Access to Justice

April 03, 2023
Ark. Jail's 'Postcard-Only' Policy Axed As Unconstitutional

An Arkansas federal judge struck down as unconstitutional a county jail's policy allowing inmates to only receive information from the outside world by means of 3-by-5-inch postcards while banning books and magazines.
April 03, 2023
Justices' Dissent Rips La. Brady Ruling In Death Penalty Case

U.S. Supreme Court Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan said Monday they would have voted to review the case of Louisiana death row inmate David Brown, who was convicted of killing a prison guard in a case where prosecutors failed to disclose a potentially exculpatory confession from another convict until after sentencing.
March 29, 2023
Justices Eye Fix To Co-Defendant Confession Rule

Some U.S. Supreme Court justices suggested Wednesday that courts should consider a trial's broader context when deciding whether jurors can see a co-defendant's redacted confession, suggesting a bright-line approach leads to nonsensical results.
March 28, 2023
Justices Doubtful On Tying Judges' Hands In Gun Sentencing

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared skeptical about the government's view that criminal defendants convicted under a particular provision of the federal firearms statute must receive consecutive sentences when also convicted of other crimes.
March 28, 2023
Law360's 2023 Access To Justice Editorial Advisory Board

Law360 is pleased to announce the formation of its 2023 Access to Justice Editorial Advisory Board.
March 24, 2023
Pandemic Exposed Excessive NY Child Removals, Attys Argue

A feared spike in child mistreatment amid New York City's pandemic lockdown, as the city’s child welfare system nearly shut down, never happened. In a study published last week, advocates say that proves the system regularly removes far more children from their families than necessary.
March 24, 2023
Inside The Settlement Over ICE's 'Steak Out' Raid In Tenn.

Nearly five years after federal agents stormed a Tennessee meatpacking plant and arrested over 100 Latino workers, U.S. government agencies agreed to pay nearly $1.2 million in damages to settle a class action accusing the officers of targeting the employees on the basis of their ethnicity and using excessive force. Lead attorneys for the plaintiffs broke down the case for Law360.
March 24, 2023
Black Miss. Judges Speak Out Against GOP Court Overhaul

Mississippi’s Republican-controlled and majority white state Legislature is pushing to install new, unelected judges in Jackson, the majority Black state capital — but Jackson’s elected Black judges are pushing back.
March 24, 2023
Homer Plessy's Anti-Segregation Legal Fight Gets New Coda

A book about the unlikely friendship between descendants of the opposing parties in the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous Plessy v. Ferguson case upholding racial segregation has been updated to include a new coda: the recent move to pardon Homer Plessy for having boarded a whites-only train in 1892.
March 24, 2023
How Legal Aid Groups Are Using Artificial Intelligence Tools

Legal tech companies Casetext and Relativity have partnered with several legal aid organizations to give them access to their artificial intelligence tools. Here is a look at how these groups are using the tools and what it means for access to justice.
March 23, 2023
Mich. High Court Mulls New Rule That Helps Indigent Clients

The Michigan Supreme Court is eyeing a change to the state's rules of professional conduct that would allow attorneys to help certain clients out with transportation and other amenities during court proceedings, potentially furthering the court's recent focus on increasing access to justice in the state.
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.

Expert Analysis

Understanding What Restorative Justice Is And Isn't

A hearing in the Jeffrey Epstein case featuring victim impact statements and a White House meeting between a hit-and-run driver and the victim's parents have been described as restorative justice, but the reality is more complex, says Natalie Gordon of DOAR.
5 Most-Read Access To Justice Law360 Guests Of 2019

On topics ranging from public trial rights to electronic monitoring technology to the rules of evidence in the context of sexual harassment trials, 2019 brought a wide array of compelling commentary from the access to justice community.
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.