three more member shops of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys joined the picket line.

Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Funding 'Crisis' Jeopardizes Indigent Defense, Judiciary Says

By Courtney Bublé

The judiciary rang the alarm on Tuesday that funding has been exhausted for the private attorneys who represent indigent federal criminal defendants, and this predicament is expected to last for three months.

Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Non-Attys Eyed To Tackle Civil Justice Gap In Ga. Pilot

By Emily Johnson

A Georgia Supreme Court committee has proposed the state start a pilot program to train non-attorneys to handle some legal tasks in evictions and other housing cases and consumer-debt matters, saying this "'assisted pro se' model" would improve rural and low-income people's access to civil legal services.

Report attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Compounding Restitution Is Unconstitutional, High Court Told

By Elizabeth Daley

Nonprofits, think tanks and legal scholars filed briefs this week urging the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that a federal law requiring criminals to continue paying restitution with compounding interest for decades after conviction is unconstitutional because it can exponentially increase punishment for a crime.

6 documents attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

DOJ Seeks 1-Day Sentence For Ex-Cop In Breonna Taylor's Death

By Parker Quinlan

The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday recommended a one-day sentence for a former Louisville Metro Police Department officer in Kentucky who fired shots into the home of Breonna Taylor the night she died in March 2020, according to the government's sentencing memorandum.

Memorandum attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Racist Jury Selection Affords Ala. Death Row Inmate New Trial

By Elizabeth Daley

A Black man sentenced to death by the state of Alabama for murdering a sheriff has been granted a new trial by the Eleventh Circuit, which found that the state violated his constitutional right to equal protection by habitually eliminating potential Black jurors from cases like his in a discriminatory manner.

Opinion attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

ACLU Wants To Oppose Ex-Yale Student's Defamation Suit

By Aaron Keller

Saying the issue is too important to sit out, the ACLU's Connecticut litigation arm and other nonprofits have asked a state appeals court's permission to file a friend-of-court brief to support different organizations that filed a rejected amicus brief in a separate case and were sued for defamation.

6 documents attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Ga. Atty Avoids Sanctions In Suit Over Fatal Police Shooting

By Emily Johnson

A Georgia federal judge has rejected Savannah officials' bid to sanction attorneys suing for civil rights violations in the 2022 shooting death of a Black man by a police officer who's facing murder charges, finding Wednesday that an attorney's comments to the media weren't made in bad faith — but warned counsel to "tread carefully."

Order attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Perspectives

Deepfake Evidence Battles May Exacerbate Justice Inequities

As AI-generated evidence and deepfake claims become more common in litigation, the steep expense of challenging or verifying such evidence threatens to worsen unequal justice system outcomes — and a new cost-allocation framework is needed to preserve fairness, says Rebecca Delfino at Loyola Law School.

Read full article » | Save to favorites »