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Access to Justice
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April 17, 2024
Justices Rule Criminal Forfeiture Deadline Isn't Absolute
The U.S. Supreme Court held Wednesday that courts can issue forfeiture orders at sentencing in criminal cases even if prosecutors fail to submit a draft request prior to the court-ordered date, ruling noncompliance with the rule doesn't strip judges of the authority to direct defendants to hand over ill-gotten gains.
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April 15, 2024
Justices Wary Of Strict Limit On Malicious Prosecution Cases
Several U.S. Supreme Court justices appeared open Monday to the idea that a charge made without probable cause can be grounds for a malicious prosecution civil suit even if another charge with valid probable cause accompanied it, but without a clear consensus on a precise boundary.
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April 15, 2024
Sotomayor, Jackson Dissent As Court Rejects Capital Cases
In a pair of dissents, Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor on Monday broke with a majority of their colleagues on the U.S. Supreme Court who declined to hear two death penalty cases.
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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.
Expert Analysis
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Service Members Should Have Right To Unanimous Verdicts
As several recent cases exemplify, service members can be convicted of crimes by nonunanimous juries in military courts and cannot appeal such verdicts, despite Supreme Court precedent from recent years — a glaring constitutional error that Congress should rectify expeditiously, says Kevin Carroll at Hughes Hubbard.
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Jail-Based Polling Places Are Key To Expanding Ballot Access
As the 2024 elections begin to take shape, jurisdictions should consider jail-based polling locations to ease voting obstacles faced by incarcerated people, say former advocacy director Naila Awan and communications strategist Wanda Bertram at Prison Policy Initiative.
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A New HOPE For Expunging State-Level Cannabis Convictions
As states across the U.S. legalize cannabis, individuals with related convictions face hurdles to expunging their records due to outdated record-keeping systems — but the recently introduced HOPE Act would remedy this by providing grant funding to state and local governments, says Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio.
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Immigration Board Must Mend Choice Of Law Post-Garcia
The Board of Immigration Appeals must revisit the choice of law standard recently established in Matter of Garcia, which fails to establish predictability, upsets the settled expectations of parties' remanded cases and unfairly tips the scale in the government's favor, says Monica Mananzan at the Capital Area Immigrants' Rights Coalition.
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Inside Immigration Court: The Pros, Cons Of Remote Hearings
Technology introduced during the pandemic has improved the quality and efficiency of virtual immigration court hearings, but concerns still linger over the court system's ability to provide full and complete simultaneous interpretation in these hearings, as well as its effect on due process, says Immigration Judge Mimi Tsankov.
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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.