From an AP report on CBS’s website:

More than 2,000 people who were falsely convicted of serious crimes have been exonerated in the United States in the past 23 years, according to a new archive compiled at two universities.

There is no official record-keeping system for exonerations of convicted criminals in the country, so academics set one up. The new national registry, or database, painstakingly assembled by the University of Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law, is the most complete list of exonerations ever compiled.

The database compiled and analyzed by the researchers contains information on 873 exonerations for which they have the most detailed evidence. The researchers are aware of nearly 1,200 other exonerations, for which they have less data.

They found that those 873 exonerated defendants spent a combined total of more than 10,000 years in prison, an average of more than 11 years each. Nine out of 10 of them are men and half are African-American.

Nearly half of the 873 exonerations were homicide cases, including 101 death sentences. Over one-third of the cases were sexual assaults.

From Politico:

The Alabama legislature approved Wednesday changes to the state’s controversial immigration law – keeping key portions intact while adding a new provision to publish the names of undocumented immigrants who appear in court, regardless of the trial’s outcome, according to reports.

The state’s House and Senate approved changes to the law that would require the Department of Homeland Security to post a list of undocumented immigrants who appeared in court for violations of state law, even if they are not eventually convicted of a crime, reports the Montgomery Advertiser.

The bill kept in place the immigration measure that has generated the most controversy: the requirement that police verify the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally, according to Reuters. . . .

The changes in the immigration law are partly due to an embarrassing incident in which a German Mercedes Benz executive was detained after failing to show proof of his immigration status – he was later released after the governor’s office intervened.

To address this, an amendment passed Wednesday would allow individuals to use a credit card or a voter ID to prove residency status if the person does not have their state driver’s license handy.

Read more here.

From CNNMoney:

 The film emperor may be striking back. For 25 years, filmmaker George Lucas tried to persuade his Marin County, Calif., neighbors to let him build a digital production studio on his ranch there, but the area’s residents thwarted the plan.

So Lucas has come up with an alternative for his Grady Ranch property: To build low-income housing on it.

In a letter posted online Lucasfilmwrote, “It is with great sadness that Skywalker Properties has decided to pull its application to build a studio facility.

Instead, the maker of some of the biggest box office successes of all time, including the “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” franchises, intends to sell the property to the Marin Community Foundation (MCF), a non-profit that has already funded more than 2,500 units of affordable housing and will explore options for developing Grady Ranch.

Lucas had applied to the county planning commission for permits to build a 260,000 square-foot compound that would be used as a digital media production studio. The company claimed the facilities would create about 600 high-paying jobs.

“The level of bitterness and anger expressed by the homeowners in Lucas Valley has convinced us that, even if we were to spend more time and acquire the necessary approvals, we would not be able to maintain a constructive relationship with our neighbors,” Lucasfilm said in its statement. . . .

It may seem as if the affordable housing project is a way for Lucas to stick it to his opposition, but Tom Peters, the CEO of the Marin County Foundation disagrees. “I know Lucas and checked with him on that point personally and directly. It was essential that I was convinced that it was not done out of spite. I would not have accepted the project if I thought it was,” he said.

Read the rest here.

From the New York Times:

THE chief judge of New York State, Jonathan Lippman, announced at a Law Day ceremony on May 1 that, starting next year, aspiring lawyers must perform 50 pro bono service hours before joining the state bar. The goal is to provide legal services to needy clients, including those facing eviction, foreclosure and domestic abuse.

Mandatory pro bono work for lawyers is a good idea. But Judge Lippman’s plan is deeply flawed, as it affects only aspiring lawyers who have not yet gained admission to the bar. . . .

The Lippman plan hurts these budding lawyers most of all. Recent law school graduates face a growing employment crisis: the Law School Transparency Data Clearinghouse lists 67 schools (out of the 185 that were scored) with full-time legal employment rates below 55 percent. At the same time, law school tuition and student debt have skyrocketed. The average 2011 law graduate from Syracuse owes $132,993, not including any debt incurred for undergraduate education. At Pace, the figure is $139,007; at New York Law School, $146,230.

After commencement, things get worse. Law graduates often borrow more money for bar preparation, to pay for both living expenses and prep courses, which can cost more than $3,000. Even graduates with good jobs lined up face tight summer budgets; many work in retail or food service to make ends meet, as do many law students. The irony is that many recent law graduates may well qualify for the free legal services Judge Lippman will bestow on New York’s poor. It is from these struggling New Yorkers that Judge Lippman demands over a week’s unpaid labor. . . .

Read more here.

Educational debt has become a crippling burden for far too many, and especially for those who want to pursue careers in public service. Equal Justice Works provides in depth information on loan repayment assistance programs and relief programs like Income-Based Repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness to help everyone pursue the career of their dreams.

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By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  First, the Friday Trivia Question is a fairly simple one.  Four of the United “States” are actually commonwealths.  Which are they?

This week:

• bad news for Florida legal services providers;
• good news for Florida legal services providers;
• the House’s proposed LSC appropriation is $328 million;
• HUD money to Vermont Legal Aid;
• the tug of war for mortgage foreclosure settlement money in AZ;
• ABA Question of the Week: Should pro bono be required?
• this D.A. has remarkable success getting people out of jail(?);
• a pro bono appeal from a West Virginia justice;
• coverage and opinion about New York requiring 50 pro bono hours of bar applicants;
• indigent defense funding needed in Massachusetts;
• indigent defense funding needed in Tennessee;
• the increasing sophistication of corporate counsel pro bono programs;
• a report on the state of legal services funding nationwide;
• legislative efforts to raise funds for Louisiana indigent defense.

The summaries:

• 5.11.12 – the Orlando Sentinel looks at the problem of the “new poor” who are, in large numbers, seeking help from Broward and Palm Beach County legal services providers.  Those providers are laboring under extraordinary budget strains even while trying to deal with increased client demand.   

• 5.10.12 – on the other hand, class-action residuals will offer some financial help to cash-strapped legal services providers in the Sunshine State.  “More than $825,000 in unclaimed settlement money is about to be donated to eight local organizations. The donations came from four Tampa law firms, which said the organizations were selected because of their public service and consumer advocacy efforts. Recipients include Bay Area Legal Services and Gulf Coast Legal Services, two groups that provide free legal counseling for people who otherwise couldn’t afford it.”  (Story from Tampa Bay Online.)

• 5.10.12 – from the Legal Services Corporation: “The U.S. House of Representatives today approved funding legislation that provides $328 million for the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) in Fiscal Year 2013, after turning back two amendments that would have further cut or eliminated funding for the Corporation. Rep. Austin Scott’s (R-Ga.) proposed amendment to the 2013 Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Appropriations bill, which would have eliminated all funding for LSC, was defeated Tuesday night by a vote of 289-122.  The House also rejected, 246-165, a proposal from fellow Georgia Republican Rep. Lynn Westmoreland to cut the Corporation’s budget to $200 million.

• 5.9.12 – some good news in Vermont.  The US Department of Housing and Urban Development today awarded more than $324,987 to Vermont Legal Aid, Inc [VLA] to assist people in Vermont who believe they have been victims of housing discrimination.  VLA will use its grant to conduct a full service, coordinated and comprehensive fair housing program of testing, targeted private enforcement actions, broad systemic investigation, engagement with the land use and transportation planning process, and collaborative efforts to raise public awareness of housing discrimination….  The competitive grants are funded through HUD’s Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP), and are part of nearly $41.18 million distributed nationwide to 99 fair housing organizations and other non-profit agencies in 35 states and the District of Columbia.  (Story from Vermont Business Magazine.)

• 5.9.12 – a debate in Arizona over the government’s distribution of national mortgage class-action settlement funds highlights the fiscal tugs of war at play in many states as cash-starved governments and public interest advocates try to wrestle – I am really maximizing this metaphor – away as much funding as possible for their causes.  “State Attorney General Tom Horne said Tuesday he has to implement an Arizona law taking $50 million from a settlement paid by mortgage lenders over their loan practices though he thinks the transfer to help balance the budget is poor public policy.  Public interest law firms are threatening to sue to block the transfer, contending the money should be reserved for helping stressed homeowners and coping with the effects of the housing collapse.”  This greatly impacts some legal services providers who would use settlement funds to aid clients in foreclosure.  (Story from Bloomberg Businessweek.)

• 5.9.12 – the ABA Journal’s Question of the Week: “Many readers and law bloggers had a strong reaction to last week’s Law Day announcement by New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman that all would-be lawyers will have to perform 50 hours of pro bono before they can get a law license in the state…. So this week, we’d like to ask you: Should all lawyers be required to do pro bono or monetarily contribute to legal services offices?

• 5.8.12 – the L.A. Times looks at Dallas (Texas) District Attorney Craig Watkins’ nationally acclaimed work on exonerating the wrongfully convicted. 

• 5.8.12 – “West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals [J]ustice Brent Benjamin is imploring attorneys to come to the aid of Legal Aid of West Virginia…..’Before the [recent round of Legal Services Corporation budget] cuts, Legal Aid only had 51 attorneys covering 55 counties…,’ Benjamin noted.  [Legal Aid was subsequently force to lay off staff and close an office.]   ‘Since the most recent cut happened, they are doing the best they can with what they’ve got. We, as a Supreme Court, are stepping up to try to help them as well as help lower income West Virginians by going to the lawyers and asking directly for help.”  (Story from The State Journal, whose tagline is “West Virginia’s Only Business Paper.  Hot Damn!”  (I added the hot damn.  I should have gone into marketing.)

• 5.7.12 – some coverage stemming from New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman’s much-publicized announcement that, starting later this year, would-be bar admitees will have to perform 50 hours of pro bono service to be licensed in New York.
  • 5.7.12 – a New York Law Journal piece looks at the raft of implementation questions that must be answered (including an interesting one from our friend Tom Maligno about whether pro bono performed in law school would count toward the 50-hour requirement);
  • 5.7.12 – likewise, Pro Bono Institute prez Esther Lardent, writing in the National Law Journal, moves past the question of policy wisdom to look at practical implementation challenges.
  • 5.3.12 – former Association of Corporate Counsel official Susan Hacket is critical of Lippman’s proposal.

• 5.7.12 – in Massachusetts, the state house is working on a bill to shore up funding for the state’s indigent defense program, whose coffers are depleted.  (Story from the Boston Herald.)

• 5.5.12 – in Memphis, two public defenders make the case for remedying a “20-year recurring state budget miscalculation that has resulted in a multimillion-dollar funding shortage for public defense in Davidson and Shelby counties.”  (Story from the Memphis Commercial Appeal.)

• 5.4.12 – the Washington Post looks at the increasing sophistication of in-house pro bono programs: “In-house attorneys have historically gotten their hands on pro bono cases through legal aid groups or law firms on an individual basis, often without systematic backing from their employers. Now that model is changing, with several major corporations such as DuPont pushing to create more structured programs for attorneys and legal staff to do pro bono work by allocating company resources and personnel to handle client calls and paperwork, and setting benchmarks for how much time should be spent doing pro bono projects. (Capital One suggests 20 hours a year; at DuPont, it’s 2 percent of total work time).” 

• 5.4.12 -the Washington Council of Lawyers, DC’s public interest bar association (of which I’m a board member), has released a report on the beleaguered state of legal services funding nationwide.  (Read the 2012 Legal Services Funding Report.) 

• 5.4.12 – the New Orleans Times-Picayune looks at efforts in the Louisiana Senate to boost funding for public defense programs.

From the Washington Post:

Federal authorities have said they plan to sue Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio and his office over allegations of civil rights violations, including the racial profiling of Latinos.

The U.S. Justice Department has been seeking an agreement requiring Arpaio’s office to train officers in how to make constitutional traffic stops, collect data on people arrested in traffic stops and reach out to Latinos to assure them that the department is there to also protect them.

Arpaio has denied the racial profiling allegations and has claimed that allowing a court monitor would mean that every policy decision would have to be cleared through an observer and would nullify his authority.

DOJ officials told a lawyer for Arpaio on April 3 that the lawman’s refusal of a court-appointed monitor was a deal-breaker that would end settlement negotiations and result in a federal lawsuit.

The “notice of intent to file civil action” came Wednesday from Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas Perez in a letter to an Arpaio lawyer. . . .

At a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Arpaio defended himself in the face of the pending lawsuit. . . .

“They’re telling me how to run my organization. I’d like to get this resolved, but I’m not going to give up my authority to the federal government. It’s as simple as that,” Arpaio added.

Last December, the DOJ released a scathing report accusing Arpaio’s office of racially profiling Latinos, basing immigration enforcement on racially charged citizen complaints and punishing Hispanic jail inmates for speaking Spanish in Arizona’s most populous county.

Read more here.

Educational debt has become a crippling burden for far too many, and especially for those who want to pursue careers in public service. Equal Justice Works provides in depth information on loan repayment assistance programs and relief programs like Income-Based Repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness to help everyone pursue the career of their dreams.

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By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  A few items of general interest before we get to the news:

1. Last week I posed the first-ever Friday Trivia Question.  My execution was flaw…ful.  I asked folks to name the three English words beginning with “dw-“.  The source of authority for this question was my own, vague memory of having been asked the question in or around 2007.  The words I wanted were “dwarf,” dwell,” and “dwindle.”  A troublemaker from Cornell Law School whom I shan’t name Karen Comstock emailed to offer “dweeb” as an answer.  Frankly I hadn’t heard the word “dweeb” since this happened.  But, on account of my abiding sense of fairness, I dusted off a dictionary.  And I beheld an entry for “dweeb.”  Finding this entry was as surprising to me as first having found a dictionary.  So, “dweeb” is fair game.  And I am one. 
   • This experience taught me to take my trivia questioning more seriously.  Next week the Friday Trivia Question will become a fixture.  Yay for us.
2. Staying with the themes of education and edification, PSLawNet released our 2012 Summer Reading List yesterday.  We asked a handful of NALP members and some other public interest lawyers for both fiction and nonfiction reads that may be of interest to students on summer break.  Not surprisingly we ended up with a terrific list with options for public interest advocates of all ages, shapes, and sizes.  Thanks to those who pitched in.
3. Lastly I wish to note how profoundly undemocratic is the District’s professional baseball team when it comes to ticket sales.  The Nationals made news earlier this year when they schemed to avoid having their seats filled with Phillies fans during the series in DC this weekend.  Why would any team wish to keep Phillies fans out?  We’re so pleasant.  DO YOU HEAR ME??  WE’RE SO DAMNED PLEASANT!!!  Anyway, I have some respect for the sheer moxie of it, but this is probably not a gauntlet the Nats should have thrown down in front of Phils fans.  We’ll soon find out.        

There’s much public interest news to review this week.  In brief:

• pro bono required to practice in NY State;
• ‘Nova Law grad secures a Fulbright to work on anti-trafficking issues;
• a Louisiana measure to boost defender funding may fall short;
• both the Philly DA and PD are seeking more $ from City Council;
• why the veto of state funding for legal services in Florida is bad;
• ditto;
• “Another Crisis Looming for Legal Aid?” in Connecticut;
• also in Connecticut, how the state’s dealing with a huge DV caseload;
• how serious a problem is law grads’ educational debt?;
• politics and policy affecting Houston’s nascent public defense program;
• Wisconsin pro bono rules relaxed to allow lawyers to help after natural disasters.

The summaries:

• 5.1.12 – pro bono will soon be required for a license to practice in New York.   The AP reports: “New York will become the first state to require lawyers to do 50 hours of pro bono work as a condition for getting a license starting next year, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman said Tuesday.  With about 10,000 people passing the New York Bar Exam annually, Lippman said that means about a half-million hours of free legal work yearly, mostly from law students. That should help fill ‘the justice gap’ for the poor, working poor ‘and what has recently been described as the near poor’ whose needs have risen sharply in a tough economy, he said.”
  • additional coverage from the New York Law Journal;
  • a New York Times editorial is supportive.
  • reaction and questions from folks in the legal services and law school communities, including the question about how these thousands of pro bono hours will be administered, tracked, etc. (from the Lower Hudson Valley Blog).

• 5.1.12 – a graduating Villanova Law student’s passion for working on anti-trafficking issues has netted him a Fulbright scholarship.  John Rafferty’s work has taken him from the Navy to a public interest scholarship at Villanova Law, and will next move him to Quito, Ecuador to work with the International Organization on Migration.  Pretty impressive.  (Story in the Main Line News.) 

• 5.1.12 – In Louisiana, a bill which raises court filing fees to generate extra funding for public defenders’ offices was diluted via an amendment in the house.  It may not provide enough funding for some offices to avoid layoffs and close budget gaps.  (Story from the Daily Iberian.)

• 5.1.12 – in Philly, both the public defender and DA are seeking additional funding from City Council as the body puts together the next fiscal year’s budget.  “Chief Public Defender Ellen Greenlee says the mayor’s proposed budget gives the Defender Association the same money for the fiscal year beginning July first that it has this year.  Greenlee says that’s unacceptable and without new money for almost two dozen new attorneys the office cannot continue.”  Story from WHYY. 

• 5.1.12 – Community Legal Services of Mid-Florida’s board chair explains why Gov. Rick Scott’s veto of funding for legal services will hurt the state.  “This is not a partisan issue. A Republican-controlled legislature passed the Florida Access to Civil Legal Assistance Act in 2002. Republican lawmakers have provided funds each year — up to $2.5 million — for the FACLA program.  Scott’s veto means that the number of legal aid attorneys statewide will drop from 400 to fewer than 280 next year, and the number will shrink even more in 2014 — even as the demand for services is growing….  On top of that, Florida TaxWatch (which is no friend of government spending) conducted a study in 2010 that found that for every $1 the FACLA program spent, nearly $14 in economic activity was generated. That means that the $2 million that Gov. Scott didn’t think was needed would not only have provided desperately needed legal assistance for the poor, but would also have generated nearly $28 million in economic activity.”  (Op-ed in the Daytona Beach News-Journal.)

• 4.30.12 – the funding plight of Tampa-based Bay Area Legal Services: “Funding for Bay Area Legal Services, which helps the poor navigate the civil court system, is at an all-time low, forcing the agency to reach into the legal community for help.  An unprecedented $1 million in cuts this year translates to a 14 percent reduction from last year’s budget. Nearly every funding source, including federal, state and local contributions and a trust fund set up by The Florida Bar Foundation, has reduced its contribution.”  (Story from Tampa Bay Online.) 

• 4.30.12 – a piece in the Connecticut Law Tribune homes in on the fiscal woes confronting legal services providers in the Nutmeg State., asking “Another Crisis Looming for Legal Aid?”  (I would argue that there’s been a sustained crisis since about 2009.)  As for state IOLTA funding, while it topped out at $20 million in 2007, it’s projected to produce less than $ 1million this year.

•  while Connecticut’s legal services providers feel funding strains, the states courts feel hte strains imposed by the domestic violence caseload.   Stakeholders met recently to explore “the unique pressures that upward of 28,000 domestic-violence cases per year exert on prosecutors, public defenders, family-relations counselors, victim’s advocates and judges in the state courthouses. Statewide, 30 percent of all criminal cases arise from domestic violence.”  Courtrooms with DV-only dockets have been helpful in boosting efficiency.  Story from the Hartford Courant. 

• Are school loans the next “debt bomb”?  I could do without the headline hyperbole, but a law management expert lays out the frightening student debt numbers that have become the norm for today’s grads and wonders what impact the weight of this burden will have.  (Here’s the Minnesota Lawyer piece.) 

• a two-part series by a Houston Chronicle columnist looks at the lawyer who most staunchly opposes the operation of Harris County’s new public defense office.  The assigned-counsel system was in place for years in Houston. It worried some observers who saw cronyism and unfairness in its administration.  But even as the public defense office has taken root, some judges still refuse to refer cases there.  Part one and part two.

• we’ll end where we began: pro bono.  Wisconsin’s high court has loosened restrictions on pro bono practice rules with the intended effect of allowing more pro bono lawyers to act in a natural disaster’s wake.  From the State Bar of Wisconsin: [The approved petition] “will amend Supreme Court rules by allowing out-of-state lawyers to practice pro bono temporarily in Wisconsin after a after a major disaster in Wisconsin.  The rule will also allow such lawyers to provide legal services in Wisconsin related to the lawyer’s practice in a jurisdiction affected by a major disaster.  The petition, filed jointly by the Board of Administrative Oversight and the State Bar of Wisconsin, is patterned after a model rule adopted by the American Bar Association after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita….”

by Kristen Pavón

Today’s the day we celebrate our commitment to the rule of law! President Dwight Eisenhower established Law Day in 1958 and 3 years later, Congress made it official.

I never celebrated Law Day while in law school (probably because it lands during finals high-time), but today, I will take a step back to think about the current state of the legal profession, public interest law, and my role in it all.

How are you celebrating Law Day 2012?

If you’re looking for some Law Day fun, check out the ABA’s Law Day page.