We begin this week’s Bulletin with a whole lot of news from Minnesota…

• 3.4.10 – MinnPost Website (Minnesota) – Mid-Minnesota Legal Assistance is seeking an order to restrain the state government from terminating the General Assistance Medical Care program, which provides healthcare for low-income adults without children.  The GAMC program’s termination was taken as an austerity measure as the state government tried to cut spending.  The legislature had attempted to restore the program, but that effort was vetoed by Gov. Pawlenty and an override attempt came up short.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: the GAMC program had been scheduled for termination on March 1, but was extended through the month after another legal services organization  had threatened legal action.  Previous coverage of those developments is available here.]     

• 3.3.10 – Mankato Free Press (Minnesota) – the public defense system in Minnesota is facing serious cuts in state funding.  “Statewide, the Board of Public Defense [could lose, under a current funding proposal,] $3.3 million in funding in 2010-11 and another $4.8 million in 2012-13.”  The chief public defender for the state’s 5th Judicial Circuit worries that additional cuts to an already strained system would be “drastic” and would effectively prohibit defenders from giving their clients the time needed to properly defend a case.  “A study completed by Minnesota’s legislative auditor supports [this] argument.  The study found the state’s public defenders are handling too many cases.  Many have double the caseload recommended by state and national guidelines.”  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: the report referenced in the article was issued on 2/16/10 by the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor.  It is available here.]

• 3.2.10 – MinnPost Website – with fewer than three months left in the Minnesota state legislature’s session, both the state bar association and the legal services community are pushing their agendas.  The Minnesota State Bar Association is seeking funding to shore up a strained court system, while Mid-Minnesota Legal Assistance’s legislative arm is pushing for borrower/consumer protection legislation.  Link to article.

 And now, let’s turn to news from places that are not Minnesota:

• 3.2.10 – San Jose Mercury News (California) – Santa Clary County officials have authorized $1 million to flow to the county public defender’s office in order to staff misdemeanor arraignment hearings.  “The lawyers’ presence in thousands of misdemeanor arraignments a year will end an unusual system that has for decades barred many indigent defendants from easy access to legal advice … Public Defender Mary Greenwood said she will immediately hire three additional lawyers and support staff to represent jailed misdemeanor suspects and those first facing misdemeanor domestic violence charges. The new lawyers would staff the county’s busiest misdemeanor arraignment sessions.”  Link to article. 

• 3.2.10 – Philadelphia Inquirer  – among local nonprofits sharing in $331,000 in grant money from the Philadelphia Foundation are Community Legal Services and Legal Aid of Southeastern Pennsylvania, both of which received funding to support their foreclosure prevention programs.  Link to article. 

• 3.1.10 – Herald News (Massachusetts) – Richard McMahon, a longtime legal services attorney and manager in Massachusetts, has been appointed executive director of South Coastal Counties Legal Services.  Link to article.

• 3.1.10 – Detroit News – while divorce rates in the Detroit metro region have slightly declined during the recession, among those that are filed the number of parties going pro se has risen notably.  “These do-it-yourself divorces are crowding legal aid offices and court dockets and slowing proceedings with incomplete paperwork and tutorials judges must deliver from the bench. And as more couples represent themselves, many are losing out on property and custody claims that are legally theirs, judges and attorneys say.”  Thomas M. Cooley Law School’s Family Law Legal Aid Clinic saw requests for help from low-income clients jump from 57 in 2008 to 104 in 2009.  Family law advocates are exploring solutions, which range from making filing forms more accessible to allowing limited scope representation in order to lower legal fees.  Link to article.

• 3.1.10 – The Hill’s “Congress Blog” (Op-ed) – Low-income tenants across the country face evictions and harassment from landlords and developers.  This is partly the result of the recession’s effect on the housing market.  “Too often, when landlords find themselves in foreclosure, their tenants are forced onto the street with little or no notice.”  A key to protecting tenants’ housing rights is for Congress to reauthorize the Legal Services Corporation by passing the Civil Access to Justice Act.  The bill, which has the support of many social justice advocates, would 1) increase LSC’s annual budget appropriation to $750 million from the current $420 million (at present, 1 in every 2 people who seek help from LSC grantees are turned away due to lack of program resources), 2) do away with a restriction on LSC grantees from filing class action lawsuits on behalf of their clients, and 3) eliminate restrictions on how grantees use non-LSC funds to carry out their missions.  Link to op-ed written by Emily Savner of the Brennan Center for Justice.  [Ed. Note: the op-ed references a Brennan Center report called Foreclosures: A Crisis in Legal Representation and, while not explicitly naming it, appears also to reference LSC’s Documenting the Justice Gap in America report, which was updated in 2009.]

• 2.28.10 – Florida Times-Union (Editorial) – the Florida Bar has launched a “One Client, One Attorney, One Promise” campaign in order to bolster pro bono by encouraging lawyers to take at least one pro bono case this year.   “There’s no shortage of people who need legal help in this age of high unemployment, foreclosures and bankruptcies. Clients who need legal help of some kind are first screened by legal aid agencies before being referred to attorneys who agree to take on the cases without charge….Lawyers take a lot of flak on the joke circuit, but they also do a lot of charity work that goes unrecognized.  The Bar’s campaign is a good way for more lawyers to cast their profession in a positive light.”  Link to editorial.

• 2.27.10 – North Platte Telegraph (Nebraska) – Lincoln County Public Defender Robert Lindemeier joined, at the invitation of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, a Department of Justice Symposium aimed at addressing resource gaps in indigent defense programs across the country.  Lindemeier noted that poor clients not having access to effective counsel is a problem in Nebraska and nationally.  He was “impressed with Holder’s goals, saying that the U.S. Attorney General appears to believe that if the justice system is going to have a strong law enforcement and prosecution system in place, then to ensure justice is served means to make sure that the indigent criminal defense system is equally strong.”  Link to article.  Ed. Note: additional coverage on the DOJ’s Access to Justice Initiative from National Public Radio is available here. 

• 2.27.10 – Billings Gazette – the new Billings Adult Mental Health Court, a diversionary program intended to help defendants with mental disabilities or disorders, makes a priority of helping participants to “creat[e] new bonds to the community through education, employment or volunteer service and treatment programs…”  For court officers who facilitate the program, some of the traditional adversarial edges are dulled as prosecutors, public defenders, judges and others review cases and review participants’ treatment options.  Link to story.  [Ed. Note: not explicitly mentioned in the article is that, aside from providing participants with the best resources to remain integrated with society and avoid the criminal justice system, the mental health court could promote financial efficiencies for courts and detention facilities.  According to a chart accompanying the story, “[b]etween 50 and 70 percent of the [Yellowstone County Detention Facility’s] population suffers from a mental illness or co-occuring disorder, such as addiction.  Further, “[a]s much as 40 percent of the general housing costs at the jail are spent on mentally ill people incarcerated on misdemeanors.”]

• 2.26.10 – New Orleans Times-Picayune – New Orleans District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro and Chief Public Defender Derwyn Bunton agree on a proposal to change the way that cases are assigned to courtrooms in the parish’s criminal court system.  During a City Council hearing, both the top prosecutor and defender spoke in favor of making the change, but noted that the courthouse’s judges, who retain ultimate authority for the case assignemnt system, have been cool to the proposal.  Cannizzaro and Bunton believe that changes would increase efficiency by allowing attorneys to stay with cases from beginning to end, rather than having to pass them off to colleagues and jump from courtroom to courtroom to keep up with their dockets.  One reason they support a change: It may open doors to federal dollars.  Some federal grants require that “the same defense attorney or prosecutor stay on [a] case from beginning to end.”  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: late-January Times-Picayune coverage of the issue is found here.  Also, the PSLawNet Blog conducted a short interview with Mr. Bunton (on unrelated matters) in January.]

• 2.26.10 – Boston Globe – in Massachusetts, a group of legal immigrants is suing the entity that administers the state’s healthcare program, charging that the state’s decision to deny health coverage on account of their immigrant status violates state and federal equal protection principles.  The move to exclude or limit coverage options for legal immigrants under the Massachusetts landmark Commonwealth Care health plan was a budget-cutting measure.  The executive director of Health Law Advocates, which sued the state on behalf of legal immigrant clients, contends that, “You can’t violate people’s constitutional rights just because you don’t have the funds.”  Link to article.