Expert Analysis

• Justices' Repeat Offender Ruling Eases Prosecutorial Hurdle

  

  The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last week in Brown v. U.S., clarifying which drug law applies to sentencing a repeat offender in a federal firearms case, allows courts to rely on outdated drug schedules to impose increased sentences, thus removing a significant hurdle for prosecutors, says attorney Molly Parmer.

• Congress Must Abolish Acquitted Conduct Sentencing

  

  The U.S. Sentencing Commission’s recent amendment, limiting judges’ ability to consider acquitted conduct at sentencing, is a necessary step toward ensuring fairer trials and protecting individual rights, but ultimately, Congress must end the practice altogether, say Marc Levin at the Council on Criminal Justice and Martín Sabelli at the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

• Trauma-Informed Legal Approaches For Pro Bono Attorneys

  

  As National Trauma Awareness Month ends, pro bono attorneys should nevertheless continue to acknowledge the mental and physical effects of trauma, allowing them to better represent clients, and protect themselves from compassion fatigue and burnout, say Katherine Cronin at Stinson and Katharine Manning at Blackbird.

• Public Interest Attorneys Are Key To Preserving Voting Rights

  

  Fourteen states passed laws restricting or limiting voting access last year, highlighting the need to support public interest lawyers who serve as bulwarks against such antidemocratic actions — especially in an election year, says Verna Williams at Equal Justice Works.

• Officers' Failure To Appear In Court Undermines Justice

  

  Ten years of data from Philadelphia show that police officers frequently fail to appear at court hearings for which they’re subpoenaed, which has numerous consequences for defendants, crime victims and the smooth functioning of the criminal legal system, say Lindsay Graef, Sandra Mayson and Aurelie Ouss at the University of Pennsylvania and Megan Stevenson at the University of Virginia.

• Criminal Defendants Should Have Access To Foreign Evidence

  

  A New Jersey federal court recently ordered prosecutors to obtain evidence from India on behalf of the former Cognizant Technology executives they’re prosecuting — a precedent that other courts should follow to make cross-border evidentiary requests more fair and efficient, say Kaylana Mueller-Hsia and Rebecca Wexler at UC Berkeley School of Law.

• Justices' Forfeiture Ruling Resolves Nonexistent Split

  

  The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in McIntosh v. U.S., holding that a trial court’s failure to enter a preliminary criminal forfeiture order prior to sentencing doesn’t bar its entry later, is unusual in that it settles an issue on which the lower courts were not divided — but it may apply in certain forfeiture disputes, says Stefan Cassella at Asset Forfeiture Law.

• Advocating For Disability Rights In Probation And Parole

  

  While the U.S. continues to over-police people with disabilities, defense attorneys can play a crucial role in ensuring that clients with disabilities who are on probation or parole have access to the accommodations they need and to which they are legally entitled, says Allison Frankel at the ACLU.

• 11th Circ. Block Of 'Stop WOKE' Act Is Good For Public Safety

  

  The Eleventh Circuit’s recent decision to uphold an injunction of Florida’s so-called Stop WOKE Act, a law that curtails workplace diversity training, means that law enforcement can continue receiving such training — an essential step toward more equitable policing and public safety, say Miriam Krinsky at Fair and Just Prosecution and Diane Goldstein at Law Enforcement Action Partnership.

• Prosecutors' Growing Case Backlogs Need Urgent Attention

  

  Growing case backlogs in prosecutors' offices around the country affect the functioning of the entire criminal legal system, so the problem's root causes must be immediately addressed, say Minnesota county prosecutor John Choi and Montana county prosecutor Audrey Cromwell.

• Context Is Everything In Justices' Sentencing Relief Decision

  

  In the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Pulsifer v. U.S. decision, limiting the number of drug offenders eligible for sentencing relief, the majority and dissent adopted very different contextual frames for interpreting the meaning of “and” — with the practical impact being that thousands more defendants will be subject to severe mandatory minimums, says Douglas Berman at Moritz College of Law​​​​​​​.

• Passing The HALT Fentanyl Act Will Repeat Past Mistakes

  

  The war on drugs has failed, with overdose deaths at an all-time high despite decades of criminalization, so lawmakers should vote no on the HALT Fentanyl Act's proposal to impose lengthy mandatory minimum sentences for fentanyl-related drug offenses, says Liz Komar at The Sentencing Project.

• Behind The Unique Hurdles Of Rural Access To Justice

  

  While rural access to justice has become conflated with access to lawyers, the two are not synonymous, and in order to solve both issues, it is critical to further examine the role and impact of resident attorneys in these communities, say Daria Fisher Page and Brian Farrell at the University of Iowa College of Law.

• Compassionate Release Grants Needed Now More Than Ever

  

  After the U.S. Sentencing Commission's recent expansion of the criteria for determining compassionate release eligibility, courts should grant such motions more frequently in light of the inherently dangerous conditions presented by increasingly understaffed and overpopulated federal prisons, say Alan Ellis and Mark Allenbaugh at the Law Offices of Alan Ellis.

• Justices' Double Jeopardy Ruling Preserves Acquittal Sanctity

  

  The U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous decision last week in McElrath v. Georgia, barring the state from retrying a man acquitted of murder after a so-called repugnant verdict, is significant in the tangled web of double jeopardy jurisprudence for its brief and unequivocal protection of an acquittal’s finality, says Lissa Griffin at Pace Law School.