January 20, 2023 at 12:37 pm
· Filed under Public Interest Law News Bulletin
Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives
Photo: Harris and Ewing Collection, Library of Congress
Hello, interested public!
Major news this week focuses on criminal justice, including a new law review article demonstrating with data that courts presiding over police misconduct cases are more likely to admit facts concerning plaintiff-victims’ past misconduct into evidence than they are facts concerning officers’ past instances of misconduct. Meanwhile, the Governor of California is is proposing to slash the state’s public defense budget, the Pittsburgh Chief of Police is ignoring city ordinances, and Dodge County Wisconsin’s entire prosecutorial office has quit over low pay. In other news, a Boston College study examined the racially-disparate effect student loan debt will have when debtholders enter retirement and the IRS is gearing up for a hiring spree. As always, these stories and more are in the links below.
Take care of one another,
Sam
Editor’s Choice
At Stanford Law, “James Stone, ’23,…had been reading about communities nationwide moving toward making police misconduct records more accessible to the public. With his mind on the rules of evidence, including the nuanced situations where certain prior bad acts of defendants are admissible in criminal trials, he started thinking about the admissibility standards around past instances of misconduct by police officers who are sued in civil cases for excessive force.
A year of research and 17,000 words later, he has the answer to his question: no. The standards are not the same. In Past-Acts Evidence in Excessive Force Litigation, 100 Wash. U. L. Rev. 569, Stone critiques how courts’ interpretations of the long-held “objective reasonableness” standard, paired with Rule 404(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence, cause judges to hold certain officer misconduct evidence irrelevant and therefore inadmissible at trial. Conversely, as he analyzes, many judges admit evidence of a plaintiff-victim’s past drug use, criminal activity, encounters with police, and gang affiliation under what he argues are strained relevance arguments. He undertakes the same analysis to rules around use of past acts to impeach the testimony of plaintiffs and accused officers.
[According to the co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center,] ‘No one else had ever taken the time to do that as systematically as James has, and the many hours he put into researching these cases allowed him to make thoughtful and well-grounded recommendations for using evidence law to make police misconduct litigation fairer and more meaningful.’ ”
In New York State, two law students at NYU argued in Slate that “[s]tacking the courts with prosecutors and corporate lawyers pushes students away from careers in public defense, legal aid, and legal services for the indigent. High salaries and a clear path to the bench for prosecutors and corporate lawyers already make these careers attractive. As students, we see the prestige afforded to corporate lawyers and prosecutors and the heightened scrutiny that public interest lawyers receive in judicial confirmations; they are often accused of bias merely for doing constitutionally required jobs. We are constantly thinking about how we will be able to pay student loans and afford rising costs of living in public interest careers. Routinely, we see our peers switch away from public interest careers and 71 percent make the switch because of student debt. Despite the urgent need for public interest lawyers, superior prospects push students into careers where they will learn to advocate for the interests of the wealthy and powerful, no matter how abhorrent those interests are. After dissuading students from public interest careers, the judicial bias for prosecutors and corporate lawyers then fast-tracks these acquired viewpoints to the bench. This lack of professional diversity deprives the court of crucial perspectives from fields that expose lawyers to how the law impacts ordinary people. ”
NOTE: This opinion piece was published specifically concerning NY Gov. Hochul’s ongoing effort to elevate Justice Hector LaSalle to the New York Court of Appeals over the objections of (as the students put it) “legal advocacy groups, unions, reproductive justice organization, and others.”
Student Loans & Student Debt
Immigration & Refugee Issues
In Ontario, “[a] recent Court of Appeal case illustrates why defence lawyers, judges, and Crowns should always be aware of an accused’s immigration status before a guilty plea is entered, says Kenneth Jim, senior criminal counsel with Legal Aid Ontario. ”
In Cambridge MA, “[a]fter a groundswell of criticism, the Harvard Kennedy School…reversed its decision not to offer a fellowship to a leading human rights activist who contends he was rejecgted because of his past criticism of Israel. ”
In New York NY, “[a]fter New York City received over 3,100 asylum-seekers in the last week, including a record number [of] 835 last Thursday, Mayor Eric Adams called on the state to provide more resources to deal with the ongoing issue. ”
Environmental Justice
Reproductive Rights
Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring
Access to Justice – Civil & Economic
In Massachusetts, “[a] state legal aid agency [is] seek[ing] more oversight when DCF removes children from homes without [a] court order[.] ”
In Louisiana, “[t]he [US] Justice Department announced [] the resolution of a matter involving the Louisiana Supreme Court (LASC) based on actions LASC has taken to improve access to state court proceedings and operations for people with limited English proficiency (LEP). ”
In California, “[t]he California Bar spent $552,000 over five years and a chunk of lobbying time to convince lawmakers to expand access to justice, the agency said in a report[.] ”
In Nebraska, “[a] dozen counties [] currently have no practicing attorneys…[a]nd by 2027, four more counties are projected to join them, according to the Nebraska State Bar Association. ”
In Alaska, “[l]egal experts discuss[ed] Alaska’s recent approval of the use of supervised non-lawyers to provide limited-scope legal assistance on the latest episode of LSC’s “Talk Justice” podcast[.] ”
In Nevada, “[w]ith a key source of pandemic-era rental help winding down in Southern Nevada, legal aid groups are pushing for more tenant protections. ”
Access to Justice – Criminal
In California, “[a]s California's budget faces big cuts amid a revenue shortfall, some lawyers say Governor Gavin Newsom wants to gut public safety funding at a time when critical reforms within the criminal justice system rely on state support. Public defenders in Oakland and San Francisco have been quick to criticize Newsom’s proposed budget for 2023-2024 presented on Jan. 10, which cuts significantly from a public defense budget. ”
In Maine, “[s]tate officials say they’re barely keeping up with the demand for lawyers to represent the poor in criminal and family cases, even as Maine takes gradual steps to shed its status as the only state without a public defender system. ”
In Dodge County WI, “[t]here will be no state prosecutors working in Dodge County as of Tuesday, Jan. 17, according to former Dodge County District Attorney (DA) Kurt Klomberg. Klomberg, the Dodge County DA since 2010, resigned on Friday, citing the office's staffing shortage…Klomberg said the Wisconsin District Attorney's Association is partnering with other state agencies in a proposal before the legislature to raise starting salaries to $70,000. ”
In Summerville SC, “[the] Town Council recognized the need for a full-time prosecutor to handle a growing backlog of criminal cases at the group’s Jan. 12 public meeting, but opted to put off on adding a new public litigator until the new fiscal year. ”
In Oswego County NY, “[although i]n late 2021, Oswego County legislators voted to use state money to establish a public defender’s office to provide legal representation for defendants who can’t afford a lawyer. More than a year later, the Office of the Oswego County Public Defender exists in name only. ”
Criminal Justice Reform and Counter-Reform
In Pittsburgh PA, “Pittsburgh Police officers have been instructed [by the Acting Chief of Police] to resume enforcing minor traffic violations…despite a 2021 ordinance to prevent them from doing so in the absence of a larger infraction….[Active Chief] Strangecki told WESA another reason for the reversal was to boost morale among the city’s police ranks. ”
In California, “Meta said it’s suing ‘scraping-for-hire’ service Voyager Labs for allegedly using fake accounts, proprietary software, and a sprawling network of IP addresses to surreptitiously collect massive amounts of personal data from users of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social networking sites…Among the California-based Facebook users to have their data scraped, Meta said, were ‘employees of nonprofit organizations, universities, news media organizations, health care facilities, the armed forces of the United States, and local, state, and federal government agencies, as well as full-time parents, retirees, and union members.’…Among Voyager Labs' customers, according to the exhibits, is the Los Angeles Police Department. ” (emphasis added)
In Milwaukee WI, “a group of prosecutors from the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office who spend more time in specific neighborhoods [working out of police stations] than at the courthouse. They make up the Community Prosecution Unit, which has been slowly building back up after budget constraints. ”
In Cleveland OH, “[after] Cleveland’s city prosecutor [charged] two officers with assaulting people in handcuffs…[t]he police union wants the chief prosecutor off the job and one defense attorney calls the move to issue arrest warrants in the cases an abuse of power. ”
In Allegheny County PA, “Chief Public Defender Matt Dugan announc[ed a] run for district attorney[.] ”
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