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Access to Justice
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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.
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May 19, 2023
Debt Firm's Flameout A Cautionary Tale For Consumers
The collapse of a California debt resolution law firm has impacted tens of thousands of consumers across the country, leaving many deeper in debt and with ruined credit. It’s an extreme example of predatory behavior across an industry where marketing companies and law firms urge vulnerable debtors to pay big money for services that advocates say have little to no real value.
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May 19, 2023
Texas Riding Growing Wave Of Bail Reform Rollbacks
Amid a wave of harsher bail laws sweeping through the nation, Texas is considering bills that would give judges more power to set bail for people charged with serious offenses and a constitutional amendment that would categorically deny bail for those accused of the most serious crimes.
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May 19, 2023
Study Shows NYC Judges Who Are More Likely To Incarcerate
A recent study by decarceration advocates analyzing public pretrial data identified 14 New York City judges who are more likely than their peers to order defendants held in jail while awaiting trial.
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May 19, 2023
Willkie, Freshfields Help Score NY Medicaid Dental Expansion
Attorneys with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP partnered with the Legal Aid Society to secure a recent class action settlement that will expand dental care coverage to an estimated 5 million Medicaid recipients in New York. Here’s how they did it.
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May 18, 2023
NYC Faces Suits Alleging Racial Bias In Child Removals
Bronx Defenders and Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP filed two lawsuits Thursday against New York City's Administration for Children's Services, accusing the agency of discriminating against parents of color in its child removal decisions.
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May 17, 2023
Calif. Judge Halts Some Pre-Arraignment Cash Bail In LA
A California judge temporarily blocked Los Angeles city and county from enforcing cash bail systems against arrestees detained for low-level offenses before arraignment, finding the system's constitutional harm is "pervasive in that each year it likely affects tens of thousands of impoverished persons detained solely because they are poor."
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May 15, 2023
Justices To Hear Cases On Gun Sentencing For Repeat Felons
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to clarify the legal standards used to determine whether repeat felony offenders convicted of federal gun charges must receive prison sentences of at least 15 years.
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May 11, 2023
Calif. County To Pay $7.5M In Fatal Shooting Of Black Man
Orange County, California, has agreed to pay $7.5 million to the family of a homeless Black man who was shot and killed by a sheriff's deputy in San Clemente in 2020, an attorney confirmed to Law360 on Thursday.
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May 05, 2023
Judge Pauses Miss. GOP's Foray Into Capital City Courts
A state judge in Mississippi has ordered a temporary halt to a controversial new law that would give the majority-white state government greater control over the court system in the majority-Black capital city, Jackson.
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May 05, 2023
Old Pot Felonies Hard To Erase Despite NY's New Law
Confusion about New York's law legalizing marijuana — and a possible typo — means some judges are denying requests to clear old felony pot convictions. Defense attorneys, meanwhile, claim what they're really doing is denying the legislature's intent.
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May 05, 2023
Justices Halt Execution Of Okla. Man After AG Admits Errors
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday halted the looming execution of an Oklahoma man after the state's attorney general conceded his murder conviction was riddled with constitutional errors and possible prosecutorial misconduct.
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May 05, 2023
New Legal Aid DC Leader Faces Growing Needs, Budget Cuts
Vikram Swaruup is settling into his new role as executive director of Legal Aid of the District of Columbia at a time when the organization's clients have been hit hard by inflation, the end of enhanced safety-net benefits and the halting of pandemic-related protections against evictions, foreclosures and debt collection.
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May 05, 2023
After 29 Years, 'The Poster Child For Clemency' Comes Home
In December, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul granted clemency to 12 convicts. Last month, several of them finally made it home, including Bruce Bryant, whom advocates call "the poster child for clemency" and who spent nearly 30 years in prison for a murder he's always maintained he didn't commit.
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May 05, 2023
Justice At Guantanamo: Atty Attends Bali Bombing Hearings
Pretrial motions are moving forward for three detainees who have been held at Guantanamo Bay for two decades on charges related to a deadly terrorist bombing in Bali in 2002. Here, trial lawyer George Donnini shares his experience traveling to Cuba to be a witness to the proceedings on behalf of the American Bar Association.
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May 05, 2023
14-Year Restraining Order Battle Shows Court Reporter Need
When a faulty audio recording left a New Jersey judge unable to rule on a bid to dissolve a decade-old restraining order, the couple embroiled in the dispute was forced to relive their trauma as part of a court-ordered bid to recreate the record in their 2004 restraining order hearing. Experts say the case highlights the important role of court stenographers amid a growing national shortage.
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May 03, 2023
3½-Hour Ala. Execution Was Needlessly Cruel, Suit Says
The family of an Alabama man killed in what is believed to be the longest recorded execution in U.S. history has accused the state of subjecting him to unnecessary cruelty in violation of his constitutional rights, according to a suit filed Wednesday.
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April 27, 2023
Family Gets $7M Settlement Over Texarkana Jail Death
The family of a 46-year-old woman who died in the custody of a private East Texas jail has reached a $7 million settlement in what attorneys say is the largest known jail death settlement in the state's history and one of the largest reached nationwide over an in-custody death.
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April 26, 2023
Okla. Parole Board Denies Clemency For Death Row Inmate
The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board on Wednesday declined to recommend clemency for Richard Glossip, a death row inmate whose murder conviction has been criticized by legal experts — and the state's top prosecutor — as tainted by errors and constitutional violations.
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April 24, 2023
3 Justices Protest Court's Snub Of Death Row Inmate's Appeal
Three U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday called "disheartening" their colleagues' decision not to hear the case of a Tennessee death row inmate whose murder sentence has been clouded by claims of ineffective counsel.
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April 24, 2023
NAACP Sues Over Miss. GOP's Foray Into Capital City Courts
The NAACP and other organizations are pushing back against the Republican-controlled Mississippi state government over its recent moves that give white state officials greater power over Jackson, the state's majority-Black capital city.
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April 21, 2023
$2M False Arrest Win May Spawn New Legal Fights For NYPD
When Jawaun Fraser was charged for robbery in October 2014, the New York Police Department and Manhattan prosecutors never told him that his arresting officers had been targeted in dozens of civil lawsuits over alleged evidence fabrication, abuse of power and other misconduct. Now, after a $2 million civil rights verdict last month over the disclosure failures, Fraser's case could lead to new legal challenges for criminal cases in the city.
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April 21, 2023
Major Payout Likely In Tyre Nichols Beating Case, Experts Say
It's hard to sue the police and win, but the fatal beating of motorist Tyre Nichols at the hands of Memphis police in January was so egregious and highly publicized that experts say the city is likely facing a big settlement.
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April 21, 2023
Justices To Hear Whether Post-Seizure Hearings Are Required
Every year, law enforcement agencies across the U.S. confiscate billions of dollars worth of assets, including cash, cars, weapons and real estate, from people they arrest and prosecute. The process, called civil forfeiture, is now before the U.S. Supreme Court, which this week agreed to hear a case centering on when people are entitled to court hearings where they can ask for their property back.
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April 21, 2023
After High Court Win, O'Melveny Clears La. Man Of Murder
Although his lawyers notched a landmark victory at the U.S. Supreme Court three years ago when the justices declared nonunanimous criminal verdicts unconstitutional, Evangelisto Ramos remained stuck behind bars on a murder conviction until a team from O'Melveny & Myers LLP finally secured his acquittal at a retrial last month.
Expert Analysis
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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3 Ways DOJ Is Working To Improve Justice In Indian Country
As both a federal prosecutor and a member of the Choctaw Nation, I am proud of the U.S. Department of Justice's current efforts to address crime in Indian Country while respecting tribal sovereignty, says Trent Shores, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Oklahoma.
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Rules Of Evidence Hinder #MeToo Claims In Court
If women and men who bring sexual harassment allegations in court will ever have a level playing field with their alleged harassers, the rules regarding what evidence is relevant in a sexual harassment trial must be changed, says John Winer at Winer Burritt.
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Sealing Marijuana Convictions Is A Win For Justice System
As a result of a novel class action, hundreds of New Yorkers' old convictions for marijuana-related crimes are being sealed, an important step toward a more equal justice system where the needless collateral consequences of marijuana criminalization are eliminated, says Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr.