You may or may not have heard about the Legal Aid boycott going on in Ontario for the last 6+ months. Criminal defense lawyers have refused to take case certificates (more on this later) for guns, gangs, and homicide cases to protest the low government-set billing rates. The boycott highlights the current economic struggles of legal aid and public defense programs in Canada, which are similar in many ways to those in the United States.

Learn more about the Canadian Legal Aid system and the ongoing boycott.

The Washington Post’s Supreme Court reporter, Robert Barnes, brings observers up to speed with a piece on the Court’s return to session after the holiday break. 

Constitutional scholars and those in the political arena are eager for the court to issue a decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission.  As Barnes notes, a case that began with a relatively narrow question about the underwriting of a highly critical “documentary” about Hillary Clinton during the last campaign season took on much broader dimensions when the Court chose to expand its examination to whether a longtime ban on certain corporate and union campaign contributions passes constitutional muster:

The court heard oral arguments on the original question in March 2009, but adjourned in June without a decision. Instead, the justices said they would consider the larger question of whether it is constitutional to ban corporations and labor unions from drawing funds from their general treasuries to support or oppose candidates.

Congress for decades has outlawed such expenditures, and 22 states have similar bans. Both sides agree that a ruling saying such restrictions are unconstitutional would mean a sea change in the way political campaigns are funded.

The court’s decision to hear the larger question in September, in advance of its regular term, was seen as a possible attempt to expedite the ruling before the midterm primary season. But not much time is left; Illinois will hold elections on Feb. 2.

Three other closely watched matters that the court will hear this spring involve a 2nd Amendment case challenging the authority of municipalities and states to restrict gun ownership, a case dealing with criminal defendants’ rights to call crime lab technicians to the stand to challenge their conclusions, and an NFL anti-trust case.

Stay informed with PSLawNet’s weekly aggregation of public interest news stories from around the country.

• 1.8.10 – Albany Times-Union – Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, New York’s highest-ranking jurist, testified in front of the state legislature about the dire need for increased legal services funding.  While the state court system has already, in an unprecedented move, allocated $15 million to shore up funding, Lippman highlighted dramatic shortfalls in IOLA funding and noted that “[w]e cannot and will not stand idly by as legal services programs are forced to shut their doors, leaving our most vulnerable citizens without help in their time of greatest need.”  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: Additionally, the North Country Gazette reports that Jonathan E. Gradess, executive director of the New York State Defenders Association, expressed support at the hearings for bolstering civil legal services funding.  Interestingly, Gradess “also pointed out that calls for a ‘civil Gideon’…would be a ‘pyrrhic victory’ if modeled on the current implementation of…Gideon v. Wainwright.”  This likely reflects the view by many in the indigent defense community that Gideon’s promise has not been achieved because public defense programs are inadequately staffed and under-resourced.]

• 1.8.10 – Arizona Daily Star – in the wake of the Tucson City Council’s decision to slash the city budget by $25 million, the city prosecutor will lay off 3 of her office’s 38 attorneys.  The layoffs “will force the elimination of the Mental Health Court, a highly touted program devoted to keeping mentally ill people out of jail…[and] the elimination of the neighborhood prosecution team, which handles…neighborhood nuisance issues.”  The courthouse administrators and public defender’s office avoided layoffs.  Link to article.

• 1.5.10 – Daytona Beach News-Journal – Equal Justice Works Fellow Shelly Campbell is working to ensure that veterans who face substance abuse problems, homelessness, and psychological disorders are able to access the full range of benefits to which they are entitled.  Link to article.

After the jump, read about legal services funding initiatives, a call from two state’s chief judges to allow limited-scope representation of low-income clients, a re-entry program for recently released federal inmates, and more.

As casualties of the recession, more and more individuals and families are unable to afford legal counsel for civil matters – like home foreclosures, debt collection actions, and divorces – that could have a huge impact on their welfare.  The extraordinary strain on the civil legal services community’s infrastructure, and also on courthouse staffs, has been documented in Washington, DC, Connecticut, Maryland, Nevada, and elsewhere.

Yesterday’s New York Times reports that in a effort to make more legal services available to New Yorkers in need, the state hopes to attract retired attorneys to a new volunteer program, matching them with legal services providers to work with clients.

“…officials changed the state’s rules this week to add a new category of lawyer, attorney emeritus, that will free lawyers of some burdens of full-time practice, like paying for malpractice insurance, while channeling them to dozens of legal programs around the state that represent low-income people without charge. Until now, lawyers were required to register with the state as either active or retired.”

According to a NYC Legal Aid Society attorney who sees potential in the project, the Society “was turning away eight of every nine people who come to it seeking legal help in civil cases.”  Recruiting experienced practitioners to help narrow the justice gap and to aid clients in efficiently navigating the court system could pay dividends for overextended public interest lawyers, judges, and courthouse officials.

The New York Times wrote Monday about the American Law Institute’s (ALI) disavowal of the death penalty last fall, as well as other changes and developments in capital punishment-related law. This is a nice summary of the history of the modern death penalty and a bit of a look forward for what might be ahead. Must-read for anybody interested in criminal law or the death penalty.

As the number of threats made against federal judges and prosecutors increases – more than doubling since 2003 – a Justice Department report has identified “critical deficiencies” in its own protection system, according to the Washington Post.

The Indiana Supreme Court recently announced that it would award $1.5 million in grants to legal aid providers in the state in 2010 – the first half to be distributed in January. Read more about this development here.

The National Law Journal reports on the Supreme Court’s dismissal of a case challenging the principle of full prosecutorial immunity after the parties came to a monetary settlement at end of 2009.

As was reported by the Washington Post when the case was argued at the Supreme Court last November, two former prosecutors in Iowa were alleged to have failed to disclose exculpatory evidence (another suspect) during a murder investigation and to have made a star witness of a minor who had key facts wrong.  Ultimately two men were jailed for 25 years, but were later released when evidence of the other suspect surfaced.  The Supreme Court was to determine whether, if the prosecutors in fact mishandled evidence during the pre-trial criminal investigation, they could be sued for it, or whether the absolute immunity that prosecutors enjoy for conduct in the courtroom extends to pre-trial investigatory work.  The Iowa-based Daily Nonpareil had also covered the case’s move to the Supreme Court.

As regards the Court’s dismissal of the case, the NLJ quotes J. Douglas McCalla, counsel for one of the plaintiffs, as saying, “I would have liked to see what the Supreme Court had to say about the case.” But “there are a lot of risks in that,” he added. “This is a good solution for my client.”

We posted a link earlier to an article about the increase in the use of food stamps, and accompanying decline in the stigma attached to them. This seemed like a positive response of the social safety net to the economic crisis.  However, the New York Times reported this weekend that there has been a 50% increase in the past two years in the number of people reporting food stamps as their only source of income – no TANF (cash welfare assistance), no unemployment, no nothing. The Times estimates that about 6 million people now survive on food stamps alone. After the major welfare reform efforts of the mid-90s, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) rolls have decreased to about 75% of their 1990s and have not increased substantially during the recession. We also linked earlier to an op-ed on the role of TANF during the recession.

Some policy advocates are increasingly concerned about this reliance on the food stamp program. ‘“The food-stamp program is being asked to do too much,” said James Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, a Washington advocacy group. “People need income support.”’ The FRAC has substantial resources on the current state of hunger in the United States, as well as federal programs to address hunger. And when food stamps are an increasingly important factor in families’ survival, lawsuits ensuring the timely processing of applications (such as this one in Texas) become ever more important.

The ABA Young Lawyers Division’s January 2010 Young Lawyer newsletter includes a piece on the civil-right-to-counsel (or “civil Gideon”) movement.  John Pollock, the ABA Section of Litigation’s Civil Right to Counsel Fellow, notes that the Gideon’s promise of counsel for criminal defendants has not extended to litigants in civil matters, even when their liberty and welfare hang in the balance:

“…the Sixth Amendment’s right to counsel does not reach civil cases, and in 1981 the Supreme Court held in Lassiter v. Dep’t of Social Services that there is a presumption against a due process right to appointed counsel in civil cases except where physical liberty (confinement) is at stake. Under Lassiter, even when confinement is a possibility in a civil case, a court must balance the strength of the litigant’s interest, the risk of error, and the state’s interest to determine whether it should appoint counsel.”

Pollock goes on to write about the work of the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel, whose supporters “drive the litigation, education, and legislative advocacy efforts around this issue.” 

Civil Gideon proponents had received some good news last October when California was poised to implement a pilot program guaranteeing access to counsel in some civil cases.  The program prompted foes to predict an increase in litigation and other costs, while supporters argued that the opposite would occur as lawyers for the poor would help them to better navigate the justice system and ease the burden on courts.  Read Wall Street Journal coverage of that development in “Civil Gideon Trumpets Legal Discord.”  Additional coverage of the program came from the North County Times of Southern California.