By Jamie Bence

On July 4, the Philadelphia Inquirer featured a story about Kevin Harden Jr., whose path from teenage criminal to Philadelphia prosecutor in just 7 years has as many twists and turns as one might expect:

Harden is a rarity among city prosecutors – someone who lived both sides of the law, went straight, and now prosecutes people for doing the kinds of things he once did.

That it turned out this way is something Harden credits to coincidence, key interventions by outsiders, and getting shot.

It’s a past – seven arrests, including four for drugs – that Harden does not advertise but also does not hide.

It also has made for a sometimes rough seven months at the prosecutor’s office.

In several articles about what it has called “turmoil” in the District Attorney’s Office, the Philadelphia Daily News has quoted unnamed insider sources referring to Harden as one of several “questionable hires” by Seth Williams since his election in 2009.

It’s a tag Williams derides.

Williams called Harden well-qualified and his life story “amazing.”

“Everyone in government is talking about how we need to give people second chances,” Williams said. “I’d be pretty disingenuous if I didn’t stand for that proposition myself.”

As a law student at Temple University, Harden became active in youth antiviolence activism, drawing from his earlier mistakes.  The turning point in his former life, he says, came when he was shot 5 times while visiting his brother at a community event:

Harden said he realized that he was shot – no one was arrested – not because of what he did but because of what neighborhood folks assumed he still was: a drug dealer.

“It wasn’t everybody else,” Harden said. “It’s your ability to do what’s right. There’s a line that has to be walked.”

Except for a 2007 arrest after an auto accident in Kutztown, where he was studying criminal justice at the university – he pleaded guilty to not having insurance and paid for damage to the other car – Harden has walked that line since.

To read the full story, click here.

By: Steve Grumm

Some unusual content coming from the inimitable Above the Law blog: an interview with Jeh Johnson, the General Counsel at the Pentagon.  The conversation between Johnson and AtL’s David Lat is wide-ranging, and makes for a good read.  A lot of discussion about Johnson’s career path and his sliding between the private and public sectors.

I asked: Is Johnson enjoying his service as General Counsel of the Defense Department?

“Am I having fun? No, I’m not having fun,” said Johnson, good-naturedly. “Public service is not a frolic or a sabbatical. There are over 10,000 lawyers in DoD, I oversee their work, and I make less than a first year associate at Paul Weiss. ‘Enjoy’ is not the right word.”

So why did Johnson leave his (extremely lucrative) Paul Weiss partnership to take up this post?

“Loyalty to this President, commitment to public service and the safety of our country, and never having a dull day are what keep me going,” he said. “There is nothing else I’d rather be doing right now. It’s not exactly fun, but it is fulfilling and demanding, and I do it out of a sense of public service.”

By Lauren Forbes

Yesterday, a New York Times Editorial discussed the hazy lines between ethics, politics, and the Supreme Court.  In thinking about issues like these, we revisit our nation’s inception.

The framers of the Constitution envisioned law as having authority apart from politics. They gave justices life tenure so they would be free to upset the powerful and have no need to cultivate political support. Our legal system was designed to set law apart from politics precisely because they are so closely tied.

The piece focuses on how the ethical judgments of the Supreme Court justices have became an important issue in the just completed term. It asserts:

The court cannot maintain its legitimacy as guardian of the rule of law when justices behave like politicians. Yet, in several instances, justices acted in ways that weakened the court’s reputation for being independent and impartial.

The editorial references Justices Scalia and Alito inappropriately appearing at political events, but focuses more on the most recent term’s rulings that reveal the court’s fundamental inclination to the right,

…with the conservative majority further expanding the ability of the wealthy to prevail in electoral politics and the prerogatives of businesses against the interests of consumers and workers

…

It struck down public matching funds in Arizona’s campaign finance system, showing again a contempt for laws that provide some balance to the unlimited amounts of money flooding the political system.

…

It tore down the ability of citizens to hold prosecutors’ offices accountable for failing to train their lawyers, even when prosecutors hide exculpatory evidence and send innocent people to prison.

Ultimately, the piece urges the justices to address doubts about the court’s legitimacy by making themselves accountable to the code of conduct.  Then, rulings would more likely be seen as separate from politics and convincing as law.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Independence Day Weekend, Dear Readers!  Here in the nation’s capital, we will celebrate modern democracy with barbeques, fireworks, debt ceiling debate madness, Colbert Super PAC, and humidity.  Yay!  Kidding aside, we wish you a happy and safe weekend.  Now, returning to our democratic system of government, let’s catch up on news related to the pursuit of equal justice for all.    

This week: a libertarian look at public defender caseloads; the Public Defender Corps is up and runnin’; DOJ still working through the Bush-era “politics in hiring” scandal; IOLTA funds disbursed in the Hawkeye State; in CA, child care funding for welfare-to-work families reinstated after cuts; have more law grads been going into public interest work in the past 20 years?; tough times for the Cleveland Legal Aid Society and other Ohio organizations which rely on IOLTA funding. 

• July, 2011 – a piece in this month’s edition of Reason, a libertarian journal, highlights the case overload pressing down upon many public defenders, forcing them to triage cases and work out quick pleas rather than being able to delve into factual investigations that may help their clients.  The piece also notes that appointed counsel are often under-compensated for their work.

• 6.29.11 – the Public Defender Corps, a program co-managed by Equal Justice Works and the Southern Public Defender Training Center, is up and running.  The Rochester City Paper (in the lovely Finger Lakes region of New York) reports on two incoming fellows: “Two young attorneys will serve three-year fellowships in the Monroe County Public Defender’s Office: part of a new national program focused on training newer attorneys in public interest law.  Katherine Higgins, a Cornell Law School graduate, and Felipe Alexandre, a graduate of the Indiana University School of Law, will start in the defender’s office in August ”  There are presently 18 Public Defender Corps fellows working in 12 defenders’ offices, according to the article.  Equal Justice Works’s website has more info on the Public Defender Corps.

• 6.28.11 – No liberals need apply!  The legal battle over alleged political vetting of job candidates in the Bush Administration DOJ continues.  According to the Blog of the Legal Times: “The Justice Department is urging a federal judge in Washington to reject a suit that alleges department officials in 2006 used job candidates’ political and ideological affiliation to decide whether to grant interviews to applicants. The claims from three plaintiffs, each a former applicant for the Justice Department’s highly competitive Honors Program, stem from an internal DOJ report published in 2008 that found members of a screening committee improperly examined political and ideological affiliation in rejecting candidates.”

• 6.28.11 – the Hawkeye State’s high court is spreading the cash around in the legal services community. Eastern Iowa News Now reports: “Non-profit programs providing legal aid to low-income Iowans with civil legal problems got a boost today with the Iowa Supreme Court’s announcement of more than $321,000 in grants for those organizations. The court has awarded grants to 15 organizations statewide, including Cedar Rapids-based Kids First Law Center” as well as Iowa Legal Aid and the Iowa State Bar Association Public Service Project.”  The grants come from IOLTA fund proceeds.

• 6.27.11 – chalk up a win for a sextet of public interest organizations which sued the (sometimes-great) State of California in an effort to preserve child care services for wage-earners who have made the welfare-to-work move.  The Lake County News has the scoop: “The state of California agreed that the CalWORKS Stage 3 program will continue to offer child care services for parents who have successfully transitioned off welfare but whose wages are still too low to cover child care.  The settlement affects the families of more than 56,000 California children who had been told they would lose their child care last October, as Lake County News has reported.  The suit was brought by the Public Interest Law Project, the Child Care Law Center, the Western Center on Law & Poverty, Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County, Public Counsel Law Center and Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. “

• 6.27.11 – “Public Interest Law Becoming a Hot Ticket,” according to a headlining piece in the National Law Journal.  Present employment market woes notwithstanding, the article looks at a 20-year shift on law school campuses that has led to more robust public interest career advising programs, LRAPs, and clinical programs, as well as the advent of postgraduate fellowship funders like Equal Justice Works and the Skadden Foundation.  The result, according to the piece, is more prestige attached to public interest career paths, and an increase in the number of grads who pursue those paths.  The article leans heavily on NALP data showing an uptick in the percentage of law grads taking public interest jobs – citing a growth from 2.1% in 1990 to 6.7% in 2010 (although some of that growth is attributable to a data classification change on NALP’s end, and some of the most recent data likely reflect the increase in law school graduate bridge programs which place graduates in public interest positions.)

• 6.27.11 – A Crain’s Cleveland Business article (it’s password-protected, so you’ll just have to trust me on this one) looks at the nosedive that Ohio IOLTA funding has taken – a 72% drop since 2007 – and its impact on legal services providers, particularly the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland:  “IOLTA revenue for the Legal Aid Society…had fallen by last year to $928,000 from $3.38 million in 2007.”   This has impacted staffing; the Legal Aid Society froze salaries in early 2010 and hasn’t hired an attorney in the past couple of years.  And this, in turn, impacts the growing numbers of would-be clients who must be turned away for lack of resources to help them.

By Jamie Bence and Lauren Forbes

Howdy, folks! Every Thursday, the PSLawNet Blog posts a compilation of some of our favorite posts from the public interest blogosphere. Here’s what looks good this week:

• 6.24.2011– Equal Justice Works has some ideas for helping your child get through college debt free, with some planning.
• 6.27.2011– The Center for Probono Exchange has 30 ways state bar associations can support probono.
• 6.27.2011 – Heather Jarvis explains why friends don’t let friends borrow private loans, and their impact on public interest loan forgiveness.
• 6.27.2011 – Amnesty International explains the potential impact of California’s new bill to end the state’s death penalty (the ACLU has a similar post earlier last week).
• 6.28.2011 Heather Jarvis also features a piece on  Jonathan Glater.  A University of California, Irvine School of Law professor, Glater believes that lawmakers should help keep higher education within the financial reach of those students who seek it by reducing the need for private student loans.

By Jamie Bence

Congratulations to our friends at Indiana University School of Law! Their Program in International Human Rights has been awarded “special consultative status” by the United Nations, according to Law.com.

The Program, which was founded in 1997, has researched numerous human rights violations around the world, sending students to New York and Geneva to share their findings with the United Nations. This designation will give students additional access to UN resources and, the school hopes, continue to draw aspiring human rights advocates to the campus.

The successful end to a 5 year application process joins the Program for International Human Rights with 2,000 organizations in over 200 countries, which serve as special consults to the U.N.

By Jamie Bence

The current Department of Justice has stated its views on the ongoing controversy surrounding alleged politicization of hiring during the 2006 Department of Justice Honors hiring cycle, according to The Blog of Legal Times.

In court papers filed Monday night, DOJ lawyers said the Office of the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility report on the politicization of the hiring of career lawyers “is completely silent as to the requirements of the Privacy Act. Whatever misdeeds the report highlights, it says nothing about whether Esther McDonald ever created the specific records that form the basis of this dispute.”

Daniel Metcalfe, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a statement this afternoon: “The Justice Department’s filing blithely chooses to ignore the legal effect of its gross evidence destruction, taking positions so extreme that they themselves practically prove the merits of plaintiffs’ case. Plaintiffs look forward to pointing this out in great detail.”

The lawsuit is expected to be heard in the Washington District Court this coming October.

By: Steve Grumm (with big assists from Lauren Forbes and Jamie Bence)

Happy Friday, dear readers!  The bulletin was on vacation last week, so today we bring you two weeks of news.  Featured: legal services office closure threat in TN; an all-star panel tackles the civil justice gap; how could a MN state government shutdown impact indigent defense?; NY indigent defense programs will save some coin, courtesy of the state legislature; an access-to-justice conference today in Honolulu; SCOTUS says no right to counsel in civil contempt proceeding; wrongful convictions in IL have cost taxpayers millions; CA’s capital punishment program has done the same to Golden State taxpayers; also in CA, a new court diversionary program to benefit the homeless; the state high court acts to channel funding to legal services in Hawaii; NELP launches a new website for fair wage advocates; an innovative program in Oregon pairs law grads with public interest advocates to help the former build skills; a new medical-legal partnership in Arkansas; more funding woes in TN; after a state funding cut, local officials scramble to help fund Jacksonville Area Legal Aid in FL; in NC, Pisgah Legal Services loses some funding in political spat; a legal clinic in Mexico does some groundbreaking work toward promoting the rule of law; a great primer on the current state of Legal Services Corp. funding; the Missouri indigent defense crisis has victims.

• 6.24.11 – a potential legal services office closure in Tennessee.  The Cleveland Daily Bulletin reports that, due to funding pressures, Legal Aid of East Tennessee may close its Bradley County office. LAET is taking last-ditch measures to try to avoid a closure, but things don’t look great and they will make a decision sometime in 2011.  (And see below for more bad news for another Tennessee legal services program.)

• 6.22.11 – I had a chance to attend a terrific program called “Closing the Justice Gap,” hosted by the Center for American Progress.  I’m hoping to do a write-up on it later.  Suffice to say for now, though, the program panelists have all penned white papers on the access-to-justice crisis.  The papers, from different angles, look at the significant barriers facing poor people who try to access the justice system, and they propose solutions toward knocking down those barriers.  All four papers are worth a read:
•  Grounds for Objection by Joy Moses, a senior policy analyst at the Center for American Progress;
• The Justice Gap by Alan Houseman, executive director at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) – and speaking of CLASP, scroll down to see a terrific update on Legal Services Corporation funding from CLASP’s Linda Perle;
• When Second Best is the Best We Can Do, by Prof. Peter Edelman of Georgetown Univ. Law Center;
• Access to Evidence, by a team of authors from Harvard Law School and Yale Law School.

• 6.22.11 – the Detroit Lakes Tribune (don’t be fooled, it’s in Minnesota) reports on the question of whether a Minnesota state government shutdown, which may take effect on July 1, could mean that the criminal justice system goes awry because public defenders are not allowed to work: “The Minnesota Board of Public Defense is concerned about the effects of government shutdown on Minnesota’s judicial system, and has asked a district judge to include the public defender system with other essential state functions.  [According to an official w/ the BPD,] a shutdown on July 1 could mean that people accused of minor offenses will have to sit in jail for three days because there’s no judge to let them out. Or worse, that people accused of serious crimes will go free, either for lack of a public defender or failure by the state to meet its requirement for a timely trial.”  The piece also highlights how badly the recession has impacted the state’s defenders.  Three years ago the BPD had 421 attorneys; now it t has 347.

• 6.22.11 – the NewsLI website (from Lawwnng Eye-land, NY) reports that the state legislature passed a fee waiver that should benefit public defense programs, and the counties that fund them: New York State Senate today gave final legislative passage to legislation, sponsored by Senator Charles J. Fuschillo, Jr. (R-Merrick), to help counties save money in providing public defense services to individuals who cannot afford an attorney.  The legislation (S5474) would exempt legal aid societies from having to pay a fee to search DMV records in public defense cases. This exemption would provide savings to the counties who fund the services provided by legal aid societies.”

• 6.20.11 – um, my invitation to the access-to-justice conference taking place today in Honolulu must have been lost in the mail.  The Pacific Business News notes that the Hawaii Access to Justice Conference will “deep-dive into the major issues affecting access to civil legal services in Hawaii for underserved populations.  Among the most pressing issues to be tackled at this year’s conference is the search for more funding sources for legal services providers that cater to these groups — organizations such as Legal Aid Society of Hawaii , the Hawaii Justice Foundation and the Mediation Center of the Pacific — which were hit hard in the economic downturn when government funding for their programs was slashed.”  The Aloha State’s AtJ Commission was created in 2008.  Here’s a link to their most recent report, from 2010.  And see a few stories down for some good funding news for Hawaii legal services providers…

• 6.20.11 – the National Law Journal reports on a potential setback for Civil Gideon advocates.  In an opinion issued in the matter of Turner v. Rogers this week, SCOTUS came down against extending the right to counsel to a defendant in a civil contempt proceeding.  From NLJ (article may be pw-protected): “On the question of right to counsel [a decision having been reached on other grounds], [Justice] Breyer wrote that there was little precedent to guide the Court. For example, in a 1967 case, the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause requires states to pay for counsel in a civil ‘juvenile delinquency’ proceeding, but that case was similar to a criminal prosecution. Breyer wrote that three reasons argue against providing counsel to child-support defendants like Turner: the proceedings are ‘sufficiently straightforward’ that a lawyer isn’t necessary; the custodial parent often doesn’t have a lawyer and could be disadvantaged; and other procedural safeguards could given the defendant sufficient due process.”  The specific facts of this case are nuanced and very important to the decision.  The Turner v. Rogers decision is available in full on the SCOTUS website.

• 6.20.11 – a different National Law Journal piece reports on a study out of Chicago finding the cost to the public of wrongful convictions in Illinois over the past two decades to have topped $200 million:  “Wrongful convictions don’t just harm those who spend time in jail for crimes they didn’t commit and their families. They also come at a hefty cost to the public, according to a study by the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law and the Better Government Association, a Chicago-based good-government group.
  The study concluded that wrongful convictions for violent crimes in Illinois have cost taxpayers more than $214 million since 1989. Those wrongful convictions also resulted in people later proven innocent spending more than 900 years in prison…. Researchers calculated the financial toll by tallying the cost of incarceration, compensation to those wrongfully convicted and civil litigation costs. Settlement payments represented the largest portion of the bill, at nearly $160 million. Another $31.6 million was spent to hire private attorneys to defend the government against civil suits, while jail and prison costs totaled $18.5 million. State compensation payments came to $8.2 million.”  Here’s a link to the report on the Better Government Association’s website.

• 6.20.11 – as noted above, putting the wrong people in jail costs Illinois taxpayers a lot of money.  According to a Los Angeles Times article, maintaining California’s capital punishment system is also a bit pricey: “Taxpayers have spent more than $4 billion on capital punishment in California since it was reinstated in 1978, or about $308 million for each of the 13 executions carried out since then, according to a comprehensive analysis of the death penalty’s costs.  The examination of state, federal and local expenditures for capital cases, conducted over three years by a senior federal judge and a law professor, estimated that the additional costs of capital trials, enhanced security on death row and legal representation for the condemned adds $184 million to the budget each year…. The authors outline three options for voters to end the current reality of spiraling costs and infrequent executions: fully preserve capital punishment with about $85 million more in funding for courts and lawyers each year; reduce the number of death penalty-eligible crimes for an annual savings of $55 million; or abolish capital punishment and save taxpayers about $1 billion every five or six years.”

• 6.18.11 -also in California, the Marin Independent Journal reports on a new, diversionary program to help the homeless deal with minor legal infractions outside of court:  “The Marin Community Court, a collaboration among Legal Aid of Marin, the St. Vincent de Paul Society of Marin County and the Marin County Superior Court, has held three sessions [since its launch in April].”  One of the program’s driving motivations is helping the homeless and those struggling with housing to avoid the spiral of accumulating legal fines and penalties that begins when they can not afford to resolve a problem at the outset.  The Community Court program includes one-on-one counseling sessions between a participant and an attorney, and then a “hearing” which often results in sentencing that focuses on treatment and support services rather than sanctions.  (A note to the law student readers who are interested in postgraduate fellowship proposals:  If I were in your shoes I would give serious thought to proposals that help poor people more efficiently navigate the justice system, like either diversionary programs or courthouse resource centers for pro se litigants.  There are a lot of people these days who can’t afford a lawyer, and there are a lot of courthouse officials looking for ways to keep the wheels of justice turning smoothly by helping these people navigate the system as efficiently, and as cheaply, as possible.)

• 6.17.11 – TheHonolulu Star Advertiser reports that Hawaiian legal services providers are due to benefit from class-action residual funds: “A rule adopted by the Hawaii Supreme Court helps clear the way for money left over from class-action lawsuits to be given to nonprofit groups that provide legal services to the poor. The rule takes effect July 1 and provides guidance on how to distribute money from lawsuits after the plaintiffs, attorney fees and expenses have been paid. Those residual funds include money for plaintiffs who cannot be located or who don’t file claims….  The groups that would qualify for the money under the high court rule include the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii, the University of Hawaii Elder Law Program, Voluntary Legal Services Hawaii and the Domestic Violence Action Center.”

• 6.17.11 – the National Employment Law Project has launched a  new website – Raise the Minimum Wage – focused on, well, raising the minimum wage.  It’s an easy-to-navigate site with a broad array of resources, news items, and data for fair wage advocates or those who wish to learn more about the cause.

• 6.17.2011- The ABA Journal reports that a new program in Oregon for recently graduated lawyers is receiving overwhelming response. Announced last month, the Practical Skills through Public Service Program pairs Oregon law school graduates with public interest attorneys, in hopes of giving young practitioners the opportunity to learn by doing. The Oregonian reports that this program is part of a larger effort in the state to prepare new law grads for solo practice, in light of diminishing offers from law firms.

• 6.17.2011- A new medical-legal partnership in Arkansas aims to improve access to healthcare and education for at-risk children in the state. Walmart and Legal Aid of Arkansas have teamed up to provide legal assistance to children and families staying at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital, providing holistic advice and guidance to help children and families get back on track. KTHV notes: “Direct access to legal services will help many families address obstacles to good health and continuing recovery. Attorneys can help families who need utility service recovery for the child’s home care, assistance negotiating with a landlord over the environment of an apartment or even special educational testing.”

• 6.16.2011- Just four attorneys will remain to assist clients at Northeast Tennessee Legal Aid after the end of this month. Federal budget cuts coupled with dwindling grants and donations have caused the office to lay off one third of its attorneys, including an associate director, according to TriCities News.

• 6.15.2011- The Jacksonville Daily Record calls the new ethics commission now in place for the city government “a promise kept.” In a unanimous vote after several months of heated debate, the city council voted to reinstate an ethics code and ultimately create an independent Office of Ethics, Compliance and Oversight. In the same session, the council considered a bill to impose a $50 court fee to benefit Jacksonville Legal Aid, a measure supported by Fourth Circuit Judge Donald Moran and intended to help offset decreased funding from the Florida Bar Foundation and the state legislature. “The funds from the court fee would be used to provide free legal services for the disadvantaged through JALA, including services to domestic violence victims, the mentally ill or disabled, the un-deremployed or unemployed, residents facing landlord/tenant issues or homelessness, foreclosure-related educational, mediation and defense programs, and the elderly.” The council will vote on the measure during its June 28^th meeting.

• 6.15.11 Sadly, in North Carolina, the Henderson County Board of Commissioners voted to discontinue county funding for nonprofit Pisgah Legal Services at the request of Chairman Mike Edney. PLS provides free civil legal aid to help low-income people avoid homelessness, escape domestic violence, access health care and meet other basic needs.  At the meeting, Edney, an attorney, said PLS “does provide some benefit to our community,” particularly in the area of domestic violence, but wanted to withdraw the $16,745 in county funding for 2011-12 partly because PLS sometimes “oversteps its bounds,” such as getting attorney’s fees out of landlords.

• 6.14.11 – the Los Angeles Times profiles the work of a novel legal clinic in Mexico City, through which law students have achieved groundbreaking results for their clients in a justice system which has a tenuous relationship with the rule of law: “The clinic is part of a Mexico City university called the Center for Economic Research and Teaching, or CIDE. The center’s legal studies program combines law school training with hands-on public interest advocacy, a novel field in a nation where many attorneys are poorly trained and their best weapon is often a bribe…. Students, guided by [Professor Javier] Angulo and another staff lawyer, work on the cases for free. Many of them probe uncharted terrain and have yielded legal precedents or led to new laws, such as one easing the penalty for abortions.  As Mexico works to cultivate a fully functioning democracy, the 6-year-old clinic is an effort to modernize a system long viewed as a factory of injustice.”

• 6.14.11 CLASP’s Legal Services Corporation update reiterates the uncertainty and disconcerting impact that the proposed cuts would have. LSC has asked Congress to appropriate $516.5 million for FY 2012.  President Obama’s budget request sought $450 million for LSC.  However, during the April 5, 2011, hearing of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies (CJS) on the FY 2012 LSC budget, there was again discussion of returning LSC funding to the FY 2008 level — all in the name of deficit reduction.  CLASP is working to increase the LSC funding level in the Senate and is hopeful that the Senate will adopt a funding level close to the President’s request of $450 million.   given the slow pace of events to date, and the need for Congress to act to raise the debt ceiling before August 2, there is unlikely to be a conclusive action on LSC’s FY 2012 funding before September.

• 6.14.11 In Missouri, Jared Blacksher is caught in the middle of a public defender debate.  Last year, Blacksher, 22, reached a plea deal with prosecutors that would have put him in a drug treatment program.  In July 2010, Blacksher was booked into the Christian County Jail on charges of burglary and forgery. He and prosecutors reached a plea agreement that would have given him 120 days in a drug treatment program in the Missouri Department of Corrections, which would have ended in January. However, he never got a chance to enter the program — his was one of the first cases the Missouri Supreme Court put on hold in 2010 during debate over the Missouri public defender system, putting him in jail. Assistant Prosecutor Ben Miller said Blacksher’s case is an unfortunate one that could have been prevented had he been able to take advantage of a plea agreement last year.

By Lauren Forbes and Jamie Bence

Howdy, folks! Every Thursday, the PSLawNet Blog posts a compilation of some of our favorite posts from the public interest blogosphere. Here’s what looks good this week:

• Many new law grads might be thinking about their options for loan repayment, and Equal Justice Works has some options to look into if you’re trying to decide how to manage your debt.
• The Legal Aid Society of DC’s blog breaks down this week’s Supreme Court Decision rejecting right to counsel for child support respondents, and why the decision could have an unexpected impact in the long term.
• DePaul Law Center’s Career Services Blog features some interesting public defender resources for students considering a career in criminal law.
• In a time when government funding and private grants are continuing to plummet, 275,00 nonprofits have lost their tax-exempt status, the Not for Profit/Exempt Organizations Blog explains.
• Technola breaks down the results of a new study and explains why online resources are more important for Legal Aid Providers than ever before.
• The ACLU Blog reports on the staggering number of incarcerated persons who committed crimes while they were children, and efforts to reform the system for juvenile offenders.

By Jamie Bence

A new piece from the National Law Journal reports on a study out of Chicago finding the cost to the public of wrongful convictions in Illinois over the past two decades to have topped $200 million. The National Law Journal concludes:

Wrongful convictions don’t just harm those who spend time in jail for crimes they didn’t commit and their families. They also come at a hefty cost to the public, according to a study by the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law and the Better Government Association, a Chicago-based good-government group.

Here are a few of the most striking statistics from the report:

• The study concluded that wrongful convictions for violent crimes in Illinois have cost taxpayers more than $214 million since 1989 (Researchers calculated the financial toll by tallying the cost of incarceration, compensation to those wrongfully convicted and civil litigation costs).
• Those wrongful convictions also resulted in people later proven innocent spending more than 900 years in prison.
• Settlement payments represented the largest portion of the bill, at nearly $160 million.
• Another $31.6 million was spent to hire private attorneys to defend the government against civil suits,
• Jail and prison costs for wrongful convictions totaled $18.5 million.
• State compensation payments came to $8.2 million.

For more of the alarming results, check out the Better Government Association’s report on their website.