High Court Ruling On Sexist Prosecution Has Broad Impact

By Marco Poggio

The U.S. Supreme Court's short opinion last year finding that an Oklahoma woman's capital trial was potentially marred by sexist and prejudicial evidence has been cited over 100 times since, and not just in cases involving gender bias. Litigants have invoked the ruling to challenge their convictions over a wide range of issues involving prosecutorial prejudice, bias and trial fairness — but courts so far have been reluctant to grant relief.

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IQ Tests And Innocence: Doubts Rattle Ark. Death Row Case

By Marco Poggio

Doubts about the guilt of Roderick Rankin, an Arkansas man sentenced to death for murdering three members of his ex-girlfriend’s family, have grown since a pastor said Rankin's brother Rodney confessed to the killings. His case sits at the intersection of actual innocence claims, false confessions, intellectual disability and federal habeas law. When the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case earlier this month, it left many of those questions unresolved.

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ChatGPT Suit Points To Ups And Downs Of Pro Se AI Use

By Cara Bayles

A recent lawsuit against OpenAI highlights many of the hopes and anxieties about pro se litigants using generative artificial intelligence to churn out legal arguments. The technology raises concerns about confidentiality, hallucinations and ethical issues, but some access-to-justice advocates worry the lawsuit may hinder technology that might democratize legal services.

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Analysis

Decades After Bombing Conviction, Forensics Don't Hold Up

By Brandon Lowrey

A handyman was convicted for a string of 1991 Colorado bombings based on a forensic expert's testimony that the handyman's tools matched markings on bomb fragments "to the exclusion of any other tool in the world." Decades later, the defendant's successful challenge to the scientific merit and reliability of toolmark forensics has drawn national attention.

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Roundup

Balancing The Scales: Justices To Revisit Sentencing Rules

By Orlando Lorenzo

The U.S. Supreme Court will take a closer look at a circuit split over the deference that should be allotted to U.S. Sentencing Commission commentary, and a man convicted in the killing of an infant has been released after 27 years served over evidence that points to pneumonia as the likely cause of death.

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Va. Resentencing Law Provides Relief To Cannabis Offenders

By Elizabeth Daley

The governor of Virginia signed a bill Friday enacting resentencing legislation that will allow people who are serving sentences for marijuana-related convictions to seek reductions for conduct that, since 2021, wasn't a chargeable offense in the state, her office said.

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Brief

Legalizing Pot Leads To Fewer Arrests, Report Says

By Sam Reisman

The pro-legalization advocacy organization Marijuana Policy Project recently made public a report culling data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's crime data explorer showing that states with legalized cannabis have seen dramatic decreases in marijuana-related arrests.

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Supreme Court Clears Way For Execution Of Texas Man

By Brandon Lowrey

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday lifted the Fifth Circuit's stay of execution for a man who sought to challenge the constitutionality of his death sentence on grounds that he was intellectually disabled, granting an emergency petition filed by Texas, which went on to execute the man later Thursday.

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6th Circ. Upholds $10M Verdict Against Detective In Brady Suit

By Melanie Dorsey

The Sixth Circuit has upheld a $10 million jury verdict for a Michigan man who spent more than six years in prison before prosecutors concluded he was not guilty of murder, ruling that a Detroit detective could not use the man's vacated conviction to block his civil rights suit.

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Mass. Appeals Court Tosses Convictions For Assault On Police

By Elizabeth Daley

A Massachusetts man who was convicted of assaulting police officers was not criminally responsible because the state hadn't shown he wasn't insane, an appeals court majority said Tuesday.

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Florida Panel Bars 2nd Death Penalty Atty At Public Expense

By Elizabeth Daley

A man charged with murder can't have a free additional attorney appointed to defend him in a capital case, a Florida state appeals court said Wednesday, finding in a reversal that since he had privately paid for primary counsel, under state law, he couldn't have gratis help, despite now being indigent.

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ACLU, Other Groups Want To Back Mich. In ICE Facility Fight

By Susan Smiley

The American Civil Liberties Union was joined by several civil rights and immigrant advocacy groups in asking a Michigan federal court on Monday for permission to weigh in support of a suit filed by the state of Michigan and city of Romulus seeking to stop an immigration detention center from taking over a former warehouse site.

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DOJ Says Grant Condition Stay Must Stop At 3 Programs

By Tom Lotshaw

The U.S. Department of Justice told a Rhode Island federal judge that a stay blocking grant conditions tied to immigration status and diversity efforts should apply only to several programs and that a nonprofit coalition is improperly trying to expand its reach.

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NC Justices Asked To Clarify Leandro School Funding Opinion

By Abigail Harrison

The school boards of several low-wealth North Carolina counties are asking the state Supreme Court to elucidate a recent ruling that invalidated nine years of developments in the public school funding case known as Leandro, contending the opinion suggests the court usurped power in its jurisdictional conclusions.

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Boulder Tent Ban Survives Colo. Rights Challenge Appeal

By Zach Dupont

A Colorado Court of Appeals panel unanimously found that two city of Boulder ordinances that ban sheltering in public spaces don't violate the Colorado Constitution, shooting down constitutional challenges from a now-defunct nonprofit and several Boulder residents, according to an opinion announced Thursday.

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Perspectives

Negotiating Power Imbalance In Pro Bono Client Relationships

The inherent power advantage of an attorney in a client relationship is magnified in pro bono representation, but lawyers can help ease this imbalance by implementing several principles, such as sharing control, identifying resource barriers and more, says Alicia Aiken at PLI.

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