by Ashley Matthews

Tired of using hornbooks and hand-me-down outlines to study criminal law?

Nathaniel Burney offers an entertaining and non-traditional alternative. Using his own collection of anecdotal drawings, Burney started a web series of legal cartoons meant to explore concepts dealing with criminal law – then appropriately titled “The Criminal Lawyer’s Guide to Criminal Law”. Now, all 17 installments of his drawings are available  in “The Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law,” a beautifully drawn 260-page book that addresses everything from the legal definition of a crime to sentence enhancements for terrorism.

For your personal enjoyment, here’s a small taste of the Introduction:

Cheers to legal cartoons! The book can be purchased from Jones McClure Publishing.

by Ashley Matthews

Does law school have you feeling down?

If so, you’re not alone. According to a recent National Law Journal special report  on stressed out students, roughly 40% of law students show signs of depression by their 3L year – surpassing the rate of depression among medical students. Although law school has always had a demanding reputation, the financial pressure to get a job and repay loans in a tough economy has student anxiety at an all-time high.

This upsurge in stress has led to an increase in “wellness” programs at law schools around the country. Whether through on-campus yoga sessions or meditative seminars, these programs offer holistic guidance on coping with stress as a law student.

In addition to information about the wellness trend on law school campuses, the National Law Journal features an article on managing law school workloads and a law school survival guide with advice from “recovering law students”.

There’s help outside the confines of your law school campus as well. The Jed Foundation partnered up with the Dave Nee Foundation – which was created after the 2005 suicide of a Fordham University School of Law student – to launch LawLifeline, a website featuring helpful articles on mental health, and how to combat disorders like depression and anxiety.

Click here to read the full National Law Journal special report!

by Ashley Matthews

With budget cuts and staff reductions to legal aid organizations widening the barrier to access legal information, many states are coming up with innovative ways to reach their most vulnerable populations.

Most counties in Illinois, for instance, are launching online legal self-help centers for low-income residents. From the State-Journal Register in Springfield, Illinois:

A free online legal self-help center will be accessible to anyone with a computer connected to the Internet. Public access computers also are available at the Carlinville Public Library.

The center will provide legal information in civil matters for people who can’t hire a lawyer and can’t find either a pro bono attorney or a legal aid lawyer to help them. It also contains non-court-related information on topics like Social Security, Medicare, unemployment compensation and others.

Joseph Dailing, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Equal Justice, which helped plan the project, said users go first to a common website for all 91 such centers statewide. From there, they can access an individual county home page. That page contains information on six topics selected locally, he said.

The Macoupin legal self-help center is one of 91 throughout Illinois, each in a separate county.

“In the larger counties, such as Sangamon, the centers are in the circuit court clerk’s offices in the courthouses,” Dailing said. “They are in libraries in the smaller counties.”

Although anyone with computer access can use the center, Dailing said topics featured on the site “are the kinds of legal problems typically encountered by lower-income individuals.”

The online centers were funded by the Illinois Equal Justice Foundation, and the sites are maintained by Illinois Legal Aid Online. While the site will offer general legal information about common legal subjects like divorce and foreclosure, it will not provide any legal advice.

Good news for public-interest minded students at Stanford, Harvard, NYU and Yale law schools! Today, the Ford Foundation announced a commitment to fund 2013 summer public interest placements for about 100 law students from these prestigious law schools.

From the National Law Journal:

Public interest fellowships typically pay stipends just large enough to cover basic costs. By contrast, the Ford fellows will receive $15,000 for summer work at an array of high-profile public interest organizations, including the Brookings Institution, the Environmental Defense Fund and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The foundation has committed $1.75 million for the inaugural year.

“This program opens up a new pathway for law students to gain practical and transformative experience working on many of the defining social justices issues of our age,” said Ford Foundation president Luis Ubiñas. “We believe it will offer them invaluable knowledge and understanding that will inform their careers, whether public or private, while bringing fresh talent to organizations working to advance fairness and freedom.”

The fellowships will go to “high performing” 1Ls and 2Ls at the designated law schools, which were selected because of their history of partnership with the Ford Foundation, he said.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, folks.   It’s been a light news week, and I’m traveling.  So you’re spared from my typical musings, ramblings and editorializing.  Here’s the access-to-justice and public interest news in very short:

• defense lawyers association backs NM measure to convert public defense program to independent state agency;
• Honoring lawyer pro bono/public interest contributions in NY;
• from UT, a look at the Legal Aid Society of Salt Lake;
• new U.S. poverty data;
• in CA, Riverside County’s public defender blasts budget decisions that amount to “amputations”, not just cuts;
• the rotten state of IOLTA funding in FL
• back in CA, a unique new clinic at UC  Davis Law;
• Michigan’s state house considers creating a commission to promote public defender standards;
• public defender reality TV in NY;
• public defender caseload standards to take effect in MO.

The news in less short:

• 9.14.12 – “Criminal defense lawyers are helping to finance a campaign for a ballot proposal to make the New Mexico Public Defender Department an independent state agency.A campaign finance report shows the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers contributed $10,000 last month to a newly formed political committee that’s promoting voter approval of the proposed constitutional amendment.  (Here’s the short AP story.)

• 9.12.12 – the New York Law Journal honors its “Lawyers Who Lead by Example”: We asked the legal community to nominate their colleagues who demonstrate a sustained commitment to improving the lives of poor or nearly poor New Yorkers. We received about 70 nominations, all of them worthy.  Our 14 honorees for 2012 are truly part of the solution, demonstrating the highest level of commitment to their profession and their communities, tapping their training, business acumen, creativity and humanity to solve legal problems for those in need.  This year the Law Journal expanded the range of categories. Our 2012 honorees include one law firm; eight private attorneys; an in-house lawyer; three public interest attorneys who reached beyond the borders of their programs to bring attention and resources to the cause, and a law school clinic.”

• 9.12.12 – a piece in the Salt Lake Tribune looks at the Legal Aid Society’s nine decades of work on behalf of low-income Utahans.

• 9.12.12 – The U.S. Census Bureau released 2011 poverty data this week (press release).  The poverty rate remained essentially unchanged between 2010 and 2011.  Here’s a little more from the Census Bureau.

• 9.11.12 – Riverside County’s new budget is balanced, but hardly fair, in the view of the public defender: “Public Defender Gary Windom protested what he characterized as a draconian cut to his office, which earlier this summer laid off three people. Lawyers in the office represent people accused of crimes who cannot afford their own attorneys.  ‘These cuts are not cuts, they are amputations,’ Windom said. Windom said he was particularly concerned about a $1.5 million reduction for a unit that represents people who face the death penalty, if found guilty. He said that unit handles 20 death penalty cases a year and the cut would cripple the program by gutting 50 percent of its revenue.  Windom also objected to an additional $1 million cut to the public defender’s office budget overall.  And he questioned a projection that a new $50 fee charged to the accused when county lawyers are assigned to them would generate $1 million for the office.” (Article from the Californian.)

• 9.11.12 – the rotten state of legal services funding in Florida.  “[Florida Bar Foundation Executive Director Jane Curran] said that the Foundation’s revenues, generated by short-term interest on trust accounts, shrank from $44 million in 2007, before the recession, to $5.58 million last fiscal year, which ended June 30. ‘Our funding cuts alone … will result in the layoff of 120 legal aid lawyers,’ Curran said.”  (Story from the Daytona Beach News-Journal.)

• 9.11.12 – at UC Davis Law, a clinic focused on the state high court.  “The only course of its kind in the country, the California Supreme Court clinic is designed to train select students in the art of researching and writing briefs for the state’s highest court.  Some law schools in California and other states have similar programs that focus on the U.S. Supreme Court, but none is devoted to a state high court.
  [T]he students will provide pro bono representation to individuals and organizations in both criminal and civil matters pending before court. The class will enter a case either as co-counsel to a party or as an amicus curiae…”  (Article in the Sacramento Bee.) 

• 9.10.12 – a short article on Michigan Public Radio’s website: “Michigan’s public defender system is consistently rated one of the worst in the country. But this week, the House Judiciary Committee will consider creating a commission to establish standards for indigent defense.”

• 9.10.12 – public defender reality TV. “The special, Criminal Defense: And Justice for All, was scheduled to air in two half-hour episodes beginning Tuesday [9/11] at 10 p.m. Eastern Time on the National Geographic Channel. Filmed over a span of three weeks, the shows offer a day-in-the-life look at several lawyers as they defend their clients.  The show’s executive producer…says most television programs focusing on criminal justice are based on the police or prosecution point of view. ‘The idea of having access to the work of public defenders is something that has almost never been shown before to the public,’ he tells the ABA Journal in an interview.  Law-and-order policies get lots of public debate, he points out. Now viewers will get ‘an opportunity to see how the policies that are talked about in the abstract and in the public square affect individual people’s lives’.”  The two episodes were filmed as a pilot and have the potential to become a series.”  (Full story from the ABA Journal.) 

• 9.7.12 – in Missouri, a new public-defender caseload standard to take effect on 10/1: “Boone County public defenders might have to decline immediate representation for some clients under a formula set to take effect Oct. 1 that will cap their monthly caseload.”  (Story from the Columbia Tribune.)

by Ashley Matthews

This week, the topic of SCOTUSblog’s online symposium is the Voting Rights Act (VRA), but it’s one particular section of the 1965 legislation that has brewed a constitutional debate over 40 years in the making. From the Pro Publica blog:

A single provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been playing a key role on the election front this year. Section 5 has blocked photo voter-ID laws, prohibited reduced early-voting periods in parts of Florida and just Tuesday barred new redistricting maps in Texas.

For states and counties covered under Section 5’s jurisdiction, changes to voting laws can’t legally be enforced unless the proposed change is submitted for review to the Attorney General or after a lawsuit before the United State District Court for the District of Columbia. In order to be legally enforceable, the new voting law can’t deny or abridge the right to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group.

In 2006, Congress voted to extend the Voting Rights Act for another twenty-five years. In the 2009 Supreme Court case Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder, the Court declined to strike down the law but noted that it raised serious constitutional concerns.

Now, in South Carolina, a new law that would require a state-approved photo ID to vote prompted a Justice Department challenge. A 3-judge panel in Washington, DC is now considering whether the law will be allowed to take effect before November 6 election. Last month, a federal court struck down a similar law in Texas, ruling that it would harm the turnout from minority voters. In addition, voters who lacked proper documentation would have been required to pay a fee to obtain election ID cards – a provision the court called a “strict, unforgiving burden on the poor.”

Such blocks have many crying constitutional foul. Joshua Thompson, a guest contributor for SCOTUSblog, wrote earlier today about the burden of Section 5:

Given the rampant discrimination of the Jim Crow South, this burden seems quite reasonable.  Nevertheless, when the constitutionality of Section 5 was first brought before the Court in South Carolina v. Katzenbach in 1966, the Court called it an “uncommon exercise of congressional power” that was only justified by the “exceptional conditions” of the day.  Section 5 would not have been “otherwise appropriate” but for its structure targeting jurisdictions bent on “evad[ing] the remedies for voting discrimination” and violating the Fifteenth Amendment.

By targeting only those jurisdictions most defiant of constitutional protections, Section 5’s “burdens” were specifically tailored to its “needs.”  Fortunately, the snug fit between the burdens – the “uncommon exercise of Congressional power” – and the needs – eliminating pervasive discrimination throughout the Deep South – had a tremendous effect on the enfranchisement of black Americans.  Eliminating literacy tests, and requiring preclearance for the most discriminatory jurisdictions, immediately improved black enfranchisement.  Black voter registration in Mississippi, for example, jumped from seven percent in 1964 to sixty percent a mere four years later.

Thompson continues:

Alongside this sweeping cultural upheaval came scores of elected black officials, and the abandonment of the racially oppressive policies that once justified Section 5.  No jurisdiction imposes a literacy test today, or a poll tax, or a grandfather clause.  Today, as reported by the Northwest Austin Court, “[v]oter turnout and registration rates … approach parity.  Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare. And minority candidates hold office at unprecedented levels.”   Section 5 was so effective that there is little to distinguish the covered jurisdictions of the Deep South from the non-covered jurisdictions in the rest of the country.  Allegations of discrimination are just as likely to come from non-covered jurisdictions, and “the racial gap in voter registration and turnout is lower in the States originally covered by § 5 than it is nationwide.”

Further, Section 5 is ill-suited to address discriminatory voting practices of today.  The systemic, race-based discrimination that made Section 5 practical in 1965 no longer exists.  Moreover, modern voting problems often arise from failing to change existing practices.  Voters suffer from more problems like long voting lines in minority districts, voter identification problems, poor ballot design, or outmoded technology than from active efforts by states to impose new, discriminatory practices.  But Section 5 obstructs change by requiring all covered jurisdictions to undergo a costly and burdensome administrative process in order to preclear any changes with the federal government.  This encourages jurisdictions to maintain their old, perhaps discriminatory, voting practices.

SCOTUSblog’s Online VRA Symposium offers many different viewpoints. What do you think about the applicability of Section 5 to today’s modern electoral climate?

by Ashley Matthews

Last week, the Washington Post reported that a Montana judge struck down the state’s lethal injection procedure, ruling that the three-drug cocktail used to execute death row inmates “increases the likelihood of confusion and error”. While the ruling does not prohibit state-mandated executions, all upcoming executions have been effectively suspended.

Photo Courtesy of LethalInjection.org

This decision comes after news that Californians will decide in November whether or not to replace capital punishment with life imprisonment, sans the possibility of parole. And death penalty opponents are getting support in unlikely places. From the Los Angeles Times:

If passed, the measure would make California the 18th state in the nation without a death penalty. During the last five years, four states have replaced the death penalty and Connecticut is soon to follow.

Growing numbers of conservatives in California have joined the effort to repeal the state’s capital punishment law, expressing frustration with its price tag and the rarity of executions. California has executed 13 inmates in 23 years, and prisoners are far more likely to die of old age on death row than by the executioner’s needle.

November’s ballot measure would commute the sentences of more than 700 people on death row to life without possibility of parole, a term that would then become the state’s most severe form of criminal punishment.

Most death row inmates would be returned to the general prison population and be expected to work. Their earnings would go to crime victims.

As the national debate heats up, death row inmates across the country are still using traditional methods to receive leniency, depending on a number of mitigating factors. For instance, a Pennsylvania death row inmate recently filed a petition for clemency because the jury in his case was never told at trial that he was sexually abused by the two men he later killed. If his appeal is rejected, he will be the first involuntarily executed inmate in Pennsylvania since the death penalty was reinstituted in the 1970s.

Interestingly enough, the ABA Journal noted that Judge Jeffrey Sherlock, the Montana judge who struck down lethal injection, called death row inmates “architects of their own doom”:

The second paragraph of Sherlock’s opinion (PDF) pointed out that the inmates were challenging the legal injection procedure, rather than the constitutionality of their death sentences. “Thus, ironically, plaintiffs ultimately do not seek to prevent the administration of the death penalty, but rather seek its administration in what they term to be a more humane and painless fashion,” Sherlock wrote. “In essence, plaintiffs are the architects of their own doom. It is also ironic to note that the plaintiffs who, if their sentences mean anything, are strangers to the concepts of mercy and obedience to the law, yet they seek the law’s protection. However, the Montana Constitution protects all people in Montana, even those who may appear undeserving of such protection.”

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, folks.  The Bulletin went on holiday last week while its author observed the Labor Day weekend and hiked around Harper’s Ferry, WV.   Three noteworthy items before moving to the access-to-justice and public interest news:   

• I was initially attracted to this op-ed because it offers data on state/local government job cuts between 2008 and the present.  But more interesting is its exploration of the importance of community engagement in our government fiscal decisions.  When We The People aren’t engaged and informed, fiscal policy decisions become less factually grounded and more “quixotic and arbitrary.”  If nothing else it’s a testament to why it’s our civic duty to, well, actually engage in civics.  (Here’s the New York Times op-ed.)
• What personal/professional traits drive entrepreneurship and creative action in the legal arena?  There are eight of them, it turns out, and the ABA has collected them for us.  They boil down to: “Be a glass-half-full person and welcome new ideas.”  But the list is worth a read.
• With record-level numbers of food stamp recipients these days, here’s some insight, via The Atlantic, as to whom those recipients are: 
  • Some 43 percent of SNAP recipients live at or below half the poverty line. Only 15 percent can say they live above the poverty line.
  • Children under 18 account for 47 percent of all food stamp recipients. Eight percent are seniors.
  • Forty-one percent of beneficiaries lived in households with partially- or fully-employed workers.  

The public interest news in very short:

• $50 for a public defender in Riverside County, CA?;
• what Alabama is to college football, Vermont Law is to environmental law (with due respect to my Oregonian law-school friends);
• a class of 14 new assistant district attorneys in Massachusetts’s most populous county;
• the American Bar Foundation receives federal grant funding to explore access-to-justice issues;
• appointed counsel or staff public defenders for NYC conflicts cases?;
• Baylor Law School starting up veterans legal aid clinics;
• LSC v. CRLA moves to the federal appellate level;
• a new nonprofit law office in Oklahoma serving low- and moderate-income clients;
• Warren County, NY is re-examining its public defender salaries;
• a federally mandated overhaul of Shelby County’s (Memphis) juvenile court system plods along;
• the strain on Legal Aid of the Bluegrass’s resources;
• experimenting with Civil Gideon in San Diego;
• U. of Memphis School of Law goes to a pro bono graduation requirement;
• report highlights the economic benefit that Iowa Legal Aid provides for the Hawkeye State;
• Kansas lawmakers emphasize importance of indigent defense funding;
• more good news re legal aid funding from national foreclosure class-action settlment funds (IL and WA);
• the dire financial straits of Jacksonville Area Legal Aid (FL);
• kudos to the San Fran defender’s Mobilization for Adolescent Growth in our Communities (MAGIC) program;
• Ohio prosecutor moonlights as civil legal aid lawyer;
• pro bono developments stemming from Dewey & LeBoeuf’s downfall;
• DOJ funding will provide loan repayment assistance for some prosecutors and defenders in Vermont;
• Super music history music bonus(!) for those who read all the way to the bottom, and for those rulebreakers who just scroll down.

The summaries:

• 9.6.12 – “Criminal defendants in Riverside County [CA] using public defenders may soon have to pay $50 for the service.  The Board of Supervisors will consider establishing the registration fee at its meeting Tuesday, Sept. 11.  County officials suggested the fee to avoid using taxpayer dollars to recoup court costs. As much as $1 million annually could be raised through the fee, according to a county staff report.  The fee would apply to defendants during arraignments who say they can’t afford their own lawyer. Defendants fill out confidential affidavits under penalty of perjury about their finances, which the courts examine to determine their ability to pay toward their defense.  The fee would be waived if the defendants prove they can’t pay it and legal services would not be denied if there’s no payment, the staff report read.”  (Story from the Press-Enterprise.)

• 9.6.12 – Vermont Law School has received a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. State Department to support a three-year project designed to improve environmental and public health in China.  The U.S.-China Partnership will work with Southwest Forestry University in Kunming, Yunnan Province, to create a “legal ecosystem” that includes an environmental and biodiversity law clinic to serve nongovernmental organizations, communities and underserved citizens. The school will host workshops to educate environmental leaders, lawyers and citizens on legal avenues to address environmental and public health issues.”  (Story from the VTDigger.com website.)

• 9.6.12 – real, actual, good hiring news on the public interest front – 14 new prosecutors in Middlesex County, MA: “District Attorney Gerry Leone announced today that eighteen new Assistant District Attorneys have been hired as part of the 2012 Fall Class of ADAs. Fourteen of the new ADAs will be assigned to the district courts throughout Middlesex County, located in Ayer, Lowell, Concord, Framingham, Woburn, Cambridge, Malden, Somerville, and Waltham. Additionally, four of the new ADAs will be assigned to the Appeals and Training Bureau.”  Of the fourteen new ADA’s, all but one went to law school in Boston.  (Full announcement on Boston.com.) 

• 9.5.12 – bringing some analytical precision to the quest for equal access to justice.  From Richard Zorza’s blog: “On December 7 and 8, in Chicago, the American Bar Foundation, with [Nat’l. Science Foundation] funding, will be conducting a two day event on research into access to justice. The scheduling is planed [sic] to facilitate attendance by those going to the NLADA Conference.   On Friday December 7, in the afternoon, there will be an open event — a poster session and town hall meeting, bringing together researchers and practitioners to explore issues of research into access to justice.  On Saturday Dec 8, there will be an all day invitational meeting to explore the possibilities further and move the agenda ahead.  Moreover, while the Saturday meeting is by invitation, it is possible to apply to be asked.  The application to attend is here.  The application is due Sept 28, 2012.  Additional information is available from A2JWorkshop(at)abfn.org.”

• 9.5.12 – appointed counsel or staff public defenders?  Indigent defense controversy in NYC:  “New York City’s plan to shift tens of thousands of criminal cases involving indigent defendants from private attorneys to the Legal Aid Society and other groups is illegal and an attempt to usurp judicial authority, attorneys for a group of bar associations told the Court of Appeals on Wednesday.  Six bar groups are challenging the plan, which was adopted in 2010 and would only affect cases in which the initial legal aid group assigned to a defendant cannot provide representation due to a conflict.  Before 2010, cases in which aid groups had a conflict were reassigned to approximately 1,100 private attorneys, known as 18-B lawyers, who were identified by the county bars. But the city decided to solicit contracts from aid groups to handle conflict cases instead of continuing to rely solely on 18-B lawyers.”  (Article from Thomson Reuters.)

• 9.4.12 – “Baylor Law School will host free legal aid clinics each month to help local veterans with a variety of civil issues.  Law Professor Bridget Fuselier, who is coordinating the program, said veterans will meet one-on-one with a local attorney for help with anything from estate planning and help filing for disability benefits to filing for divorce or pursuing a civil suit.  The law school is recruiting local attorneys to provide pro bono legal counsel and case-management services. The attorneys also will be paired with law students who will assist in preparing legal documents or law research.  The initiative is supported by a $22,500 grant the law school received from the Texas Access to Justice Foundation. The funds will help purchase laptops lawyers will use to complete transactions at the clinics, as well as purchase legal forms, and cover filing and administrative costs.”  (Article from the Waco Tribune.)
  • Here’s a little more from a Baylor Law School press release: Baylor Law School is one of 11 Texas nonprofits which are splitting over $400K in Texas Access-to-Justice Foundation grant funding to provide legal services to veterans.  “The Texas Access to Justice Commission – through its Champions of Justice Gala – raised more than $413,000 in 2012. TAJF will use the money raised to provide the grants to the selected nonprofit organizations. Now in its third year, the Champions of Justice Gala has raised more than $1 million for veterans’ legal services since its inception.” 

• 9.3.12 – “For more than six years, federal officials have pressed for client information and internal policy documents from [California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. (CRLA)].  The inspector general for the Legal Services Corp. (LSC), which funds organizations that offer civil legal services to low-income families and individuals, is investigating whether…CRLA has abused its receipt of grant money — potentially violating federal law.  [CRLA’s] lawyers have resisted complying with an administrative subpoena, pushing the U.S. Justice Department to ask a judge in Washington’s federal trial court to force the organization to obey the demand for documents. CRLA lost at the trial level last year, and now the…dispute is unfolding in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.  The case spotlights a clash between government oversight of federally funded legal service groups and state-based professional rules of responsibility that govern attorney[s].  Lawyers for CRLA contend disclosure of the information the government has demanded will violate attorney-client confidentiality and intrude on protected work-product documents.”  (Full story from the National Law Journal.)

• 9.3.12 – a new nonprofit law office in Oklahoma serving low- and moderate-income clients: Oklahoma Attorney Resources (OAR) is a private, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that provides family law legal assistance for low- to middle-income working public who need help with legal issues, according to a media release. Some of those issues are divorce, child custody, child support, paternity, guardianship and adoptions. The group also assists with Chapter 7 bankruptcies.  The program is designed to meet the need for access to the justice system by low-income residents whose resources are insufficient to pay prevailing rates for private attorneys. The attorneys working with the organization are all licensed in Oklahoma and experienced in family law. They have agreed to work at reduced rates to provide legal services to families in need who would otherwise be without representation. (Article from the Muskegee Phoenix.)

• 9.3.12 – Warren County, NY is looking at its public defender salaries, in part because, well, defender salaries are low, but also because a new state law will have the defenders providing counsel in some divorce matters (in addition to the more traditional criminal docket.) The county “…Public Defender John Wappett told county supervisors last week his two top assistant public defenders are searching for new jobs because of their stagnant salaries and a change in law that has assigned some of them to cases of divorce, in which most of the assistants do not have significant experience. Assigned counsel for the indigent has typically only been available in criminal and Family Court cases.”  (Article from the Post Star.) 

• 9.2.12 – “The federally mandated overhaul of Shelby County Juvenile Court is expected to cost millions — even if the county can avoid a federal lawsuit.  That’s because the proposed changes would create new positions, including full-time juvenile public defenders and a court-based Disproportionate Minority Contact coordinator who would work to reduce the number of black youths brought to court, held in jail and transferred to adult court.” (Article in the Commercial Appeal.)

• 8.31.12 – “Legal Aid of the Bluegrass (LABG) expects to provide legal assistance to nearly 20,000 individuals this year in 33 northern and central Kentucky counties.  LABG will be financing its operations with $1.1 million less than it had to work with the previous year.  Richard Cullison, executive director and program director for Rowan and 11 other area counties, said the Morehead office is working with the fewest number of attorneys it has had since its inception…. The Covington-based LABG said they already turn away 7,063 people annually who are eligible for services.”  (Story from The Morehead News.)

• 8.31.12 – experimenting with Civil Gideon in San Diego: “Courts around the state are in the middle of adjusting to budget cuts that have led to courtroom closures, reduced hours at clerk’s offices and concern the reductions will limit access to the justice system for state residents.  But a groundbreaking program in San Diego that began this year goes against that grain, providing legal representation to a select group of people in cases involving landlord-tenant disputes and child custody matters.  With a $2 million in annual funding from the state under legislation passed in 2010, the San Diego Legal Aid Society and the San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program have been providing lawyers for free to indigent people in some civil law cases.”  (Story from the San Diego Union-Tribune.)

• 8.30.12 – the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law has implemented “a new pro bono requirement that will affect students this fall. Students entering the law school at that time will be among the first class that will have to perform…pro bono legal work to graduate.  Students entering this fall and thereafter will be required to complete 40 hours of supervised pro bono work. (Story from the Memphis Daily News.) 

•  Iowa Legal Aid has released a study reviewing the economic impact that its work on behalf of low-income Iowans has on the state economy and Iowans more broadly: “All told, Iowa Legal Aid’s financial impact on the Iowa economy in 2011 totaled $28,729,291.29. This represents a return of $5.71 for every single dollar invested in Iowa Legal Aid by sources within Iowa. Investing in Iowa Legal Aid is important because Iowa Legal Aid works to provide hope, dignity, and justice to Iowa’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens. But clearly, investing in Iowa Legal Aid also makes good economic sense.”  

• 8.29.12 – Here we are in Kansas: “A Senate committee grilled appointees to a board that oversees the state’s public defenders Wednesday, asking repeatedly if they will fight to ensure the program is properly funded.  Sen. Tim Owens, R-Overland Park, said the state could be “in dire trouble” if it doesn’t provide more money for public defenders for defendants who can’t afford them. Owens, a lawyer, suggested that the state could face lawsuits if it fails to do so…. Owens wasn’t the only member [senator] to express concern. Sen. Jean Schodorf, R-Wichita, said she believed the indigent defense program had been “underserved and underfunded” throughout her 12 years in the Legislature and warned Beck to gird himself for further cuts.  Sen. Jay Emler, R-McPherson, the committee chairman and a lawyer, said his colleagues’ concerns about public defense are valid.”  (Article from the Topeka Capital-Journal.)

• 8.29.12 – a couple of good-news items regarding legal services funding:
  • From Illinois: “A legal aid group in Chicago is getting $4.7 million from a national foreclosure settlement to help homeowners hit by the mortgage crisis.   Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced on August 28 that the Legal Assistance Foundation in Chicago would receive the money from her state’s portion of the $25 billion settlement reached with five banks in March. Illinois received about $1 billion from the settlement, and Madigan has said that $20 million would go to legal aid.  Illinois joins other states that have committed proceeds from the settlement to legal aid.”  (Article from the National Law Journal.) 
  • Washington State: “Thirteen…non-profit organizations will split the $43.8 million the state received to fund foreclosure relief as part of the landmark $25 billion national settlement with the country’s five largest mortgage servicers….  The Legal Foundation of Washington’s Home Justice project will receive…roughly $13 million to provide legal representation for the more than 30,000 low and moderate income people who are expected to face foreclosure in the coming years or who are among the more than 135,000 households whose homes were foreclosed upon in the last four years.”  (Article from the Seattle Medium)

• 8.28.12 – a Florida Times-Union editorial laments the dire financial straits of Jacksonville Area Legal Aid.

• 8.27.12 -in Michigan, the Jackson County Legal News takes note of the state’s indigent defense woes: “The plight of the public defender in Michigan has come under scrutiny since a state report said the Michigan wasn’t doing enough to represent indigent people.  The Michigan Advisory Commission on Indigent Defense released a report in June that found the state wasn’t meeting minimum standards for indigent defense as set forth by the American Bar Association.  In 2008, the National Legal Aide & Defense Association’s report found Michigan ranked 44th in the nation on per-capita spending on indigent defense.”  

• 8.27.12 – “The San Francisco Public Defender’s MAGIC program will be honored by public school officials Tuesday for its service to tens of thousands of low-income San Francisco children… .Mobilization for Adolescent Growth in our Communities (MAGIC) was initiated by the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office in 2004 in Bayview-Hunters Point and in the Western Addition in 2006. The program convenes more than 100 community organizations and concerned citizens who work to reduce the number of kids who fall through social service gaps by efficiently coordinating opportunities, support and resources.” (View full press release.)

• 8.25.12 – public service times two.  In addition to his day job, an Ohio city prosecutor moonlights by running a civil legal aid clinic through his church.  (Article from the Toledo Blade.) 

• 8.24.12 – some pro bono developments in the wake of law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf’s downfall.
  • First, an American Lawyer article entitled, “Dewey’s Former Pro Bono Clients Feel Strain of Firm’s Closure”: “Although other law firm collapses—including those of Coudert Brothers, Heller Ehrman, Howrey, and Thelen——have left organizations scrambling to reassign pro bono work, Dewey’s disappearance has struck a particularly significant blow given the extent of its contributions. In 2011 The American Lawyer ranked the firm fifth among the nation’s largest law firms for its commitment to pro bono.  That’s not to say all pro bono work died when Dewey did. In fact, many Dewey lawyers took ongoing matters with them to their new professional homes, and several still sit on the boards of the organizations the firm once served.”
  • Second, the firm’s former pro bono director has launched a consultancy, offering support services for law firms that don’t have internal pro bono infrastructure.  I’m surprised that I’ve never heard of such an undertaking before. 

• 8.23.12 – “Vermont Student Assistance Corporation (VSAC) has received a grant of $51,515 from the U.S. Department of Justice to go toward student loan forgiveness for attorneys who work as state prosecutors or state or federal public defenders in Vermont.  This is the third year VSAC has received the funding, although federal cuts resulted in a grant amount this year that is half that awarded each of the prior two years. VSAC administers the program at no charge so that all of the funding can go to eligible recipients. By law, half the dollars must go to prosecutors and half to public defenders.  VSAC works with the state’s Office of the Defender General, its Department of State’s Attorneys, and the Federal Public Defender for the District of Vermont to identify eligible applicants and award funding.”  (Press release hosted at VTDigger.org.)    

Music!  It’s September.  September used to be one of my favorite months because the summertime humidity would abate.  Now August seems to stretch and stretch, ever defiant.  September may be corrupted beyond salvage.  I accept it.  Nevertheless, it’s worth paying tribute to the ninth month with Big Star’s “September Gurls” (goofy spelling theirs).  Big Star, while not achieving commercial success during their active period in the 1970s, later emerged as a powerful influence on indie-rock bands.  (Here’s NPR’s take on the band’s history.)  Alex Chilton, Big Star’s major creative force, had already felt some 1960s fame as a member of the Box Tops.  Their song “The Letter” was a hit single back when my parents were young and hip.  Then came Big Star.  After Big Star ceased to be, bands from the Replacements (their song “Alex Chilton” is an unapologetic tribute, and the video displays the band’s contempt for MTV culture) to Counting Crows (who aspired to be “big stars” in their mega-hit “Mr. Jones”) praised Chilton loudly and proudly.  Though Chilton continued making music, the influence he had on rock & roll far outsized the little bit of money he made.  Later in life he spent time washing dishes in a New Orleans restaurant.   Chilton died in 2010 without the trappings of (big) stardom.  But not without a legacy.

So we’ve gotten a little far afield from plain old September.  Anyway, enjoy the September weekend.

We’ve re-launched the PSLawNet website as PSJD.  We’ll still be blogging daily – including the Job O’ the Day – and will be adding new, recurring blog features this fall.  Thanks for reading!

by: Ashley Matthews

On the heels of a California Assembly resolution in favor of granting a law license to an undocumented immigrant who was brought to America as a child, a federal appeals court has blocked several provisions of Alabama and Georgia’s controversial immigration laws. The American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the National Immigration Law Center all supported the decision. However, police in both states are still allowed to check the citizenship of criminal suspects who they suspect are undocumented immigrants. As reported by CNN:

The U.S. Supreme Court waded into this debate in June, when it ruled by a 5-3 vote to uphold the authority of the federal government to set immigration policies and laws while weighing in on legislation in Arizona that helped kickstart the debate.

The court, however, did allow one of the most controversial provisions of that state’s law to stand: letting local and state police check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws.

The rulings Monday resembled that high court ruling in many respects, with the appeals court judges’ Alabama decision even quoting U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority ruling on the Arizona.

“Although (illegal immigration) is a problem that gives rise to unique issues in our nation, we must be mindful that individual states ‘may not pursue policies that undermine federal law,'” the three judges said.

One provision the court assessing the two state’s laws did let stand, as the Supreme Court had in the Arizona case, is to allow law enforcement to check the immigration status of those suspected of a crime.

This was one of only two provisions in the Georgia legislation, known as HB 87, that the federal appeals court considered.

The other would institute three crimes for “interactions with an ‘illegal alien’.” These are knowingly transporting such a person “while committing another criminal offense,” “concealing or harboring” an undocumented person and lastly “inducing an illegal alien to go into” Georgia, according to the appeals court ruling citing the state’s legislation.

The federal court struck down this aspect of Georgia’s law, known as Section 7, on Monday.

“We are … convinced that Section 7 presents an obstacle to the execution of the federal statutory scheme and challenges federal supremacy in the realm of immigration,” the court explained as part of its reasoning.

Four provisions of Alabama’s law were blocked by the appeals court judges on Monday, while three still stand despite the federal government’s arguments.

Local and state authorities in Alabama are not allowed to stop undocumented immigrants from looking for work, and are unable to prohibit employers who hire undocumented workers from taking state tax deductions for wages. In addition, Alabama authorities cannot characterize hiring an undocumented worker as a “discriminatory practice”.

Although this seems like good news for immigrant advocacy groups, there is still a long way to go. For instance, even if an undocumented immigrant provides police with a valid driver’s license, their citizenship may still be questioned. Fueled by the upcoming presidential election, this debate is sure to continue capturing the attention of local and national media outlets as well as immigrant advocacy groups.