Broken Promises Land Ga. Prison Officials In Contempt
A Georgia federal judge has slapped the state's prison officials with a contempt ruling imposing fines and appointing an independent monitor after finding the state Department of Corrections has for years flouted the terms of a settlement over its treatment of prisoners in its most punitive unit.
Access to JusticeNC Felony Voting Law Struck Down As Unconstitutional
A North Carolina federal judge has struck down the state's 147-year-old law making it a crime for convicted felons to vote, finding that the statute disproportionately targets Black voters and had been inconsistently enforced in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Access to JusticeWrongful Detention Suit Illustrates Pitfalls Of ICE Lockups
A Salvadoran woman's recent lawsuit alleging immigration authorities locked her up for months despite having protected status highlights how authorized immigrants, and sometimes even U.S. citizens, can wind up being wrongfully detained, and how, with no right to counsel in immigration proceedings, it can prove difficult to free them.
Access to JusticeShook Hardy Mass Tort Pros Help Nix Pa. Murder Convictions
Deep experience dealing with expert testimony on complex scientific evidence and local knowledge of the Philadelphia suburbs made Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP partners John Lyons and David Haase a perfect fit for the team that recently helped vacate the decades-old convictions of three men accused of murdering a 70-year-old woman.
Access to JusticeHow Attys Are Helping DC Residents Keep Family Homes
As homeownership rates among Black residents have fallen in the nation's capital, a new initiative aims to provide legal counsel to people living in homes that were passed down through the generations but don't have clear titles.
Access to JusticeAdvocating 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.
Access to Justice11th 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.
Access to JusticeNYC Bar Rips Hochul Plan To Divert Client Trust Interest Cash
The New York City Bar Association urged Gov. Kathy Hochul Thursday to reconsider her "eleventh-hour" renewed plan to divert $55 million in interest earned on lawyer trust accounts that typically goes toward legal aid for low-income New Yorkers, saying the "deeply troubling" move undermines the independence of the legal profession.
Access to Justice'It Has To End': Justices Mull Finality In 32-Year Murder Saga
In its second review of drug-fueled, baseball bat killings during the presidency of George H.W. Bush, the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday pondered steering an Arizona man's capital punishment challenge toward conclusion, perhaps by handling evidentiary tasks normally left to lower courts.
Access to JusticeSentencing Commission Limits Acquitted Conduct Sentencing
The U.S. Sentencing Commission on Wednesday voted to restrict the controversial practice of considering acquitted conduct in federal sentencing, and floated the possibility of applying the change retroactively.
Access to JusticeJustices 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.
Access to JusticeJustices 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.
Access to JusticeSotomayor, 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.
Access to JusticePrison 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.
Access to JusticeNo Damages After Drug Lab Scandal Sinks Case, Court Says
A Massachusetts man is not entitled to compensation from a fund for exonerees after his2006 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.
Access to JusticeMo. 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.
Access to JusticeDo 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.
Access to JusticeFlat-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.
Access to JusticeStudy 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.
Access to JusticeProsecutors' 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.
Access to JusticeNew 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.
Access to JusticeBOP 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.
Access to JusticeContext 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.
Access to JusticeAssociates 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.
Access to Justice'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.
Access to Justice'Infested Slum' Suit Warrants Class Cert., Conn. Justices Told
Former tenants of a Hartford apartment complex urged the Connecticut Supreme Court to allow them to pursue class claims that the complex turned into a "mold and cockroach infested slum," arguing in a hearing Monday that a lower court focused too heavily on the differences between the conditions of each unit.
Access to JusticeJustices 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.
Access to JusticeMilbank 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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