A2J At The High Court: Gun Bans, Voting And Civil Remedies

By Marco Poggio

From the right to own semiautomatic rifles to the rules governing voter registration, the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court term will see the justices tackle a broad swath of constitutional and access to justice issues.

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How A Calif. Ruling May Ease Court Reporter Shortage Effect

By Marco Poggio

A recent California Supreme Court ruling could help low-income litigants overcome a court reporter shortage that has left millions of hearings without an official record, undermining their chances of successfully appealing court decisions. For domestic violence survivors, advocates say, that record can mean the difference between challenging a potentially dangerous court order and having no viable path to appeal.

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Legal Deserts: Millions Across America Struggle To Access Lawyers

Tens of millions of Americans live in towns and counties across the nation with limited or no access to legal services. By one estimate, at least a third of the nation's counties qualify as a "legal desert," having only one or no attorney per 1,000 residents. Roughly 24 million Americans reside in these counties.

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Exonerated Detroit Man's Brady Claims Against Cops Survive

By Melanie Dorsey

An exonerated man can continue pursuing civil rights claims against three Detroit police officers accused of withholding evidence about an alleged jailhouse informant program that he says contributed to his wrongful conviction in a 1994 triple homicide, a Michigan federal judge has ruled.

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'Unreasonable' Fee Bid Slashed For Wrongful Conviction Attys

By P.J. D'Annunzio

A Pennsylvania federal judge on Friday awarded the attorneys representing a man in a wrongful conviction case less than half their desired amount for work done in pursuit of those fees, ruling that $135,795 was reasonable compensation.

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GAO Rejects Bid Protest For Legal Aid To Migrant Kids

By Elaine Briseño

The U.S. Government Accountability Office has denied a contractor's protest over the terms of a solicitation for legal services for unaccompanied migrant children, saying the Office of Refugee Resettlement adequately explained how the challenged requirements were related to its needs.

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Due Process Not Limited In Bond Hearing Suit, 9th Circ. Says

By Rae Ann Varona

The Ninth Circuit held in a published opinion Monday that a certified class of asylum-seekers apprehended well within the U.S. border can challenge their detentions, rejecting the government's contention that the U.S. Supreme Court limited their due process rights.

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Trump Admin Asks Justices To Curb Noncitizen Habeas Relief

By Ganesh Setty

The Trump administration implored the U.S. Supreme Court to cure a circuit split over noncitizens filing habeas petitions to challenge their detention during pending removal proceedings, warning of "intolerable disuniformity" in how the Immigration and Nationality Act is administered.

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Ala. Executes Prisoner Who Challenged State's Methods

By Daniel Moritz-Rabson

Jeffery Lee, a 49-year-old Alabama prisoner on death row who had elected to be executed via nitrogen gas — a method a federal judge found earlier this year would violate his constitutional rights — was executed by lethal injection Thursday evening, after the U.S. Supreme Court denied his bid for an emergency stay.

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Michigan Court Pilot Aims To Aid Unrepresented Litigants

By Susan Smiley

The Michigan Supreme Court announced Wednesday that it is launching a pilot project, based on recent reforms in Utah and Arizona, that will allow trained nonlawyers to provide in-court support to people who cannot afford a lawyer in civil cases.

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Roundup

Balancing The Scales: Concealed Carry, 'Weird' Arguments

By Orlando Lorenzo

The Eleventh Circuit ruled that police spotting a gun protruding from a defendant’s pocket wasn’t enough to trigger reasonable suspicion in Florida, a state where concealed carry is treated as presumptively legal, and the Fifth Circuit rejected a “weird” argument from a person convicted of being a felon in possession. Here, Law360 highlights access to justice stories arising from litigation, verdicts and judgments you may have missed.

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Perspectives

How High Court Bivens Prison Case May Shape Defense Tools

In Nielsen v. Watanabe, the U.S. Supreme Court is unlikely to extend the Bivens framework that allows federal prisoners to sue prison staff for deliberate indifference to their medical needs, thus handing defense counsel two sharpened pleading-stage arguments, says Albert Zakarian at Blackstone Trial.

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