Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello, interested public!

A little less news this week, but big concerns still plague us. First off, discussions about the debt ceiling between the President and Congress are having big impacts on employment rights and student debt (but PSLF has been approved for hundreds of thousands of people!!). Second, more ethics concerns about Justice Thomas have come to light. And finally, as a win for public servants, more and more jurisdictions are increasing budgets to allow for the additional hire of public defenders and prosecutors.

As always, these stories and more are in the links below.

Happy reading,

Brittany

Editor’s Choice

• As bar prep looms, the ABA Law Student Podcast discusses “the services and support available to help law students and professionals cope with stress, anxiety, depression, and substance abuse.”

• In Georgia, “[o]f the 16 fake electors under investigation in Georgia for taking part in a scheme to keep President Donald Trump in office in 2020, eight have accepted immunity deals from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, according to a brief filed on Friday by the electors’ lawyer, Kimberly Debrow.”

• In Washington D.C., “[a] union that represents federal employees filed suit for an injunction Monday against the federal law that gives the White House unilateral authority to cut government spending if Congress can’t compromise on stalled debt ceiling negotiations.”

• In Washington D.C., “[h]ere are seven things to watch as the Supreme Court heads into its final weeks this session.”

Supreme Court Ethics Concerns

• Continuing with our coverage of the ethical concerns surrounding Justice Thomas’s actions:

  • “More than a decade ago, a member of the US court system’s leadership body raised red flags about its handling of public allegations of wrongdoing against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Those concerns spurred internal process changes, but no additional probe of the justice’s conduct.”

  • “Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden on Tuesday accused billionaire Harlan Crow of ‘stonewalling’ for refusing to comply with a request for a complete accounting of Crow’s gifts to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.”

    • Relatedly, ProPublica uncovered that Crow paid for the private school tuition for Justice Thomas’s grandnephew.

  • “Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas changed his position on one of America’s most significant regulatory doctrines after his wife reportedly accepted secret payments from a shadowy conservative network pushing for the change. Thomas’ shift also came while he was receiving lavish gifts from a billionaire linked to other groups criticizing the same doctrine — which is now headed back to the high court.”

    • Relatedly, “On May 1, the US Supreme Court granted certiorari in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which is sure to send shockwaves through the administrative state. At issue is the doctrine known as Chevron deference, which requires that courts defer to federal agency interpretation of statutes. It sounds like legalese, but in practice, Chevron deference serves as a superhighway for administrative abuse.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In the United States, “[t]he Education Department on Monday said over 615,000 student-loan borrowers have had debts forgiven through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program since October 2021 due to policy changes made by the Biden administration.”

• In the United States, “[t]he cost of borrowing money from the federal government to pay for college is set to jump to the highest level in at least a decade.”

• Also in the United States, “[t]he Federal Trade Commission said that it has stopped a student debt relief scheme that has allegedly stolen $12 million from borrowers. The FTC accused the companies of ‘deceptive claims about repayment programs and loan forgiveness that did not exist.’”

• In Washington D.C., “GOP lawmakers on the Committee on Education and the Workforce argued that the Department of Education's student loan relief plan would add billions to the federal debt while doing nothing to address the rising cost of college.”

  • Contrastingly, “[a] sizable portion of students who exited their university programs would be likely to return if some or all of their student loans are nixed, according to a poll from Gallup….”

  • Relatedly (and contrastingly), “NBC News reviewed student loan forgiveness policies in states where a Republican governor has called for an end to Biden’s plan or a Republican attorney general has sued to stop it. The research found that the vast majority of these states do indeed offer their own taxpayer-funded student loan forgiveness programs. Almost as many have seen Republican-backed bills to expand these programs or create new ones in the current term.”

• Also in Washington D.C., “[a] nonprofit conservative group asked a federal court last month to end the student-loan payment pause. It's asking again — and it wants borrowers to be thrown back into repayment immediately.”

Eye on AI

• The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that “the Patent Act supports the conclusion that ‘individuals’ are human beings, and non-humans, such as artificial intelligence programs, cannot be considered individuals, and thus cannot be deemed inventors.”

• In Washington D.C., “OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will make his first appearance before a Senate panel next week as the U.S. Congress grapples with how best to regulate artificial intelligence as the technology becomes more powerful and widespread.”

  • Relatedly, long-time technology attorney Ralph Losey wrote for JDSupra that “ChatGPT has too small a memory to be of much use to judges, lawyer and complex case litigators, at least for purposes of assisting in full-case legal analysis.”

Reproductive Rights

• In the United States, "Mifepristone was approved in 2000 for early abortions but it is often used “off label” to treat early pregnancy loss or to speed up delivery when a fetus dies later in pregnancy….[L]egal experts say if it’s taken off the market for its approved use, it wouldn’t be available for pregnancy loss. Dr. Kristyn Brandi said that would take away “the gold standard of miscarriage management,” the two-drug combination of mifepristone and misoprostol that helps empty the uterus and reduce the chance of infection.”

• In Idaho, a new “law creates a crime of ‘abortion trafficking’ and criminalizes the ‘recruiting, harboring, or transporting’ of minors without parental consent.”

• In Vermont, the state’s “new abortion protections would keep mifepristone available even if FDA approval is later withdrawn.”

• In Wisconsin, “[a]ttorneys for a Republican prosecutor urged a judge Thursday to toss out a lawsuit seeking to repeal Wisconsin’s 174-year-old abortion ban, arguing that a newer state law permitting pre-viability abortions complements the ban rather than supersedes it, as Democrats maintain.”

Marriage Rights Issues

• In Michigan, “[m]embers from Unchained at Last re-introduced several House Bills Wednesday…that would ban future child marriages, and void existing marriages if the individual is under the age of 18. As of right now, Michigan law does not have a minimum age for marriage, which means infants could potentially be trapped in marriage.”

• In New Hampshire, “[t]he right to interracial marriage is now enshrined in New Hampshire state law.”

Disability Rights

• In Delaware, “[t]he Delaware Community Legal Aid Society has released a report that finds accessibility violations for those with disabilities at voting centers across the state.”

• In Ontario, Canada, “[t]he Court of Appeal made it clear a Ford government law can't block the claims of vulnerable people who've been ‘harmed by the government's stupidity[.]’”

Environmental Crisis

• In California, “[t]he Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a California animal welfare law passed by voters that requires all pork sold in the state meet certain humane standards.”

• In Colorado, “the state passed the country’s most comprehensive legislation to prevent utilities from using customer funds to support political activities.”

• In Indiana, “[s]mall nuclear reactors could be the solution Purdue University needs to reach net-zero carbon emissions, according to a study by the Indiana school and Duke Energy Corp.”

• In Mississippi, “[a] complaint by the Southern Poverty Law Center asks the U.S. Department of Treasury to investigate alleged discriminatory funding of water infrastructure in Jackson through the state’s distribution of federal relief funds.”

• In Wyoming, “a coalition of wild horse advocates, environmentalists, and academics filed suit in the US District Court for the District of Wyoming against the US Department of the Interior over a federal plan that would result in the largest-ever eradication of federally protected wild horses and elimination of 43% of designated wild horse habitat in the Red Desert area of Wyoming.”

Immigration & Refugee Issues

• In California, “[f]ollowing months of urging by undocumented students, the University of California next week will consider a proposal to allow the hiring of those students for jobs across the 10-campus university system. If the UC board of regents takes that step, UC would become the first known institution to argue that a federal statute’s ban on the hiring of undocumented persons does not apply to states.”

• In Chicago, IL, “[t]he city is short hundreds of lawyers and has a backlog of tens of thousands of cases as migrants wait months to apply for asylum to legally stay and work.”

• In New York City, NY, “[c]ity lawmakers want Mayor Eric Adams to add an extra $70 million into the city budget to fund legal help for migrants seeking asylum and applying for working papers….”

  • Relatedly, “Mayor Eric Adams issued an executive order Wednesday evening allowing city officials to bypass certain portions of New York City’s decades old right-to-shelter law, which obligates the city to provide a bed to anyone who asks for one.”

• Also in New York City, NY, “Elected officials, including State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, last Tuesday joined the CARE for Immigrant Families coalition at the Million Dollar Staircase in Albany in calling for the passage of the Access to Representation Act (ARA). The first-in-the-nation bill would establish a right to counsel in immigration court proceedings.”

Employment Rights

• In New York, “New York City lawmakers passed a bill Thursday that would prohibit employment discrimination based on someone's height or weight….”

• In Washington D.C., in the name of “securing the border,” “[a] Republican immigration bill facing a House vote will expand the federal government’s power over individuals seeking jobs, employers hiring workers and Americans who want to protect victims of war and persecution….The House bill (Section 801) mandates nearly all Americans who change or start a job would need to gain permission to work through the federal government E-Verify system or a potential follow-on employment verification system.”

• In Washington State, employers will be prohibited “from making hiring decisions based on off-duty use of cannabis or positive pre-employment drug test results that find an applicant to have nonpsychoactive cannabis metabolites in their hair, blood, urine or other bodily fluids.”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• In Washington D.C., “…the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) published a proposed rule in the Federal Register on ‘Advancing Pay Equity in Governmentwide Pay Systems’ proposing revisions to the criteria for making salary determinations based on salary history to advance pay equity in jobs for the United States government.”

• Also in Washington D.C., “[a] group of 14 conservative lawmakers in both chambers of Congress last week reintroduced legislation that would make the federal government an at-will employer and abolish the Merit Systems Protection Board, effectively eviscerating federal workers’ civil service protections and chilling whistleblowing.”

• In Virginia, “[t]he Virginia State Bar is seeking attorneys to serve as guardians ad litem for attorneys appearing before the VSB Disciplinary Board in impairment proceedings.”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In Ontario, Canada, “[t]he Federation of Ontario Law Associations (FOLA) is raising concerns over access to justice as the number of practising law professionals in rural and remote areas of the province dwindles.”

• In Multnomah County, OR, “Multnomah County Measure 26-238 would institute a new capital gains tax in order to fund free legal aid for renters facing eviction.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In the United States, “Providing defendants with legal counsel during their initial bail hearing decreases use of monetary bail and pretrial detention, without increasing the likelihood that defendants fail to appear at the subsequent preliminary hearing, according to a new RAND Corporation study.”

• In Newfoundland, Canada, “A medical examination which is often critical evidence in sexual assault trials is not available in two of the four regional health authorities in Newfoundland and Labrador. ‘In February, we were told that the sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) program could not be expanded into Labrador and Central Health regions until a provincial co-ordinator was hired,’ Torngat Mountains MHA Lela Evans said in the House of Assembly on May 4, 2023. ‘According to the then minister of health, the work to fill this position was active and underway. That was in 2021, two years ago.’”

• In Florida, “State Attorney Andrew Warren is fighting to be reinstated in his position as the lead prosecutor in Hillsborough County, Florida, following his suspension by Governor Ron DeSantis. The ongoing dispute between Warren and DeSantis stems from Warren’s refusal to prosecute criminal cases related to abortion.”

• In Georgia, “[a] motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed against Western Circuit District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez is under consideration by a judge who said Monday that he will issue an order and send it to the Clerk of Court in Clarke County….[The] basis for the suit is a policy Gonzalez announced before her election that she would not prosecute misdemeanor marijuana possession and truancy cases where children could be taken from their parents.”

  • Relatedly, “Gov. Brian Kemp signed a bill into law Friday creating a commission with the power to remove what Kemp termed ‘rogue or incompetent prosecutors’ like Western Circuit District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez.”

• In Illinois, “The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office (CCSAO) has routinely hidden evidence from defendants that was obtained from ShotSpotter, a gunshot-detection system, according to Brendan Max, the chief of the Forensic Science Division at the Cook County Public Defender’s Office (PDO)….In 2021, Chicago’s Inspector General found that ShotSpotter alerts ‘rarely produce evidence of a gun-related crime’ and that CPD uses the frequency of alerts in a given area to rationalize disproportionately stopping and frisking people who live there.”

  • Relatedly, in Escambia County, FL, “…Sheriff Chip Simmons said he plans to expand the Real Time Crime Center and integrate a gunshot detection system known as ShotSpotter into the RTCC to increase intelligence, efficiency and safety in law enforcement response and public safety.”

• In Maine, the District Attorney for three counties seeks to clear “a backlog of more than 5,200 criminal cases” with a plan “to offer defendants things they normally wouldn't get, like possible dismissals, making donations that would go to charity or a conviction that would go on their record, without penalty.”

  • Relatedly, “A group of lawmakers want to set limits on the length of time it takes to bring a criminal defendant to trial as Maine’s court system continues to grapple with a massive backlog of cases.”

• In Pennsylvania, “A national public interest law firm and two Pennsylvania-based law professors have filed an ethics complaint asking a state disciplinary board to investigate allegations of improper conduct by Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala. The complaint…cites media reports regarding two separate incidents in which Zappala allegedly made decisions about bringing charges based on personal or political motivations.”

Prosecutor & Public Defender Office Hiring Crises

• To address hiring shortages, some jurisdictions have raised or called for raises in budgets to hire more public defenders and prosecutors:

  • In Liberty County, GA, “[c]ommissioners approved an additional $65,000 to the public defender’s office for its budget.”

  • In Minnesota, “[h]undreds of public defenders in Minnesota would get significant pay raises if a provision in public safety bills continues on its way to Gov. Tim Walz's desk.”

  • In New York, “[w]ith passage of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s 2023-24 budget, the rate paid to such lawyers, known as assigned counsel, jumps from $60 an hour to represent misdemeanor defendants and $75 for felony cases to $158 for felony or misdemeanor cases.”

  • In Montgomery County, TX, “[t]he Montgomery County Commissioners Court voted to approve district and county attorney staff pay increases May 9. District Attorney Brett Ligon said the county had difficulties retaining prosecutors due to higher federal and private salaries elsewhere in the state and nationwide.”

• In St. Louis, MO, even with the announcement of St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s resignation, “[m]ost reports indicate there are fewer than 10 assistant circuit attorneys handling serious criminal cases in the city. Regardless of what’s causing it, the staffing crisis in the office has continued serious implications across the criminal justice system.”

• In Marion County, OR, “Shannon Wilson, a public defender in Marion County, filed an unusual request this week with the Oregon Supreme Court. They asked the state’s high court to remove some new clients and block lower court judges from assigning more.”

• In Lubbock County, TX, “[t]he…District Attorney’s Office is dealing with a severe shortage of prosecutors, causing a backlog in un-reviewed cases. Lubbock County District Attorney Sunshine Stanek’s temporary fix may involve attorneys working overtime to keep cases from piling up.”

• In Franklin County, WA, the county “is facing a lawyer shortage as newly booked inmates are not being assigned defense attorneys for the last two months….”

Criminal Justice Reform and Counter-Reform

• In the United States, “[t]he White House has recently unveiled an ambitious plan to promote the rehabilitation and successful reentry of incarcerated individuals into society….On the same day as the plan’s release, President Biden exercised his executive power by commuting the sentences of 31 individuals serving time for nonviolent drug offenses. These individuals will now continue serving their sentences in home confinement.”

• In Illinois, “In January 2022, Illinois joined 48 other states in adopting a medical release law. Incarcerated people with terminal illnesses and serious disabilities have a pathway to reunite with their families and access the life-saving care they have been deprived of for years or decades. Illinois must put this new law to use.”

• In Utah, “[t]he Utah Department of Corrections (UDC) agreed to enter a consent order…ensuring Islamic inmates’ right to participate in Jumu’ah prayer on Fridays. The UDC also agreed to make multiple changes to its policy on religious congregate services.”

Public Safety

• In Washington D.C., “[t]he Supreme Court could hand down a decision any day now in National Association for Gun Rights v. City of Naperville, a case that could legalize assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in all 50 states.”

• In California, “Coalition for Family Harmony (Coalition), [which] supports survivors of family violence in Ventura County with the means to help escape from abuse, provides gun restraining order under the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence grant. The restraining order allows victims of domestic violence households to request the removal of a gun from a house if it creates an unsafe and threatening environment.”

• In the United States, Government Executive analyzes “what’s ahead for federal agencies and workers now that the pandemic emergency is over.”

  • Relatedly, Government Executive cautions the federal government against rushing employees back to work citing their most recent “quarterly workforce pulse survey[]” which shows that “more than 40% of respondents stated they would seek alternative employment if current telework flexibilities were changed.”

  • Another related change, “President Biden…officially revoked the COVID-19 vaccine mandates for federal employees and contractors that had already been mired in lawsuits that prevented them from being enforced.”