Access to Justice

March 23, 2023
Reed Smith's Sachnoff Remembered As Pro Bono Icon

The Chicago legal community is mourning the loss of longtime Reed Smith LLP attorney Lowell Sachnoff while celebrating his impact, which ranged from passionately advocating for the rights of transgender people and for prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay to mentoring generations of young lawyers he affectionately called his "ducklings."
March 22, 2023
Pa. Gov. Calls For State-Level Public Defender Funding

Gov. Josh Shapiro urged members of the Philadelphia Bar Association on Wednesday to support dedicating $10 million of his $44 billion budget proposal to end Pennsylvania's distinction as being the only state to not provide state-level funding to public defenders.
March 21, 2023
Bipartisan Report Recommends Axing Mandatory Minimums

A new study co-chaired by Sally Yates, the Obama administration's former deputy attorney general, and former Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy recommends doing away with mandatory minimum sentences and increasing parole opportunities to cut down on long prison sentences, which they say are often wasteful and ineffective.
March 17, 2023
Georgetown Tech Program To Begin In Tenn., Utah, Kan.

The Georgetown University Law Center has announced the first three court projects selected for its inaugural Judicial Innovation Fellowship, which will embed technologists and software designers in state, local and tribal courts to develop tech-based solutions to improve access to the judicial system.
March 10, 2023
Stoel Rives, Dorsey Attys Break Ground For Minn. Detainees

In a win for two Minnesota Sex Offender Program patients left waiting for more than two years after being deemed eligible to move out of lockdown confinement, attorneys at Stoel Rives LLP and Dorsey & Whitney LLP recently secured a significant ruling requiring speedier state action on court-ordered transfers.
March 10, 2023
Attys Work To Take The 'Civil' Out Of Civil Forfeiture

A case pending before the Nevada Supreme Court is the latest in a nationwide battle to try and make civil forfeiture, a process through which the government can seize property from criminal defendants, a part of criminal court proceedings. Critics of civil forfeiture say that conducting seizures through separate civil cases violates double jeopardy and due process protections, and deprives those facing forfeiture of legal representation.
March 10, 2023
NY Lawmakers Renew Push To Ban 'Predatory' Court Fees

New York levies a mandatory surcharge on every criminal conviction, whether it’s for a violation, a misdemeanor or a felony. In some cases, court fees can add up to hundreds of dollars, and critics say the levies fall disproportionately on the backs of low-income residents. A proposed bill would eliminate them.
March 08, 2023
Senate Votes Down DC's Revised Criminal Code

The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday 81-14-1 to block Washington, D.C.'s revised criminal code from taking effect, a move that would leave in place a 122-year-old code that's been described as unclear and piecemeal, and highlights the district's unique hurdles to self-governance.
March 08, 2023
Conn. Court Axes Class Action Over State's 'Pay To Stay' Law

A federal judge in Connecticut on Monday told three former inmates they had no standing to challenge the state's attorney general over a controversial law that allows the state to sue prisoners for the costs of their incarceration.
February 24, 2023
Retired Atty's Fight To Help End DC Driver License Penalties

After retiring in 2018 from several decades of government work, a former U.S. Department of Labor attorney found a new opportunity to serve the public as he recently helped mount a successful challenge to a Washington, D.C., rule barring individuals with unpaid fines from obtaining or renewing driver licenses.
February 24, 2023
ICE, Prison Co. Targeted Detainee Hunger Strikers, Suit Says

Staff at two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities in California regularly retaliated against migrant detainees for engaging in hunger strikes, including by denying them basic hygiene supplies and threatening solitary confinement, a new lawsuit alleges.
February 24, 2023
New Law Helps Lathrop, Bryan Cave Win Mo. Exoneration

Relying on a recently passed state law giving prosecutors new authority to challenge wrongful convictions, attorneys with Lathrop GPM and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner won a ruling this month exonerating a St. Louis man following a 1995 murder conviction they said had been marred by false testimony.
February 24, 2023
Inside The Fight To Update DC's Criminal Code

As the District of Columbia prepares to enact a wholly revised criminal code to replace its jumbled set of statutory provisions cobbled together over 122 years, critics and congressional Republicans are objecting to a handful of provisions, including an end to most mandatory minimum sentences and reduced maximum sentences for certain violent offenses, insisting they would embolden criminals.
February 24, 2023
How Baton Rouge Activists Won A Rare Civil Rights Settlement

Activists who accused the Baton Rouge police of brutalizing them at a 2016 protest faced long odds as they sought to hold the department accountable. But two veteran civil rights attorneys helped secure the group a rare $1 million settlement this month as a two-week jury trial neared its conclusion.
February 24, 2023
Law360 Seeks Members For Its 2023 Editorial Boards

Law360 is looking for avid readers of our publications to serve as members of our 2023 editorial advisory boards.
February 22, 2023
Justices Say Ariz. Got Death Penalty Due Process Wrong

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday said Arizona high court justices so wrongly interpreted the state's criminal procedure rules that federal review was warranted, in a death penalty appeal that spurred a 5-4 divide among the justices.
February 21, 2023
Use Of Plea Bargains Undermining Justice, ABA Report Says

The overuse of plea bargains in criminal prosecutions is undermining the criminal justice system's integrity, exacerbating its racial inequality and creating "perverse incentives" to prioritize expediency over fact-finding, according to an American Bar Association report issued Wednesday.
February 03, 2023
What The Tyre Nichols Case Means For Police Prosecutions

When Tyre Nichols was fatally beaten by Memphis, Tennessee, police last month, videos of the incident helped prompt local prosecutors to quickly bring second-degree murder charges against five of the officers involved — a highly unusual result that offers a window into the evolving state of police accountability in the U.S. Here, Law360 looks at some of the factors that make the Nichols case unusual, and what implications it could hold for future police prosecutions.
February 03, 2023
House Task Force Aims To Help Ex-Cons Thrive After Prison

More than two dozen members of Congress have banded together to create a new bipartisan task force focused on aiding former inmates' reentry into society.
February 03, 2023
Md. Court Watchers Push For Permanent Remote Access

Singer-songwriter Fiona Apple added another skill to her repertoire during the pandemic by becoming a citizen court-watcher, remotely observing hearings in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, and now she is part of a coalition advocating for a bill that would make it easier for the public to access court proceedings.
February 03, 2023
Gibson Dunn Aids Venezuelan Asylum-Seekers Bused To NYC

When Texas, Florida and Arizona authorities began busing tens of thousands of migrants from the Southern border to Northern cities last year, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP attorneys stepped up to provide legal aid to hundreds of Venezuelan families applying for asylum in the U.S.
February 03, 2023
Calif. Federal Judge Orders Release Of Medical Pot Operator

A man convicted of running a California medical marijuana operation and sentenced to over two decades in federal prison is expected to walk free on Friday after a federal judge granted a motion to reduce his sentence.
February 02, 2023
Gov't Denies It's 'Not Playing Ball' On Remote Hearings

The federal government has rebuffed a claim by the American Immigration Lawyers Association that it is "not playing ball in a serious way" to provide a remote option for immigration hearings, saying the group was the uncooperative party.
February 02, 2023
DC Court Orders Better Legal Access At Ariz. ICE Center

A Washington, D.C., federal court ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to improve access to counsel at an Arizona detention facility, saying the facility appears to have completely blocked attorneys' access to detainees.
January 30, 2023
Mass. Launches Abortion Hotline Staffed By BigLaw, ACLU

A group of 150 attorneys from some of the largest Massachusetts law firms and the ACLU will provide free legal advice about abortion access to patients and health care providers through a new confidential hotline, state Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said Monday.

Expert Analysis

Inside The Key Federal Sentencing Developments Of 2019

Raquel Wilson, director of the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s Office of Education and Sentencing Practice, discusses this year's developments in federal sentencing, including new legislation in the Senate and U.S. Supreme Court cases invalidating certain statutes.
ODonnell Consent Decree Will Harm Criminal Justice In Texas

In Odonnell v. Harris County, a Texas federal court ordered that misdemeanor offenders could be released without bail, marking a fundamental deterioration of the Texas criminal justice system, says attorney Randy Adler.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.