PSJD Public Interest News Digest – July 17, 2020
Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives
Interested public. The news continues to lie thickly around us, particularly in the areas of justice reform and the debate around how to responsibly reopen physical courts. There’s a lot of material this week so I’ll keep my summary brief. I do want, however, to call attention to yesterday’s edition of PSJD’s Jobs’o’th’Week. We’ve heard that people want more job highlights from PSJD so my colleague Brittany Swett has expanded her weekly feature to include additional positions that have stood out as she manages our job database on an ongoing basis.
Take care of one another,
Sam
Editor’s Choice(s)
- In a paper that has yet to undergo peer review, researchers at Boston University’s Technology & Policy Research Initiative “analyze[d] the effects of [] salary history bans (SHBs) on employer page posting and on the pay of job changers [and found that f]ollowing SHBs, employers posted wages more often and increased pay for job changers by about 5%, with larger increases for women (8%) and African-Americans (13%). Salary histories appear to account for much of the persistence of residual wage gaps.”
- In Utah, “[a]s part of an effort to reduce racism and bias in the state’s court system, the Utah Judicial Council is establishing a new Office of Fairness and Accountability to look into this issue and make recommendations for improvement…Both [State] Sen. Weiler and [ACLU SMART Justice Attorney] Groth said they hope to see people of color at the table and included in discussions about systemic racism and bias.”
COVID-19, Remote Legal Practice, & Decarceration
- In Utah, “[p]rotesters in two Utah cities are demanding the release of non-violent inmates during the COVID-19 pandemic. The protests were held simultaneously in Ogden and St. George outside county prosecutor offices[.]”
- In Virginia, “a group of law school graduates who are registered to take the Virginia bar exam in Roanoke at the end of this month have proposed an unconventional solution: waive that notoriously difficult requirement. While the Virginia Board of Bar Examiners has not yet gone that far, last week it added new options for test-takers, including postponement, plus the opportunity to take a shortened version of the exam later this summer.”
- In Tennessee, “hundreds of law students across the state are pushing for change — including graduates from LMU Duncan School of Law and the University of Tennessee College of Law in Knoxville. They’re hoping the supreme court will allow new graduates a special waiver to practice law, so they can start helping the public sooner and aren’t left without a job and dwindling resources.”
- In Massachusetts, “Harvard Law School students joined peers from law schools across the state in a letter urging the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to replace the 2020 bar exam with an automatic admission option — a request the court subsequently denied.”
- In Montana, “[t]he Montana Supreme Court [] denied the request of dozens of recent law school graduates to skip the bar exam in light of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic but still be licensed to practice law.”
- In New York, “State Sen. Michael Gianaris, D-Astoria, is looking to New York’s Chief Judge Janet DiFiore to prepare alternatives for law students who are scheduled to take the bar exam in early September.”
- In New York NY, “[t]ension has mounted between tenant attorneys and a top New York City civil judge, as the judge moves forward with plans to resume pre-pandemic trials in Brooklyn this month and major unions representing lawyers pledge not to return to court without more safety assurances.”
- In Virginia, the “Virginia Department of Labor and Industry on Wednesday approved emergency workplace standards that will give workers across the commonwealth health protections amid the pandemic. The binding standards — the first of their kind in the nation — are being hailed by labor groups, while business advocates say employers are already providing for their workers and that the new rules will only force them to endure more paperwork and regulation as they suffer economic damage due to the coronavirus.”
Rule of Law & Voting Rights
- In the Hill, the national president of the American Federal of Government Employees argued that “[the recent Trump administration effort at d]ismantling OPM is a clear attempt to…politicize the non-partisan civil service, and eviscerate decades of federal laws and HR policies that ensure federal workers are hired, fired, promoted or demoted based on the quality of their work – not their political allegiances.”
- In Washington DC, “[c]ivil liberties advocates are urging Attorney General William Barr to name a special prosecutor to investigate possible violations of protesters’ rights during the June 1 crackdown in Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C.[.]”
- In Pennsylvania, the ACLU and other civil rights groups “moved to intervene as defendants in a recent lawsuit brought by the Trump presidential campaign and the Republican Party. The Trump campaign lawsuit, filed June 29, is attempting, among other things, to block voters in Pennsylvania from depositing their mail ballots in drop boxes instead of mailboxes, a secure and streamlined process often used by states that conduct all-mail elections.”
- In Washington DC, “[t]he U.S. Supreme Court declined [] to overturn a federal appeals court’s decision that blocked some Florida felons’ eligibility to participate in elections — a major blow to efforts to restore voting rights to as many as 1.4 million people in the battleground state.”
Legal Technology
- Online, the Electronic Frontier Foundation “debuted a new database that reveals how, and where, law enforcement is using surveillance technology in policing strategies.” The new tool is called the “Atlas of Surveillance”.
- In Kansas, the “judicial branch was awarded $1.6 million from the state’s Federal Coronavirus Emergency Supplemental Funding Program to help pay for technology improvements that will provide broader digital access to justice and allow courts to conduct more operations remotely.”
- In Washington DC, “Sen. Lindsey Graham is among a group of Republican lawmakers proposing a law that would require tech manufacturers to aid law enforcement trying to break in to criminal suspects’ personal communications. Under the Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act, manufacturers would have to add a “back door” for police investigating crimes.”
- The MIT Technology Review published a long investigation revealing that “increasing evidence suggests that human prejudices have been baked into [predictive policing] tools because the machine-learning models are trained on biased police data. Far from avoiding racism, they may simply be better at hiding it. Many critics now view these tools as a form of tech-washing, where a veneer of objectivity covers mechanisms that perpetuate inequities in society.”
Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring
- In the United States, “[a]t least six police unions qualified for a combined total of $2 million to $4.4 million in emergency U.S. government loans intended to help small businesses stay afloat during the coronavirus lockdown, according to data released Monday by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The unions represent about 110,000 law enforcement officers in Philadelphia, Houston, New York state, Michigan and 11 Southern states.”
- Also in the United States, “[t]he Federal Reserve has opened its [Main Street Lending Program] to nonprofit groups, including hospitals, educational institutions, and social service organizations.”
- In Miami Fl, “nonprofits are feeling the COVID-19 squeeze, according to a survey from Florida International University’s Jorge M. Perez Metropolitan Center in Miami. Anticipated revenue is down, layoffs are up and the basic ways they conduct business are changing dramatically.”
- In Minnesota, “[m]ore than 130,000 Minnesota nonprofit employees — a third of all nonprofit workers in the state — have filed for unemployment since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out this spring.”
- Inside Philanthropy observed that “[w]ith the social sector facing rising need, falling revenues, and profound uncertainty about the future…many organizations are once again [considering mergers and other deep partnerships].”
Immigration, Refugee, & Citizenship Issues
- In Washington DC, “[t]he leaders of private sector companies that contract with the federal government to detain immigrants defended their responses to the novel coronavirus pandemic amid growing criticism as cases have spread at facilities around the country.”
- Also in Washington DC, “[f]acing eight federal lawsuits and opposition from hundreds of universities, the Trump administration on Tuesday rescinded a rule that would have required international students to transfer or leave the country if their schools held classes entirely online because of the pandemic.”
Student Loans & Student Debt
- In Forbes, a Senior Advisor with the New America Foundation argued that “[t]here are many ways reparations could be enacted. One idea—to be paired with others—is to cancel the student debt of Black borrowers.”
- In Washington DC, “[a] ‘coalition’ of Democratic state attorneys general filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, asking a federal judge to declare a 2019 Rule issued by the department (ED) ‘unlawful.’”
- Also in Washington DC, “the US Department of Education outlined a plan to transition borrowers from 11 previous servicers to five new student loan servicers. Citing a need for better customer service, the department made contracts with three new student loan servicers and two existing servicers for the upcoming year.”
- In New York, “health care strategists are floating a plan to offer health insurance tax credits assistance to loan-saddled college graduates who have no overage or fear of losing what they do have.”
Access to Justice – Civil & Economic
- In New York NY, “[p]ublic defenders sounded the alarm last month about the end of a moratorium on evictions, noting that roughly one-third of tenants could not pay their rent. For the moment, an avalanche of evictions has not yet overwhelmed city Housing Courts. Only 13 evictions have been filed since June 22, according to the latest data available from the Office of Court Administration.”
- In Niagra ON, “[s]ome are expecting a “tsunami” of evictions and housing-related cases to hit the courts as Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) funding runs dry. The government issued the final CERB cheques on July 4.”
- In Michigan, “[w]ith Michigan’s eviction moratorium set to lift[], advocates for renters expect a deluge of eviction filings in district courts across the state.”
Criminal Justice Reform
- In New York NY, the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution at John Jay College released a “Vision for the Modern Prosecutor”, a statement “signed by many of the elected District Attorneys, academics and criminal justice reform advocates who have joined with the IIP to tackle the most complex issues within the prosecutorial system over the past three years to re-think prosecutors’ roles.” According to the college’s Center on Media Crime and Justice, “[t]he Vision statement is both a call to action and an acknowledgment of the harm traditional prosecution has caused.”
- Also in New York NY, “[t]he Legal Aid Society lauded a decision rendered by New York State Bronx Supreme Court Justice April Newbauer finding that the New York City Police Department’s method of matching of recovered bullets to guns is ‘significantly’ flawed and not generally accepted by the relevant scientific community.”
- Also also in New York NY, “[Mayor] De Blasio signed [] five bills for greater police transparency and accountability as the city faces mounting gun violence and rising tension between the NYPD and the communities it serves.”
- Relatedly, “[t]he head of the New York State Troopers union is demanding all state police be removed from the New York City over looming reforms. New York State Troopers PBA president Thomas Mungeer issued a scathing statement [] ‘demanding’ that state troopers be removed from the five boroughs ‘and cease any law enforcement activities within that jurisdiction.’”
- Furthermore, “[a]ttorneys representing New York City’s public safety and law enforcement unions on Wednesday asked a state judge to prevent Mayor Bill deBlasio (D) from releasing employee disciplinary records that have long been kept from the public eye. In a lawsuit filed in New York County Supreme Court, the attorneys said the planned ‘data dump’ of disciplinary records for firefighters, corrections officers, and police officers would ‘destroy the reputation and privacy, and imperil the safety, of many of those firefighters and officers.’ “
- In Hennepin County MN, “[t]he Hennepin County Attorney’s Office has now dropped charges in three cases where Minnesota State Trooper Albert Kuehne was a key witness, but the public defender said prosecutors withheld critical information and still pressed for a guilty plea from one defendant just days before the trooper was formally charged with felony stalking in June.”
- In Los Angeles, “[t]hree Los Angeles police officers face charges for allegedly falsely identifying people as gang members or associates, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office.”
- In Brunswick GA, “a group called The Justice Initiative [aims] to collect 20,000 signatures to force a recall election for [Waycross Judicial Circuit DA] George E. Barnhill[, who had] justified the Arbery shooting as self-defense.”
- In New York, the Legal Aid Society of New York City is “calling on Albany to enact critical legislation to ensure that law enforcement cannot interrogate children before they’ve been allowed to speak with an attorney.”
- The New York Times published an opinion piece from Professor Akbar of the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University, arguing that calls for criminal justice reform are “intersectional. Police violence, global warming and unaffordable housing are not disconnected, discrete problems; instead, they emerge from colonialism and capitalism…And whatever you think of their demands, you have to be in awe of how they inaugurate a new political moment, as the left offers not just a searing critique, but practical ladders to radical visions.”