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Latest News in Access to Justice

• April 20, 2026

  Justice Jackson Faults Quick Reversal In DC Stop Case

  Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Monday chided her U.S. Supreme Court colleagues for reversing a D.C. Court of Appeals ruling involving the Fourth Amendment, saying in a dissent that the lower court was correct and that the case "does not merit the use of our summary discretion."

• April 17, 2026

  Too Mentally Ill To Stand In Court, Texas Inmate Fights On

  A Texas death row prisoner who gouged out both of his eyes and suffers from schizoaffective disorder is fighting efforts to move forward with his execution, arguing that his severe psychosis leaves him unable to rationally understand why the state wants to kill him. His case highlights a broader debate over whether the Constitution should bar the execution of people with severe mental illness, even when they technically know they are on death row.

• April 17, 2026

  'They Didn't Listen': Acquitted NY Man Files Civil Rights Suit

  Christopher Ellis, a Brooklyn man who spent decades imprisoned for murder, was released after a New York trial judge vacated his conviction, finding his attorneys had been denied hundreds of pages of police notes pointing to at least 11 other suspects. He is now suing the Nassau County Police Department, alleging civil rights violations.

• April 17, 2026

  4th Circ. Nixes ICE Runaway's Obstruction Conviction

  A Salvadoran man who escaped immigration custody by tying bedsheets into a rope to scale a fence cannot be convicted for obstructing a pending proceeding because his removal order was final when he ran to nearby woods, the Fourth Circuit ruled Thursday, reversing a Virginia federal court's decision.

• April 16, 2026

  NY Appeals Court Orders Competency Check In Gun Case

  A man convicted of possessing an untraceable gun should have been reexamined for competency and potentially prevented from representing himself after repeatedly making nonsensical legal statements that sounded like what an attorney might say but did not relate at all to the case, a New York state appeals court found.

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