Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello, interested public! Welcome to the end of another jam-packed week. Highlights revolve around student debt relief, where the details of various proposals are coming under greater scrutiny as some form of relief looks increasingly likely, and the Right to Counsel in Eviction, where states and localities are moving with renewed urgency as various pandemic eviction moratoria continue to expire. In criminal justice, a judge in Missouri ruled public defender “waiting lists” unconstitutional. And in Ontario, a superior court judge accepted the possibility that gun manufacturers may have civil liability for mass shootings under certain circumstances.

Take care of one another,

Sam

Editor’s Choice

• In a Brookings Institution paper worth reading in full, authors Andre M. Perryand Carl Romer of the Metropolitan Policy Program argued that “[s]tudent debt cancellation should consider wealth, not income”:
  
  Critics of student debt cancellation often focus on the higher income earnings of professionals…But these broadside critiques often miss three key details in the labor market. First, an American Economic Association study showed that while individuals with student loans do have higher incomes, they do not have statistically significant higher hourly wages, suggesting that student debt is forcing loan holders to work longer hours. Second, student debt pushes graduates to choose work they are less passionate about and away from public interest careers that offer lower salaries relative to corporate work. Third, a study in the Economics of Education Review shows that recent graduates with student debt take jobs that have higher initial salaries but lower potential wage growth.
  
  Critics of student debt cancellation also misrepresent who borrows and who holds federal student debt. According to our Brookings colleagues, Black borrowers typically owe 50% more in student debt upon graduation than their white peers. Four years after graduation, this gap increases to 100%. While poor and Black households’ student debt increases, nonbank marketplace lenders like Splash Financial and SoFi offer lower refinance rates to low-credit-risk households. By targeting the student debts of the highest-income and highest-net-worth households, private companies have forced the federal government to hold the highest-risk loans (those held by lower-income and low-wealth households), according to the Congressional Budget Office. So, by cancelling federal student debt, lawmakers are ipso facto aiding low-wealth households.
  
  [emphases added]

Free & Fair Elections

• In Washington DC, “[t]he Supreme Court hear[d] arguments [] in a pair of cases that could impact voting rights[.] The cases involve whether a third party can turn in someone else’s ballot and whether to count ballots that are submitted in the wrong precinct.”

Environmental Justice & Environmental Collapse

• In Houston TX, “[t]he Houston Bar Association (HBA) and its related organizations [are] offer[ing] legal resources and services for those affected by Winter Storm Uri.”

Immigration, Refugee, and Citizenship Issues

• In Washington DC, “[t]he United States could help pay for transportation, healthcare, legal services, and career and educational programs for migrant families separated under former President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” border strategy, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said.”
• In Illinois, “[a] House committee [] advanced legislation that would create a task force to look into the feasibility of providing legal representation to individuals subject to deportation proceedings in the state.”
• In New York, “federal judge Lawrence Vilardo criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement for failing to provide medically vulnerable people it is detaining in upstate New York access to COVID-19 vaccinations. ‘You’re doing nothing to get them the vaccine,’ Vilardo told the government attorney representing ICE. ‘Nothing. Zero.’ In late February, Vilardo ordered ICE to come up with a plan for vaccinating people detained at its immigration detention center in Batavia.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In the United States, “[r]acial justice has become a leading issue in the latest push for debt cancellation. Because Black students have to rely more on student debt to pay for their college education and then take much longer to pay it down after school, researchers have found that student debt is actually exacerbating the existing racial wealth gap among younger generations…The problem is, $10,000 worth of cancellation — the amount that President Joe Biden has said he’d support — is not enough to make progress on that racial justice goal, experts [told] Money…Recent research has shown that forgiving $75,000 would be needed to help roughly 80% of Black households with student loans by wiping out their debt and boosting their wealth.”
• In New York, “New York State has sued the Federal Education Department’s sole-source contractor FedLoan Servicing (or PHEAA, the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency or American Education Services) for ‘failing miserably in its administration of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness.’“

Pandemic in the Legal System

• In Marion County IN, “a new pro bono mediation project…pushed forward [despite the pandemic], launching a program that so far has garnered roughly 100 volunteers and has already helped resolve some 20 cases[:] ‘As courts started getting more used to doing hearings by Zoom or Webex or by phone, [we] reconnected and said, ‘Why not talk to the courts about doing mediations this way?’ ”
• In El Paso County CO, “[a] judge [] threw out a contempt charge he’d previously leveled against a public defender who refused to show up in person for a jury trial due to COVID-19 concerns, saying he believed the attorney learned his lesson and needed no further punishment.”

Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring

• In New York, the state’s “prosecutor rejected a proposal by Governor Andrew Cuomo for her to pick a lawyer to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct against him, after Cuomo’s office backtracked on Sunday on a plan to choose its own investigator. State Attorney General Letitia James said it was essential that Cuomo’s administration instead formally refer the matter to her office for investigation, which would give her subpoena power and ensure an impartial probe.”
• Also in New York, “New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has retained a prominent white-collar criminal defense lawyer to represent his office in a federal investigation into the state’s misreporting of COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents[.]”
• In Los Angeles CA, “[a] deputy…city attorney is suing her employer, alleging she suffered a backlash after spending four years demanding equal pay for her and other female employees in her office.”
• In Washington DC, “[t]he Justice Department under President Joe Biden backed off the Trump administration’s argument that a California donor-disclosure requirement for nonprofits is unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that upheld the state requirement, which requires charities to disclose their largest donors to state officials.”
• In Wisconsin, “Gov. Tony Evers signed a bill…that will boost pay for state public defenders…allow[ing] the State Public Defender to exceed the 10% cap for merit raises for the remainder of this fiscal year [and] help close the gap that was created between public defenders and the Assistant District Attorneys.”
• In Canada, “[the] Attorney General of Canada[] announced the Government of Canada’s support to Botler AI for the Pan-Canadian Triage System for Sexual Harassment, Misconduct & Violence. Botler AI has created an artificial intelligence system that anonymously sorts sexual misconduct complaints across Canada based on the details of individual situations and provides users with a personalized set of resources relevant to their own case.“

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In Connecticut, “[l]egislation that would provide tenants facing eviction the ‘right to counsel’ has been named a top priority of the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus and House Speaker Matt Ritter. Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney also supports the concept. A hearing on the bill was scheduled for [3/4/21].”
• In New York, “The Legal Aid Society released [a] statement calling on Albany to immediately enact the COIVD-19 Emergency Rental Assistance Program of 2021 (S2742B/A3918) now that New York’s 60-day blanket eviction moratorium [has] expired[.]”
• In Burlington VT, “[a] charter change proposal…[asking] voters if the city’s charter should be amended to include protections from evictions that don’t meet the standards of ‘just cause’…[passed] 8,829 to 5,187, according to the city’s unofficial results.”
• In Milwaukee WI, County District Supervisor Clancy argued that “[t]he time is now to adopt the Right to Counsel [in Eviction] in Milwaukee County.”
• In Texas, the Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court “request[ed] additional funding [for civil legal aid] because of the dire need for assistance,” arguing that “[c]ivil legal aid is an essential resource that ensures all Texans have equal access to the justice system. While legal aid providers are working tirelessly to provide these invaluable services, the need for assistance grows as the economic and health effects from COVID-19 continue and will increase on the heels of the winter storm.”
• In Ontario, “[a] Superior Court judge has accepted, in a preliminary decision in Price v. Smith & Wesson Corp., 2020 ONSC 1114, that gun manufacturers may have civil liability in Canada for losses caused by mass shootings when feasible safety measures could have prevented the harm but were not used.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Missouri, “[l]awmakers may increase public defender funding after [a state] judge rul[ed] against [the] state’s wait list.”
  • Relatedly, “[l]ast month, Missouri’s ‘waiting lists’ for public defenders were declared unconstitutional. Cole County Circuit Court Judge William E. Hickle ruled that the Missouri Office of State Public Defender violated the constitutional rights of indigent people awaiting trial by forcing them to wait for weeks, and even months, before being assigned an attorney.”
• In Wyoming, the ACLU of Wyoming argued that “a common sense-solution” to the state’s “[inability] to adequate fund the State Public Defender’s Office” would be to repeal the death penalty in Wyoming: “the Public Defender’s Office has spent significant resources on providing constitutionally required defense in death penalty cases. Even the most conservative estimates…show that between $1 million to $2 million is spent every biennium on the death penalty…Without the death penalty on the books in Wyoming, that money could immediately be re-appropriated within the Public Defender’s Office to provide for competitive salaries, proper staffing and other immediate needs with the office itself.”
• In Medina County OH, “Chief Public Defender Jocelyn Stefancin made a final stand [] to try to save the Medina County Public Defender’s Office from closure. Despite her pleas, the Medina County commissioners wouldn’t budge and said they will follow through with plans for the office to be terminated, effective April 30.”

Criminal Justice Reform and Counter-Reform

• In Los Angeles CA, “[v]ictims rights advocates joined with the support of Sheriff Alex Villanueva to launch a recall campaign against newly-elected Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón. Gascón campaigned on a reform agenda when he successfully unseated incumbent DA Jackie Lacey last year. But after he took office and began detailing how many of those reforms would take shape, victims advocates and others in law enforcement and even from within Gascón’s own office have begun to protest.”
• Also in Los Angeles, “[t]he City Countil voted [] to veto the mayor’s override of a spending plan to redirect some funds from the LAPD to social programs.”
• In Atlanta GA, “[a]fter Georgia’s attorney general refused to reassign two high-profile cases involving allegations of excessive force against Atlanta police officers, including the killing of Rayshard Brooks, the district attorney is asking the court to decide who should handle the prosecutions. Newly elected Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis sent a letter to Attorney General Chris Carr in January asking him to reassign the cases, raising concerns that actions by her predecessor, Paul Howard, made it inappropriate for her office continuing to handle the cases.”
• In Illinois, “Cook County Public Defender Amy Campanelli [talked] about the criminal justice reform bill signed by Governor Pritzker [] eliminating cash bail.”
• In Allegheny County PA, “the Abolitionist Law Center, a nonprofit law firm focused on criminal justice reforms…is suing [Common Pleas Judge Anthony Mariani…seeking ‘declaratory and injunctive relief’[.]” The Law Center “hasn’t been able to observe [Judge Mariani’s] courtroom via remote access, despite other courtroom participants using virtual access and other judges granting virtual access to several other ALC court watchers.”
• In Massachusetts, “[a] commission tasked with studying the civil service law and increasing transparency and the number of people of color in civil service positions did not hold its first meeting by the deadline required under the new policing reform law.”
• In South Carolina, “[state] senators…added a firing squad to the electric chair as alternatives if the state can’t execute condemned inmates by way of lethal injection. The Senate then approved the bill on a key 32-11 vote with several Democrats joining Republicans in the proposal which would allow South Carolina to restart executions after nearly 10 years.”
• In New York, “[t]he Monroe County Public Defender’s Office has sent a report to local police agencies in an effort to assist them in the state-mandated effort to reform law enforcement agencies.”