PSJD Public Interest News Digest – August 3, 2018
Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives 
Hello there, interested public! It’s been a relatively slow news week, but one with a couple particularly weighty pieces. Several high profile organizations including government, civil society, and corporate actors critiqued law enforcement’s growing reliance on facial recognition technology. In Canada, experts warn that proposed changes to sentencing structure for minor offenses could have a profound affect on defendants’ ability to obtain representation from law student volunteers.
See you around,
Sam
Immigration and Asylum
- In New York, NY, Mayor DeBlasio announced plans “to send city government lawyers and social workers to Texas to provide free legal help to families being detained at the border.”
Legal Technology
- Law.com published an article detailing various high-profile critiques of law enforcement use of facial recognition, challenging the appropriateness and accuracy of the technology. Critics include the ACLU (which demonstrated dramatic flaws with Amazon’s facial recognition API, Microsoft (which called for greater government oversight), and members of Congress.
- In particular, Microsoft’s critique–posted by its CEO on the company’s blog–is worth a look.
- In Canada, a research project headed by a professor at Carleton law and funded by the Law Foundation of Ontario’s Access to Justice Fund aims to study the benefits of mobile apps for family law, in hopes of helping the increasing numbers of self-represented litigants using Canada’s courts.
Access to Justice – Civil
- In Nevada, a study commissioned by the Nevada Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Commission found that “three out of four low-income Nevadans with legal challenges aren’t able to get a lawyer for cases involving issues such as domestic violence, home foreclosures or workplace discrimination.”
Access to Justice – Criminal
- In Canada, “[p]roposed changes to Canada’s Criminal Code could have serious consequences for low-income, first-time offenders of less serious crimes,” as changes to minimum sentencing would reclassify these offenses and inappropriate for law student volunteer representation. According to a criminal defense attorney, “[i]f these students aren’t allowed to help anymore, we’re going to have a greater number of self-representing litigants in the system.”
- In North Carolina, more accounts of plainclothes ICE agents conducting arrests at courthouses (see earlier editions of the digest for coverage of similar episodes in New York City) prompted an ABC News piece interviewing experts who caution these tactics “could have a chilling effect on immigrants’ willingness to access and participate in the criminal justice system.“
- In Nevada, the Sixth Amendment Center’s Executive Director warned the state that it has “no infrastructure to ensure that [it’s Constitutional obligation to ensure defendants are provided effective legal representation] is being met.” (The Center is advising a commission studying Nevada’s public defender system.)