Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Interested public. I compile this digest each week (well, most weeks) to bring you public interest law news. This week, the news is that public protests and the forces of the law are in perilous tension. After Minneapolis law enforcement slowly murdered a Black man in their custody in broad daylight and in full view of multiple witnesses and cameras, people across the United States have been moved to protest against systemic racial oppression. Law enforcement officers have responded with brutal violence while many mayors demonstrated bipartisan disinterest in police accountability. The President of the United States has placed the District of Columbia under military occupation and threatened sovereign U.S. states with similar treatment rather than consider meaningful reforms. Retired and serving members of military leadership have begun to remind soldiers of their Constitutional oaths while the U.S. Attorney General deploys heavily-armed, unmarked forces in downtown DC.

The legal community, in response, has begun bringing lawsuits. Lawyers across the country have committed to serving protestors pro bono. The Supreme Court of the United States weighed whether to revisit the doctrine of “qualified immunity” for law enforcement. The Supreme Court of Washington issued a challenge to the legal community:

“As lawyers and members of the bar, we must recognize the harms that are caused when meritorious claims go unaddressed due to systemic inequities or the lack of financial, personal, or systemic support. And we must also recognize that this is not how a justice system must operate. Too often in the legal profession, we feel bound by tradition and the way things have “always” been. We must remember that even the most venerable precedent must be struck down when it is incorrect and harmful. The systemic oppression of black Americans is not merely incorrect and harmful; it is shameful and deadly.”

Finally, as the New York Attorney General says “she’s prepared to legally challenge President Donald Trump’s threat to send in the military”, at least one legal commentator (Elie Mystal of the Nation) questioned the relevance of a legal response to a military encounter:
“If the military is told to occupy New York City or Los Angeles, they’ll go. If they’re told to secure the streets, in violation of the constitutional right to peaceable assembly, they’ll do it. If they’re told to round up and arrest protesters, or members of the press, they’ll do it. They won’t even have to open fire on a crowd of unarmed civilians—the threat that one of them might is more than enough to vitiate any pretense of constitutional democracy…People have to think [] about how to stop a man who is above the law, using all the peaceful tools (always the peaceful tools) available to us.”

These stories are in the links below.

Take care of one another,

Sam

• In Washington DC, “Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said [] George Floyd, the African American man who died following a violent arrest in Minnesota, was “murdered” at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department….Appearing on CNN a short time later, she was even more blunt calling Floyd’s death ‘an execution’.”
• As USA Today describes the public response, “[t]here have been demonstrations in at least 430 cities and towns so far, large and small, across all 50 states [and t]he number of places that have held rallies or protests is still growing[.]”
• Across the country, protestors and journalists documented law enforcement officers engaging in acts of violence.
  • The Baltimore Sun: “As demonstrators took to the streets in cities across the nation to decry police brutality in the wake of the ruthless killing of yet another unarmed black man by a white police officer, law enforcement throughout the country again and again reacted with violence.”
  • Slate: “police all over the country tear-gassed protesters, drove vehicles through crowds, opened fire with nonlethal rounds on journalists or people on their own property, and in at least one instance, pushed over an elderly man who was walking away with a cane[; …] law enforcement officers escalated the national unrest.”
  • The Guardian: “These lawless rioters are out of control. They have driven an SUV into a crowd, tossed journalists to the ground and pepper-sprayed them, beaten people with batons and even blinded a woman in one eye. They have been launching unprovoked attacks on peaceful, law-abiding citizens exercising their constitutional rights. The violent behavior of these mobs should be condemned by all. We need to restore order: someone must stop the police.”
  • The ACLU: “Police violence is one of the leading causes of death for Black men in America, and police officers who kill rarely face any type of accountability. This needs to stop. Yet in too many cities, the police response has been only more brutality.”
• Police departments have engaged in this behavior despite the fact that, as the Marshall Project notes, “[r]esearchers [who] have spent 50 years studying the way crowds of protesters and crowds of police behave…will tell you [that] disproportionate police force is one of the things that can make a peaceful protest not so peaceful.”
• Mayors of many prominent cities sought to justify law enforcement’s actions–although some elected officials’ positions have moved. A few examples:
  • In New York NY, the Center for Constitutional Rights stated that “mayor [Bill de Blasio]’s justification of police brutality, including the mowing down of protestors with police vehicles reminiscent of the depraved actions by white supremacists in Charlottesville, is unconscionable. Add to that his disregard for the rights of citizens to protest for their very lives, and it is clear that he is fully committed to protecting police impunity…we call on Mayor de Blasio and Commissioner Shea to resign.”
  • In Los Angeles CA, “Mayor Eric Garcetti said Tuesday he still has confidence in Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore, despite his comments when he equated looting to the in-custody death of George Floyd.”
    • Also in Los Angeles, “On Wednesday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced he is throwing out plans for a massive police budget hike as support for slashing police department funds grows among activists in the wake of George Floyd’s death.”
  • In Philadelphia PA, “Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw…and Mayor Jim Kenney both defended the department’s use of tear gas and other tactics…Police arrested more than two dozen people in the highway protest Monday evening, when they fired bean bags and rubber bullets and lobbed tear gas at protesters who had nowhere to run.”
  • In Murfreesboro TN, “Demonstrators marched…in a largely peaceful display for George Floyd[;]…Video provided to News 2 by Tyler Croney shows what appears to be law enforcement deploying [tear] gas into a crowd including multiple children. Corney told News 2 none of the children in attendance were older than 12 years old…Mayor Shane McFarland [said] the gas was necessary to break up protesters who were blocking the intersection and on top of cars.”
  • Meanwhile, in Washington DC:
  • “Trump and some of his advisers calculated that he should not speak to the nation because he had nothing to say, according to a senior administration official. He had no tangible policy or action to announce, nor did he feel an urgent motivation to try to bring people together. So he stayed silent.”
  • Silent, that is, until “[i]n a massive show of force, federal law enforcement officers fired rubber bullets and chemical gas at peaceful protesters outside the White House on Monday evening as President Trump appeared in the Rose Garden to threaten the mobilization of ‘thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers’ to quell ‘lawlessness’ across the country…Arlington County officers who were supporting Park Police at Lafayette Square were ordered to leave downtown after county officials realized they had been a part of what they called a presidential publicity stunt.”
  • Steve Herman, White House bureau chief for Voice of America, reported that Principal Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley told reporters on Thursday,“ ‘All options are on the table’ for use of the military to deal with nationwide unrest[.]” Herman went on to note that Ted Lieu (CA-33), a member of the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, reacted to this statement with alarm.
  • Additionally, “[t]ensions between President Trump and U.S. military leaders have escalated over the handling of protests, culminating in officials reminding troops about their oath to the Constitution. Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, and National Guard chief Joseph Lengyel have sent out guidance to take that oath seriously as protests swell across the country in response to the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes while Floyd pleaded for his life.”
  • Relatedly,
    • “On Wednesday, Secret Service and National Guard troops created a perimeter between protesters and the White House. Several [] unidentified officers also stood guard.They declined to specify where they came from, according to reporters at the White House, who said some of the officers identified themselves only as affiliated with the Justice Department. The reporters speculated they were likely prison officers because a few wore gear marked with acronyms and other small insignias from federal prisons.”
    • DC Mayor Muriel Bowser noted, in her formal objection to military and unidentified federal forces’ presence in the District, that “[w]hen citizens are unable to clearly identify legitimate law enforcement officers, it creates unnecessary risks for both protesters and officers. In fact, we found many years ago that conflict between police and citizens is reduced when law enforcement affiliation is apparent[.]”
• In the Legal Community:

• The ACLU has begun bringing lawsuits in collaboration with protest organizers:
  • In Washington DC, “[s]everal protesters and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging the federal use of force to disperse a peaceful protest in Washington, DC, ahead of President Donald Trump’s photo-op at a local church.”
  • In Minneapolis MN, “[t]he American Civil Liberties Union this week filed a lawsuit against a number of Minnesota law enforcement agencies alleging that they violated journalists’ constitutional rights by interfering with their coverage of protests and riots in the Minneapolis area in the wake of George Floyd’s death in the custody of the Minneapolis Police Department.”
  • In Los Angeles CA, “[t]he American Civil Liberties Union and Black Lives Matter L.A. have filed a lawsuit against local political and law enforcement leaders, calling for an end to the “draconian curfews” imposed as largely peaceful protests continue throughout Southern California.”

• Across the United States, “attorneys and law firms have publicly volunteered free services.” (This link includes a list of such offers.)
• Notably, in Indianapolis IN, “Midwest boutique Saeed & Little [has received s]o many [pro bono requests], in fact, that the firm has relied on volunteer law students to call back and take down information.”

• In Washington DC, “the U.S. Supreme Court [] consider[ed] whether to revisit its 50-year-old doctrine of “qualified immunity” for law enforcement officers, which has shielded cops from civil lawsuits even in cases where a citizen’s rights have been violated.”
• In New York, Attorney General Letitia James felt the need to make this statement:

“The President of the United States is not a dictator, and President Trump does not and will not dominate New York state. In fact, the president does not have the right to unilaterally deploy U.S. military across American states[.] We respect and will guard the right to peaceful protest, and my office will review any federal action with an eye toward protecting our state’s rights. Rest assured: We will not hesitate to go to court to protect our constitutional rights during this time and well into the future.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Interested public.

No words today,

Sam

• In Geneva, “UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet…condemned the killing of George Floyd, an African American man whose death in police custody on Monday was captured on video and has led to serious ongoing protests in Minneapolis:
  
  ‘This is the latest in a long line of killings of unarmed African Americans by US police officers and members of the public[.] …The US authorities must take serious action to stop such killings, and to ensure justice is done when they do occur. Procedures must change, prevention systems must be put in place, and above all police officers who resort to excessive use of force should be charged and convicted for the crimes committed.’”
  
  
• Relatedly, in the United States:
  
  
  • In 2020, “[U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota] MacDonald, when asked why an average citizen would have been arrested either at the scene or much earlier than the early evening hours of Thursday, said that the possible defendants’ roles as police officers added a complicated legal wrinkle. Because officers can use force while making arrests and enjoy some legal privileges that ordinary citizens do not enjoy, the case was more complicated and required additional analysis and review[.]”
    
    
  • In 2014, writing for the New York Times opinion section, two Harvard Law 3Ls observed that “ERIC GARNER was not the first American to be choked by the police, and he will not be the last, thanks to legal rules that prevent victims of police violence from asking federal courts to help stop deadly practices…Public indignation about police violence should be directed not only at the grand juries and prosecutors that fail to vindicate victims of police violence, but also at the legal rules that enabled this violence in the first place. The law shouldn’t just serve to punish past conduct: It should also drive reform.”
    
    
  • In 1983, Thurgood Marshall noted, in dissent, that “THE CHIEF JUSTICE asked in Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388, 403 U. S. 419 (1971) (dissenting opinion), “what would be the judicial response to a police order authorizing shoot to kill’ with respect to every fugitive”? His answer was that it would be “easy to predict our collective wrath and outrage.” Ibid. We now learn that wrath and outrage cannot be translated into an order to cease the unconstitutional practice, but only an award of damages to those who are victimized by the practice and live to sue, and to the survivors of those who are not so fortunate. Under the view expressed by the majority today, if the police adopt a policy of “shoot to kill,” or a policy of shooting 1 out of 10 suspects, the federal courts will be powerless to enjoin its continuation.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! The news continues to pour in, shaking the windows and rattling the walls. Major stories this week include student loans, in which the Democratic caucus released a debt relief proposal as part of the HEROES Act only to amend their proposal two days later, significantly reducing their proposed forgiveness. In civil access to justice, reporting from DC highlighted the stark difference in FEMA’s efforts to provide legal services during the pandemic, compared with its approach to other disasters. In the legislative branch, a bipartisan group of Representatives proposed a civil Gideon bill. Meanwhile, on the criminal side, legal authorities in Colorado and Massachusetts highlighted a vacuum of authority when considering decarceration as a public health measure. And the Michigan legislature cancelled its session in the face of armed opposition.

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

Stay well,

Sam

Bar Exam Changes

• In Connecticut, “[f]aced with hundreds of Connecticut law school graduates not able to take the state bar examination in July due to COVID-19-related disruptions, the Rules Committee of Superior Court has approved recommendations to loosen guidelines to allow students to make court presentations—in some instances—without a supervising attorney present.”
  • Note: There are many stories of this nature across the United States at the moment. The National Conference of Bar Examiners is working to keep track of these changes on a consolidated page; you can find a link to this page and other COVID-19 national survey materials at www.psjd.org/covid19

Remote Court Practice & Lawmaking

• Writing for The Marshall Project, a public defender with the Kentucky Department of Advocacy noted that as court procedures move online standards for due process are suffering:

  “[t]here is no virtual substitute for many of [our] duties. As a result, we now can accomplish only the bare minimum, namely emergency hearings and arraignments (those first court appearances). What isn’t happening in many counties are competency hearings at which we would argue that a client is not being properly evaluated by mental-health professionals. Hearings for mitigation specialists that might show that a client has faced trauma are on hold because we cannot obtain records from closed schools and social-service agencies. Drug and veterans courts are closed too. And we can’t have trials, because it would be impossible to convene a jury or to subpoena witnesses to appear with current social distancing rules.All the while, the bar for “justice” constantly gets lowered.”

• Across the United States, “[m]any state and local governments…have suspended public records requirements amid the coronavirus pandemic, denying or delaying access to information that could shed light on key government decisions.”
• In Washington DC, “[t]he Senate came one vote short Wednesday of approving a proposal to prevent federal law enforcement from obtaining internet browsing information or search history without seeking a warrant.”
• In Palo Alto CA, leaders of the Center on the Legal Profession at Stanford Law School argued that “[t]his pandemic underscores the need to assist millions of individuals and small businesses through greater innovation in legal services.”

Rule of Law

• In Michigan, the state “closed down its capitol in Lansing on Thursday and canceled its legislative session rather than face the possibility of an armed protest and death threats against Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer.”
• In Washington DC, “[t]he presiding judge in Michael Flynn’s criminal case has appointed a retired judge to present arguments in opposition to the Justice Department’s move to dismiss its prosecution of the former national security adviser.”

Pro Bono Response

• In Oklahoma, Katie Dilks, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Access to Justice Foundation (and former PSJD Fellow), and Michael Figgins, ED of Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma, reported that “[t]he foundation is working with partners across the state to launch a statewide pro bono portal where lawyers can connect with volunteer opportunities, both in their communities and across the state.”
• In Tennessee, “Legal Aid of East Tennessee (LAET) has announced the launch of Pro Bono Matters on its website[.] Pro Bono Matters offers volunteer attorneys the opportunity to express interest in specific cases, which will help LAET to achieve its mission of strengthening communities and changing lives through high-quality legal services.” You can find the new program here.
• In Central Islip NY, “Touro law school [h]as established a helpline to answer legal questions arising from the pandemic. Volunteer attorneys will provide referrals to [Touro’s] own clinic program and appropriate legal partners[.]”
• In New York NY, “[m]ore than 150 Columbia Law School students are working with faculty on pro bono projects: They are guiding small-business owners through the federal Paycheck Protection Program loan process, supporting public defenders working to win the release of prisoners vulnerable to COVID-19, and finding crucial resources for unemployed workers and immigrants.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, “[j]ust two days after releasing the Heroes Act, House Democrats [] released an amendment to the bill. The original bill called for $10,000 in student loan cancellation for all borrowers and a suspension of student loan payments through September 30, 2021. This new amendment scales back the proposed student loan forgiveness.”
• Also in Washington DC, “Senate education committee Chairman Lamar Alexander on Tuesday said, ‘interest rates on new federal student loans will drop to historic lows on July 1.’ …The interest rate on undergraduate loans will be 2.75 percent for the 2020-2021 school year, down from 4.53 percent in the 2019-2020 school year. The interest rate on loans for graduate students will be 4.3 percent (down from 6.08 percent) and for PLUS loans for parents and graduates will be 5.3 percent (down from 7.08 percent).”
• Also also in Washington DC, “[r]esponding to a lawsuit from the National Students Legal Defense Network, DeVos noted that her agency instructed nearly 37,500 employers to halt the practice Monday. Over the weekend, it assured some 83,500 borrowers in default that their wages would not be garnished.” Overall, “[a]bout 54,000 workers had their wages garnished as of May 7. This is about 14% of the 390,000 Americans who saw March wages garnished.”
• In Wisconsin, We are Green Bay described the efforts of the state’s Student Debt Task Force, created in January, which “will meet eight times in the coming months, with a goal of submitting a series of recommendation to the governor to deal with student debt, which he will include in his next biennial budget.”
• In New York NY, Judge Ramos of the Southern District of New York “ruled he will allow full discovery” in a suit by New York State against “the Federal Education Department’s sole-source contractor FedLoan Servicing…for ‘failing miserably in its administration of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness [sic].” The docket for this ongoing case is available here.
• Benefits Pro reported that under the CARES Act, “[e]mployers can now help their employees pay down student debt faster and save a significant amount of money on student loan interest.”

Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring

• In Washington, “[u]nprecedented job losses and furloughs have pushed millions of Americans to the brink of eviction during the coronavirus pandemic, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the White House have failed to fund a legal assistance program that is routinely available to disaster survivors.”
• In Kentucky, the “court system will impose a statewide hiring freeze and suspend out-of-state travel to reduce expenses as the coronavirus drives down revenues, the state’s chief justice said.”
  • Note: There are many stories of this nature across the United States at the moment. NALP is working to keep track of news related to this issue on a consolidated page; you can find a link to this page and other COVID-19 national survey materials at www.psjd.org/covid19
• In Washington DC, “the nation’s charitable nonprofits strongly urge[d] leaders in both the House and Senate to take swift action to ensure that nonprofits of all sizes receive critical relief so they can continue to serve their communities through the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.”
• In British Columbia, “non-profit organizations say they’re at risk due to pandemic restrictions, with 15-19% saying they face closure and 23% saying they might not last another six months.”
• In Edmonton AB, “a University of Alberta law professor…raised more than $120,000 for his 100 Interns Project through online seminars, direct employment donations, and financial contributions.”
• In the United States, Government Executive reported that “the federal government lags when it comes to attracting Generation Z tech talent.”
• In Canada, “[t]he economic fallout from the coronavirus has cut off scores of young Canadians from summer jobs and internships, which usually help them bridge gaps between tuition payments.”

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• In Montgomery County MD, “[a] nonprofit group has filed a federal lawsuit against Montgomery County seeking to prevent local officials from distributing COVID-19 relief funds to people living in the country illegally.”
• In Cambridge MA, Forbes profiled “Immigrants Like Us (ILU)[,] a new nonprofit based out of Harvard University’s Innovation Lab.” Its founder describes its mission as one “to democratize access to legal information for low-income immigrants.”

Access to Justice – Criminal & Decarceration

• In Massachusetts, “Supreme Court Chief Justice Ralph Gants had a question for attorneys who argued Thursday that some state agencies should not be named in a lawsuit seeking to release more prisoners because of COVID-19. ‘We’ve got the governor saying, `Not my problem, I shouldn’t be ordered to do something.` We’ve got the Department of Correction saying, `We manage the prisons, the only thing we’re involved with is medical parole,` and now we’ve got the parole board saying that it’s not their problem. So who’s supposed to do it?’ Gants asked during Thursday’s SJC hearing on a class action lawsuit seeking to reduce the number of people incarcerated to stem the spread of the coronavirus behind bars.”
• In Aurora CO, the Colorado Sentinel reported on how efforts to release municipal offenders to slow the spread of the pandemic highlighted a vacuum in legal authority: “City Attorney Dan Brotzman…wrote in an email…citing a bevy of case law [that] ‘in Colorado and across the country, it is clear that a commutation or pardon of a municipal ordinance violation cannot be performed under the executive power of the governor, nor of any city official, unless that power is granted to that official. Under the Colorado Constitution,…the governor is provided that specific power…only for state crimes, not convictions for ordinance violations.’“
  • Note: There are many stories of this nature across the United States at the moment. The Prison Policy Initiative is working to keep track of news related to this issue on a consolidated page; you can find a link to this page and other COVID-19 national survey materials at www.psjd.org/covid19
• In Chicago IL, University of Chicago News covered the experience of students in the law school’s Federal Criminal Justice Clinic, which executed “a quick pivot…as the coronavirus pandemic took hold [and] urgent needs emerged in the federal criminal justice system just as other clinic projects were postponed.”
• In Louisiana, “public defenders face steep financial challenges as the coronavirus rages on, forcing leaders to declare an emergency shortfall in funding this week. The outbreak has shuttered courthouses across the state, halting the flow of user fines and fees that account for about half of the Louisiana Public Defender Board’s budget.”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In Washington, “Two Republicans, Reps. Susan Brooks of Indiana and Fred Upton of Michigan, and thirteen other Democrats, including Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Jerrold Nadler of New York, have so far co-sponsored [a] resolution [from Rep. Joe Kennedy III], which aims to provide counsel in civil proceedings tied to ‘health, safety, family, shelter or sustenance’ for those who otherwise could not afford or access it.”
• In California, the “State Bar voted Thursday to form a group to study launching an experimental ‘sandbox’ to come up with innovative ways to give more people access to legal services, which could include relaxing rules regarding the unauthorized practice of law and nonlawyer ownership of firms.”
• In Southern California, “[t]hree…cities have received letters threatening lawsuits if they don’t repeal eviction bans enacted to protect out-of-work or ill renters during the coronavirus pandemic. Two of the cities–Upland and La Verne–repealed their bans after getting the letters.”
  • Meanwhile, in New York, “[m]any of those unable to pay monthly rent or mortgage payments are at the mercy of the state and federal governments as the potential for mass evictions looms when the pandemic subsides.”
• In Missouri, “Legal Services of Eastern Missouri has expanded its services to help people with the unemployment benefits application process.”

Criminal Justice Reform

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! The days remain packed, even as we all stay at home. Some major stories include a decision to restrict the New York bar exam to people who graduated from law school in New York, a judicial opinion out of Ontario suggesting that courts may not want to return to in-person appearances under some circumstances, a decision in New Jersey to allow out-of-state-licensed lawyers to provide temporary, supervised pro bono assistance, and a lawsuit alleging that Secretary DeVos has illegally continued to garnish the wages of student debtholders after the CARES Act suspended this practice.

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

Stay well,

Sam

State Bar Exams

• In New York, “[b]ecause of space concerns related to the novel coronavirus pandemic, the New York bar exam will now be administered at law schools there. And for now, applications are limited to people who graduated in the state.”
  • Relatedly, “deans at 21 top law schools across the country fired off a joint letter saying that ‘the news of your approach has fallen hard on the many students who had planned to sit for the bar in New York,’ adding that they were worried that the ‘resulting delay in the exam’s administration and admission to practice will fall hardest on the most economically vulnerable” and those who may not be able to stay in the country.’ “

Remote Court Practice & Lawmaking

• In Ontario, “[a] judge said [while dismissing a lawyers’ objections to proceeding through a video-conference mini-trial] ‘we should not be going back’ to costly personal attendance in court, comparing it to writing with a quill and ink.”
• Also in Ontario, Barry Leon continued his series for The Lawyers’ Daily on lessons learned from the application of technology to court proceedings in the province.
• In Oneida County NY, “[t]he DA’s office…has put together a memo [for the courts] on how to move forward and do business while minimizing the risk of becoming sick.”
• In Arkansas, the state “Supreme Court issued [for] guidelines once in-person appearances resume in the courts.”
• In Chicago IL, “a group of lawyers has stepped in to offer free legal advice with the help of an artificial-intelligence powered chat bot.” The site is rentervention.com.
• In the United States, “[t]echnology companies helping to fight the coronavirus are policing themselves to protect consumer data in the absence of a comprehensive U.S. statute and only a few state privacy laws.”

Voting Rights

• The Tuscon Weekly reported that “[i]n n an April report that warns of the risks of fraud in mail-in voting, a conservative legal group significantly inflated a key statistic…[A]fter ProPublica provided evidence to PILF that it had in fact doubled the official government numbers, the organization corrected its figure.”

Rule of Law

• At The Hague, “the International Criminal Court is moving forward with investigations into the situation in Afghanistan.”
• In Washington DC, “[o]ne of the lead prosecutors in the case against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn has stepped down, as the U.S. Justice Department moves to dismiss the charges.”

Pro Bono Response

• In New Jersey, the state “Supreme Court has issued an order to allow attorneys not licensed in New Jersey to provide temporary, supervised pro bono assistance to individuals and small businesses impacted by the novel coronavirus pandemic.”
• In Chicago IL, “[t]he American Bar Association is unveiling a new online portal designed to better connect pro bono attorneys with individuals and families who need free legal services because of the national COVID-19 emergency.” You can access this portal here.
• In Kentucky, “[l]egal aid societies statewide have launched free training for lawyers who agree to provide pro-bono work in exchange for specialized training on the civil issues Kentuckians are expected to need the most help with.” The initiative, “Together Lawyers Can”, is available at this link.
• In New York, “[a]lmost two years after the New York Workers’ Compensation Board approved rules to allow law students and interns to represent injured workers in medical-only claims, the program has gone nowhere, leaving many workers to represent themselves.”
• In Massachusetts, “Safety Net Project Director Julie McCormack and the students working with her on criminal record sealing (a mostly administrative process before the Massachusetts Probation Service) have taken advantage of the enforced slow-down brought about by COVID19 to develop audio-visual self-help materials for veterans and others seeking to remove the stigma of long ago involvement in the criminal justice system.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, “[s]tudent loan borrowers have filed a lawsuit against Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for allegedly illegal wage garnishments…[as n]early six weeks after the effective date of the CARES Act and the associated mandated suspension of collections, however, the Department of Education has allegedly continued to garnish the wages of some defaulted student loan borrowers.”
• Also in Washington DC, “Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) has proposed new legislation to delay federal student loan payments for new college graduates for up to three years. The [] Act would apply to anyone who graduates college from January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020. Interestingly, the proposed legislation would empower the Secretary of Education (who is currently Betsy DeVos) – not Congress – to extend eligibility to anyone who graduates in 2021 or 2022[.]”
• Business Insider published a guide to which student loans qualify for forebearance under the CARES Act.

Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring

• The consultancy Bridgespan and Echoing Green, “an organization that invests in and provides support for leaders of emerging social enterprises,” released a report finding that “[o]rganizations led by people of color win less grant money and are trusted less to make decisions about how to spend those funds than groups with white leaders[.]”
• In Arizona, “[t]he Alliance of Arizona Nonprofits, an advocacy group representing more than 20,000 nonprofits, estimates the state’s nonprofit sector has already lost more than $40 million due to the COVID-19 pandemic and anticipates a $433 million loss be year’s end.”
• In the United States, “[a]lthough it remains unclear when or if the United States will effectively “flatten the curve” of the coronavirus outbreak, federal agencies appear poised to begin calling at least some employees back to the office in the coming weeks.”
• In Washington DC, “[a] new bill in the House would ensure that federal workers who cannot take vacation this year due to the coronavirus pandemic and end up exceeding annual limits on how much time off can carry over from year to year. would not lose their paid leave.”

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• In New Mexico and Texas, detained immigrants “are barred from placing free, private calls to their attorneys, hindering their access to counsel and robbing them of attorney-client confidentiality, a new lawsuit in New Mexico federal court alleges.”
• In Cambridge MA, “Harvard Law School immigration experts said a recent executive order suspending immigration to the United States will especially harm young children and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients.”

Access to Justice – Criminal & Decarceration

• The Appeal commented on how state bar exam delays may impact indigent accused persons’ access to justice: “what will happen to the marginalized—and Gideon’s mandate—when an entire class of public defenders cannot begin their jobs as scheduled in the fall of 2020?”
• In Missouri, “[s]even judges have been dismissed from a lawsuit over Missouri’s public defender wait lists. Circuit Judge William Hickle ruled the judges were not necessary parties to the lawsuit, which seeks to end the use of wait lists for public defenders.”
• In New York, the Legal Aid Society filed a lawsuit “argu[ing] that…[named] inmates particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 because of their race and pre-existing medical conditions [should be released immediately].”
• In New Mexico, the state “Supreme Court…denied a request to hasten the release of some inmates from prisons across the state to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In Washington DC, “[t]he Legal Services Corporation’s Board of Directors will meet remotely on Tuesday, May 19, 2020…Unless otherwise noted herein, the Board meeting will be open to public observation.”
• In Charlottesville VA, “[the] Legal Aid Justice Center call[ed] Governor Northam’s pending decision to begin reopening the state’s closed businesses “reckless”. Executive Director Angela Ciolfi told Morning News Virginia is nowhere near where [the state] need[s] to be in terms of testing capacity and contact tracing in order to make the move.”
• In Utah, the state Bar Foundation “has released a report addressing the unmet legal needs of lower-income Utahns. The report…highlights the civil legal needs of the roughly 26% of Utah’s population living at or below 200% of the federal poverty guidelines.” The full report is available here.
• In Washington DC, “[f]ederal relief aid in the CARES Act was supposed to ensure the country’s indigenous peoples were not forgotten. Instead, tribes have been embroiled in a legal fight with the Trump administration over attempts to send the money to for-profit Native corporations in Alaska. While a federal judge sided with the tribes last week, the U.S. Treasury Department has yet to release any of the funds…[w]hen the money finally does flow…Native Hawaiians won’t see any of it.”
• In South Carolina, “legal experts said…in the weeks and months ahead, they expect a deluge of renters and homeowners who will be unable to keep up with payments.”
• In San Francisco CA, “Mayor London Breed received a demand letter…insisting she follow the Board of Supervisors’ unanimously passed ordinance to procure 8,250 hotel rooms and put vulnerable homeless people in some 7,000 of them.”
• In New York NY, local reporting argued that “[a]mid this pandemic, it is imperative that New York City expands the Right to Counsel law by increasing legal capacity to meet the inevitable COVID-19 eviction demand, and, building on this model, establish a new initiative to provide free legal representation to vulnerable small businesses.”

Criminal Justice Reform

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! News continues to be big, keeping pace with world events. Major stories come from the ABA, which is recommending state bars develop paths to practice for graduates unable to take the bar exam because of the pandemic, Suffolk Law, which has launched a volunteer initiative to design internet-friendly court forms, and the 11th Circuit, which overturned a motion to dismiss in a case brought by student debtholders “alleging they were given false information about whether their student loans would be forgiven when they worked in public-service jobs.” Also, a coalition of states is developing to negotiate for student debtholder protections and accommodations, and the LSC briefed the legal aid community on its response to the pandemic.

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

Stay well,

Sam

Remote Court Practice & Lawmaking

• In Ontario, MPP Doug Downey spoke about the province’s work “rapidly updating procedures and creating policies to physically shut down courthouses and allow wider use of virtual hearings”: “ ‘We’ve modernized the legal system by about 25 years in 25 days. It’s really quite phenomenal the work that’s been done‘[.]”
• In New York, “executive orders have been issued to facilitate not only remote notarization, but now also remote witnessing.”
• Also in New York, after “ the state’s judiciary…successfully implemented a statewide ‘virtual court’ system this month[, ]…representatives of poor and moderate-income communities across the state say they’re concerned for underserved clients who may have trouble getting connected.”
• In Boston MA, “a group of students and staff members at Suffolk University Law School…organize[d] an assembly line of volunteers to design mobile-friendly court forms and assist lawyerless people with their filings. Court officials are sharing relevant documents with Suffolk’s Legal Innovation & Technology Lab, which parcels out the tasks based on volunteers’ skills.”
  • More information on this project is available here: https://suffolklitlab.org/doc-assembly-line/
• In Philadelphia PA, DA Larry Krasner’s office “propos[ed] that the city courts establish a Zoom court where hearings could be held virtually.”
• Relatedly, Law.com discussed how “[p]eople all over..awaiting their ‘day in court’..simply have to wait[, and in] types of matters where individual liberties are at stake or safety is at issue, delays can result in life-altering consequences.”
• In Hennepin County MN, “County District Judge Martha Holton Dimick appeared for hearings Monday via telephone, bucking mandates issued by the county’s chief judge and state Chief Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea.”
• In Washington DC, “[d]ozens of former congressional members [hosted] a mock remote hearing Thursday to spotlight how Congress can continue its work online during the global coronavirus pandemic.”
  • Relatedly, “Congress Consider[ed] Remote Voting, but Tradition (and Law) Pose a Challenge.”

Pro Bono Response

• In New Haven CT, three Yale law students founded The Coronavirus Stimulus Pledge, an initiative “to encourage financially stable people to donate their stimulus checks to charity.”
• In New York, “Governor Andrew Cuomo has called upon the pro bono network formed by the New York State court system and the New York State Bar Association to help jobless New Yorkers.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Florida, “[a] federal appeals court [] cleared the way for a lawsuit in which two Florida women allege they were given false information about whether their student loans would be forgiven when they worked in public-service jobs.”
• In Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, and Vermont, state governments “have announced that they are participating in a multi-state initiative to provide relief to borrowers whose student loans are not covered by the CARES Act through agreements with certain student loan servicers. Other states identified in the announcements that are also participating in the initiative are California, Colorado, Virginia, and Washington.”
• In Calfornia, Governor Newsom “said that 21 companies that service student loans will be granting [a] 90-day grace period on payments with no late fees. Newsom credited Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker for leading the effort to support borrowers who were not covered by debt forbearance in the $2.2 trillion federal…(CARES) Act.”
• In Washington DC, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) “called for any new stimulus package to include additional relief for student debt, stimulus money for high school and college students, and the creation of a federal program to give young people not bound for college the opportunity to earn a free, post-high school educational certificate.”
• Also in Washington DC, Sens. Warren (D-MA) & Brown (D-OH) proposed a consumer protection plan that included “[e]suring that private student borrowers are protected, just like federal student loan borrowers.” The plan also calls for “broad cancellation of student loan debt as a way to stimulate the economy as well as ‘ensure Americans don’t have a massive student debt load waiting for them on the other side of this emergency and help a generation of Americans who never fully recovered from our last economic crisis participate in stimulating our economy through this crisis.’ ”

Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring

• In Chicago IL, “[t]he American Bar Association is urging state licensing authorities to let 2019-20 law school graduates who can’t take the bar exam because of the coronavirus pandemic practice law under certain circumstances.”
  • Relatedly, the NCBE is charting accomodations various states are making to help graduates unable to take bar exams this summer because of COVID-19 delays and cancellations.
    (We link to this page and other useful materials at https://www.psjd.org/covid19)
• In Washington DC, house Democrats announced plans to “push for a number of additional protections for federal workers in future legislation aimed at combating the coronavirus pandemic, including hazard pay, expanded leave and telework, and reversing the Trump administration’s policies toward federal employee unions.”
• Also in Washington DC, “Senate Democrats announced a proposal to supplement the health care workforce through a massive outreach and training program, part of a larger effort to expand national service during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
• Also also in Washington DC, “more than 200 national nonprofit organizations [] sent a letter to congressional leadership, calling on them to include a “Nonprofit Track” in any future legislation that builds on the CARES Act.”
• In the United States, “[a] majority of federal employees say the novel coronavirus outbreak has had a “major” or “extreme” impact on their agencies’ operations, according to a new survey[.]”

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• In Washington DC, “President Trump [] signed a proclamation to temporarily suspend certain visas for foreigners seeking to move permanently to the U.S., decreeing that the admission of new immigrants would hurt American workers already struggling in an economy ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic.”
  • In response, the ACLU stated: “There are measured and productive approaches to curbing the spread of COVID-19, namely ensuring equal access to testing and treatment; releasing individuals from ICE and CBP detention; and suspending interior enforcement. Unfortunately, President Trump seems more interested in fanning anti-immigrant flames than in saving lives. We cannot allow President Trump to exploit this pandemic to advance his racism and xenophobia.”
  • Relatedly, in San Francisco CA, “[a] coalition of attorneys filed a class-action lawsuit Monday calling on Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release more than 400 immigrants from two California detention facilities amid coronavirus concerns.”

Access to Justice – Criminal & Decarceration

• In Washington DC, “[a] federal judge has ordered the DC Department of Corrections to take immediate steps to improve conditions at its jail to minimize the spread of the coronavirus among inmates and prison guards, according to a release from the ACLU of the District of Columbia.”
• Also in Washington DC, Senator Harris (D-CA) and Rep. Deutch (D-FL) “sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) pushing for more funding for public defenders during the COVID-19 crisis.”
• In Louisiana, “Public defenders…face uncertainty over the future of their jobs as the COVID-19 pandemic impacts a big source of their funding: traffic tickets.”
• In Ellis County TX, “[t]he Commissioners’ Court…agreed to establish a committee [that] will weigh whether a public defender’s office or a managed assigned counsel program is more appropriate for the county, and will report back to the Commissioners’ Court with recommendations before July 1.”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• On the Internet, “[t]he Legal Serves Corporation held a virtual briefing on The COVID-19 Health Crisis, Civil Legal Needs, and State Courts (recording available via this link).
• Relatedly, the former Chief Justice of the Washington State Supreme Court warned that “the current crisis is generating a wave of needs that will overwhelm our legal-aid system[,]” avocating that “[s]ubstantial and sustained support for civil legal aid must be part of our government’s short- and long-term policy responses to COVID-19 at all levels. Emergency federal stimulus funding should be directed to boosting service capacity.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! Once again, the news is overwhelming. I’ve done my best to catalogue it for you all below. One big announcement: as major stories roll out everywhere concerning eviction moratoria, changes to court procedures, changes to policing and carceral policies, and government hiring freezes, we’ve collected resources that are working to centralize information on these stories as they develop in the PSJD resource center. This section of the resource center also includes links to student-driven pro bono projects that have sprung up in response to the pandemic.

As for the digest itself, you will still find some of the most prominent stories on these topics, but please refer to the PSJD resource page for materials that focus on them exclusively and that attempt to be comprehensive.

Major news this week includes reporting that analyzes the impact of last week’s $2.2 trillion CARES Act on student loan debt payments (and employer-driven student loan benefits). Also, you’ll find lawsuits challenging the ongoing detention of incarcerated individuals, whether as pretrial detainees, convicts, or detainees in ICE facilities. Additionally, there’s a new section looking at the growing pro bono response to the pandemic–and particularly at the areas into which lawyers are productively channelling their energies to address the crisis.

These stories and more are in the links below. As with last week, in each section news that is not related to the current crisis appears at the section’s end, separated from Coronavirus content with a horizontal line (—).

Stay well,

Sam

Editor’s Choice

• The ABA Journal reported on a statement from the President of the National Conference of Bar Examiners on how jurisdictions can adapt as the Class of 2020 confronts delays to various July Bar Exams: “ ‘It is not clear that it is imperative to quickly adopt alternative methods of licensure…particularly at a time when courts and bar admission offices are working overtime (and remotely) to respond to this crisis,’ NCBE President Judith Gundersen wrote in the statement.She added that extending or expanding student practice rules could help provide essential legal services on a temporary basis, but a period of supervised practice should not “necessarily” qualify someone for licensure.”

Remote Court Practice & Lawmaking

• In the UK, “Legal futurologist Professor Richard Susskind unveil[ed an] initiative to co-ordinate efforts to use technology to keep courts open.”
• In Canada, “[t]he Federal Court is continuing to hear all urgent matters, as well as exceptional matters, on a ‘case-by-case’ basis, by teleconference or videoconference according to the terms of its practice direction and order issued March 17, and the frequently asked questions (FAQs) on March 20, the court’s legal counsel, Andrew Baumberg has confirmed.”
• Also in Canada, former Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote “to lend my voice to the growing list of practitioners, judges, academics and court users who are beseeching governments across Canada to see COVID-19 and the courts’ woeful inability to pivot as a wake-up call.”
• In Georgia, “the executive director of the Georgia Public Defender Council sent an urgent letter to Georgia’s criminal justice community [regarding] “[a] few local courts” across the state [] still requiring public defenders to appear personally at county jails before their clients could be released or their cases could proceed,… [and urging] he courts still requiring personal appearances…to implement alternatives ‘as soon as possible’ to limit the risk to lawyers, clients, court officers and incarcerated defendants.”
• In Wisconsin, “Governor Evers signed Assembly Bill 293 earlier this month, permitting parties in Wisconsin to allow the performance of notarial acts using audio-visual technology for remotely located individuals.”
• Worldwide, “Zoom’s ease of use, feature base, and free service tier have made it a go-to resource not only for all those office meetings that used to happen in conference rooms but also for teachers, religious services, and even governments. The widespread use, in turn, is shining a bright spotlight on Zoom’s privacy and data-collection practices, which apparently leave much to be desired.”
  • Notably, the article mentions that “Zoom does offer specific enterprise-level packages—Zoom for Education and Zoom for Healthcare—that have compliance with privacy law (FERPA and HIPAA, respectively) baked in. Many users in those fields, however, may be on the free tier or using individual or other types of enterprise licenses that don’t take these particular needs into consideration.”

Pro Bono Response

• In New York, “[t]he state bar association and court system said in a statement…that they are putting together a network of pro bono lawyers that can respond to legal issues arising out of the pandemic, especially those affecting people who can’t afford to hire an attorney.”
• Law360 discussed the “surging interest from…lawyers looking to tackle the flood of legal problems caused by the pandemic.”
• Law360 also covered “a few ways that lawyers can step up in a time of social distancing.”
• Law.com reported on “[Hogan Lovells] pro bono efforts [that] helped Patriots owner Bob Kraft use his team’s plane to secure 1.7 million N95 masks from China and guided Ford in a deal with GE Healthcare to produce 50,000 ventilators in 100 days.”
• In Baltimore MD, Warnken, LLC announced in a press release their firm “will represent​ healthcare workers or public safety employees exposed to COVID-19 at work pro bono.” They also mentioned that “Jim Lanier, attorney at Warnken, LLC, was primary drafter of a proposed new bill that would create a presumption under Maryland law that healthcare workers at COVID-19 facilities, and public safety employees, got COVID-19 at work. That bill is with government relations professionals actively seeking sponsorship.”
• In Miami FL, Law.com published a conversation with the Executive Director of Legal Services of Greater Miami about “3 Ways Lawyers Can Help Legal Services of Greater Miami Right Now”
• In Canada, CBC reported that “[w]aves of people concerned about COVID-19 are rushing to write or change their wills, but they’re running into a roadblock caused by the effort to curb the pandemic.” In response, the chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s Elder Law section and one of her partners at Loopstra Nixon are “trying [to] advance the law a little bit by obtaining a court order that says it’s OK to witness the will over the internet, whether it be Skype or Zoom or what-have-you[.]”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• Forbes advised that “this is probably one time when you’ll want to contact your student loan servicer.” The article also includes brief bullets on what to keep in mind about modifying your payments and contact information for various loan servicers.
  • Forbes also reported that “any federal student loan payments that you skip between now and September 30, 2020 will count toward the 120 required payments [for Public Service Loan Forgiveness]. While the Education Department or your student loan servicer may not yet have updated their websites (because the legislation is brand new), this benefit is part of the CARES Act and non-payment will not be treated like a regular forbearance. If you contact your student loan servicer and are told differently, rest assured (as frustrating as it may be) that the corrected information will be disseminated soon.”
    • More on this topic from Forbes.
    • Still more on this topic from Forbes.
    • Yet again more on this topic from Forbes.
  • Additionally, Forbes reported that “[n]ew guidance from the Department of Education showed a new benefit to student borrowers[:] In the questions and answers for student borrowers, the Department told borrowers who may have made a payment on or after March 13th that they can request a refund for their student loan payment. Borrowers must contact their student loan servicer to receive this refund.”
• Meanwhile, “the Education Department as of Wednesday still had outdated information on its own site, leaving borrowers confused about what help is available as the financial impact of the coronavirus outbreak takes hold.”
• 401k Specialist Mag reported that “[t]he $2.2 trillion Cares [sic] Act…includes a new student loan repayment benefit for employees that can help them start saving for retirement earlier. Under the provision, an employer may contribute up to $5,250 annually toward an employee’s student loans, and such payment would be excluded from the employee’s income. The $5,250 cap applies to both the new student loan repayment benefit as well as other educational assistance (e.g., tuition, fees, books) provided by the employer under current law.”
• Bloomberg reported on “terms of the [student loan] garnishment suspension [that] may confuse employers as the Education Department refines details of the program authorized by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which was signed March 27 by President Donald Trump.”

Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring

• In Washington DC, “[i]n an effort to continue federal hiring activities but observe social distancing recommendations, the Office of Personnel Management advised agencies to virtually or remotely onboard new employees.”
• Also in Washington DC, “[a] group of five federal workers and the nation’s largest federal employee union last week filed a class action lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing that federal employees exposed to the novel coronavirus through their jobs are owed hazardous duty pay.”
• The NonProfit Times reported on “7 ways the CARES Act Financial Supports Nonprofits”
• Philanthropy.com published a letter to the editor urging “professional advisers (including me) to step up to assist the organizations that rely largely upon philanthropy for survival…I make my living in the courts — including the Bankruptcy Court. In my opinion, the courts will not be very friendly to creditors, lenders, or landlords that declare defaults or seek to exercise remedies against customers or tenants whose business has been honestly stricken by the pandemic. That is particularly true for nonprofit organizations.”
• Vice.com interviewed “people who graduated during the last economic session[, who] believe there are some aspects of their experience to which the class of 2020 will be able to relate.”

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• In Washington DC, “[t]he federal docket…is quickly becoming a hotbed for litigation seeking to force officials to protect detained immigrants and inmates during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
• In the United States, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the National Association of Immigration Judges, and AFGE #511 (ICE Professionals Union) called for the “Immediate Closure of All Immigration Courts”
• Also in the United States, “[t]housands of people with legal status in the United States could inadvertently violate immigration law over the next few months, as the government agency that processes applications remains closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.”
• In Portland OR, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Innovation Law Lab, and Perkins Coie LLP “s[ought] a temporary restraining order mandating that immigration courts take appropriate measures to protect immigrants, attorneys, court staff and the public from COVID-19 without endangering the rights of people in removal proceedings.”
• In Boston MA, “the Worker & Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic (WIRAC) at Yale Law School joined the Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR) and the Brazilian Worker Center in filing a class action lawsuit against Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, Bristol County Superintendent Steven Souza, and top federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials. The complaint alleges that the dozens of detainees like Ceballos who are held in civil immigration detention at Bristol are at undue risk of contracting and suffering from the novel coronavirus.“
• In San Bernardino CA, “A federal judge has ordered the release of two detainees from the Adelanto ICE facility…due to the coronavirus pandemic.”
• In Alabama, Connecticut Public Radio interviewed “[o]ne Connecticut resident who’s being held by ICE in an Alabama county jail” about his conditions of detention.”
• Quartz.com reminded its readers that just last year “the American Association of Medical Colleges…warned in an amicus brief to the US Supreme Court of a severe shortage in healthcare professionals nationwide [and] explained that the country now very much relies on more than 27,000 grown children of undocumented immigrants in healthcare and medicine, authorized to work under an Obama-era program introduced in 2012, called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).”

Access to Justice – Criminal & Decarceration

• In Washington DC, “[t]he federal docket…is quickly becoming a hotbed for litigation seeking to force officials to protect detained immigrants and inmates during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
• In California, the California Public Defenders’ Association strongly criticized the orders of the state’s Chief Justice extending deadlines for preliminary hearings, trials, and other time periods specified in court procedures as actions “taken without and [sic] regard for, or any mention of, the extensive written objections that CPDA and many other criminal defense and civil liberties groups submitted to the Chief Justice and the Judicial Council in response to their request[.]”
  • Relatedly, in Santa Barbara County, the County Public Defender’s Office filed “a writ of habeas corpus…with the state’s Second Appellate District Court on behalf of several inmates who challenge the Superior Court’s current policy of suspending the vast majority of court matters, including bail hearings for pretrial detainees.”
• Relatedly, Slate published a Maryland attorney’s account of “What It’s Like to Be a Public Defender Right Now”: “Our work, by its nature, necessitates contact…Through remote lawyering, we can prepare most of our cases, sure. But we cannot fully advocate for clients, especially under the limited and ever-shrinking capacity in which Maryland courts are now operating. Basically, under the current regime, defendants can plead guilty, but if a client wants to profess his innocence, the case is postponed (likely without a hearing). In an environment where sitting in jail could, in itself, result in serious illness or death, a system that was already heavily weighted toward guilty pleas has only become more so when, in some cases, clients have options of going home on probation or languishing indefinitely in jail awaiting trial.”
• In Washington DC, “[t]he ACLU and DC Public Defender Service accuse the city of a flagrant disregard for the well-being of prisoners in the DC Jail in a federal lawsuit they have filed against the city.”
• In Saskatchewan, “[t]he John Howard Society of Saskatchewan is urging to [sic] province to quickly implement measures to reduce the further spread of COVID-19 in prisons.”
• In US Federal prisons, “inmates will be confined to their cell or quarters for the next two weeks as a part of efforts to stem the spread of the coronavirus, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) announced[.]…Criminal justice reform advocates criticized the Federal Bureau of Prisons’s move to confine inmates for an extended period. Scott Hechinger, a public defender in Brooklyn, tweeted that ‘solitary confinement is not a solution. Solitary confinement is torture.’ “
• In Honolulu HI, “Mayor Kirk Caldwell…objected to efforts to relieve overcrowding at Hawaii’s correctional facilities amid the coronavirus pandemic, claiming that ‘our prison could actually be the safest place in terms of COVID-19.’”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In the United States, “civil legal aid groups…now face an unprecedented crunch from all sides as the nation’s poor take the brunt of the faltering economy and skyrocketing unemployment numbers. The closure of businesses for social distancing will not only increase the number of people with those legal problems but also increase the number of people who qualify as low income.”
• In Canada, the National Self-Represented Litigants Project reported that “[m]any of those working on the front lines will tell you, like health care workers this week, that they feel like they have their finger in a dyke – of need and frustration – that could burst at any moment.”
• In Ontario, Legal Aid Ontario announced that “as part of our ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic, lawyers across Ontario may, temporarily, apply for legal aid on behalf of clients that are in custody, when clients cannot.”
• In New York NY, the Director of the family and matrimonial practice at Her Justice called attention to the difficulties the pandemic imposes on individuals attempting to escape domestic abuse: “[o]ne Her Justice client has already gotten word to her lawyers that they should not try to reach her by phone or email because she’s afraid her abuser, with whom she’s now cloistered at home, will see the messages, Diamanti said. Another client suspected that her partner was exposing their immunosuppressed child to COVID-19 but didn’t have sufficient facts to file an emergency petition.”
  • Relatedly, in Montgomery County TX, “the District Attorney’s Office reports an approximately 35% increase in domestic violence cases filed in March 2020 as were filed in the same time period in 2019. This rise may be due to increased isolation, stress, and more access to victims by perpetrators caused by the COVID-19 virus fallout.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! It’s been a busy week–so busy in fact that the digest will be a bit brief today. To start with, our PSJD Fellow Brittany Valente has done a stellar job pulling together all of the various orders under which state judiciaries are now operating across the country, which is available now as a resource on PSJD. We hope to add information about federal courts before too long, and are also working on a document about changes in carceral policies and policing.

As with last week, in each section news that is not related to the current crisis appears at the section’s end, separated from Coronavirus content with a horizontal line (—).

Stay well,

Sam

Tracking the Changing Landscape

• As I mentioned in our introduction, the PSJD Resource Center now includes a document summarizing state-level policies for civil and criminal courts related to the pandemic. We hope to create similar resources for other rapidly changing areas in the coming days.
• In Vermont, Vermont Legal aid “has created a web page to track changes made in areas such as scheduled hearings, foreclosures, food, unemployment and taxes.”

Remote Court Practice & Lawmaking

• In Wisconsin, “[t]he State Bar…is requesting that attorneys be exempt from a ‘Safer at Home’ order after Gov. Tony Evers announced today that he expects to issue the order …in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
• In Ontario, “Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) is working to offer more resources to clients through the telephone and online.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• At Harvard, “Harvard Law School students and alumni wrote a letter on Saturday asking the Law School’s Low Income Protection Plan to maintain current levels of financial aid if the federal government approves student debt relief amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic…’We basically don’t want the intention of assistance from the federal government to be offset by a corresponding and equal reduction in assistance from Harvard, because then it’s not assistance at all, right?’ said [a signatory].”
• In British Columbia, officials announced they would follow the Canadian government’s example and suspend student loan payments “effect[ive] at the end of March and last[ing] all the way until September 2020.”
• In Washington DC, “[t]he Trump administration has stopped seizing the wages, tax refunds and Social Security benefits of people who are in default on their federal student loans, an administration official confirmed[.]”
  _________________________________________________________
• In Washington DC, The Aspen Institute published “Making the Case: Solving the Student Debt Crisis”, a policy report “outlin[ing] goals and solutions for crosssector action from federal, state, and local policymakers, employers, and other stakeholders to address rising student debt burdens[.]”

Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring

• In Washington DC, “[t]he U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Defense each issued memoranda late last week that provide guidance on what constitutes a critical infrastructure industry…While the federal memoranda are advisory only and do not have the force and effect of law, they do provide a basis for states and localities to craft exemptions for such critical infrastructure industries and for firms to use to seek exemptions from existing orders to keep their security-related operations open.”
• In New York, “The New York State Bar Association’s (NYSBA) Task Force on the New York State Bar Examination is convening on an emergency basis to consider whether it’s possible to administer the Uniform Bar Examination in July[.]”
• In Ohio, “[Gov.] DeWine…is issuing an order that will freeze hiring in the state government to reserve funds as much as possible.”

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• In California, “[c]ivil rights groups have filed for an emergency application for a preliminary injunction to stop the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency from detaining immigrants if the agency will not take further action to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”

Decarceration

• Quartz published a piece making the timely observation that “[t]he coronavirus pandemic turns every arrest into a potential death sentence[.]”
• In Washington DC, “The Trump administration on Thursday joined the national push to release at-risk inmates as the number of cases of coronavirus continues to multiply in the country’s corrections system, with Attorney General William Barr directing leaders of the federal prison system to increase the use of home confinement for some inmates.”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In Washington DC, “[a]ctivist groups are asking the White House and several federal agencies to freeze any rulemaking that isn’t directly related to the COVID-19 response effort, saying in a letter on Tuesday that it would be a misallocation of resources to do otherwise.”
• Also in Washington DC, “the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued official guidance stating, ‘Unless individual housing units are available, do not clear encampments during community spread of COVID-19.’ ”
• In California, “More than 125 organizations say gaps in worker protections desperately need to be filled by Governor Gavin Newsom and the legislature. The urgent action required is detailed in a letter asking state leaders to protect the health, safety, and economic well-being of workers impacted by the new coronavirus outbreak.”
• In Colorado, “Colorado Legal Services is suspending all in-person outreach clinics at least until April 6.”
• In Connecticut, “New Haven legal aid is asking the state to eliminate barriers to those workers getting help, like fears that undocumented family members might get deported after going to the doctor.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! It shouldn’t shock anyone at this point to learn that a lot has happened in the past week. Various authorities are either making or entertaining fundamental changes to the way the legal system functions in response to the extraordinary conditions under which we must all now live; similarly fundamental changes to related systems such as the penal system and the educational finance system are also underway.

In this digest, I’ve done my best to highlight articles and resources that describe overall trends that are beginning to emerge in the way these systems are adapting. In some instances, I haven’t been able to find resources that capture these overall trends. Where possible, NALP’s Public Service team is working on creating these materials. We hope to be able to share them with you soon. In the meantime, I will note the existence of a trend and reference a few key articles below.

I hope you all find this approach helpful. Please feel free to reach out to me and let me know if you have thoughts about how I can best keep you all informed in this period of uncertainty.

One more thing: In each section, news that is not related to the current crisis appears at the section’s end, separated from Coronavirus content with a horizontal line (—).

Stay well,

Sam

Remote Court Practice & Lawmaking

• In Above the Law, a California attorney posed a crucial question that the pandemic has forced upon the legal profession: “Is The Court a Place or a Service?” The author argues that “If one of the things we should be doing is to make legal services more affordable and more accessible, then COVID-19 may prompt, indeed, mandate changes in our thinking and delivery of those services.”

  This is the most succinct formulation of an issue with which attorneys and courts across the country are currently grappling. Many courts are developing policies related to remote appearances (and, alternatively, continuances of cases); we hope to collect these various policies into a centralized document for everyone to review sometime within the next week. For now, I will focus on sharing reports from the perspective of attorneys practicing before courts that are beginning to adapt their procedures in this way.

  In related news:

  • In The Washington Examiner, the VP of Criminal Justice at the Texas Public Policy Foundation argued that “this is [] a good time to assess the extent to which all hearings must be held in-person. Defendants have a sacrosanct constitutional right to confront their accuser at trial, but trials are very rare in the modern criminal justice system. Many court hearings are status conferences that could be handled through commonplace virtual meeting applications.”
  • JDSupra argued that “ ‘Social distancing’ is now a public health imperative everywhere, and it’s clear that remote computing technology will play a large role in providing both business continuity and health safety within the legal community over the next few weeks and months.”
  • In Texas, a criminal defense lawyer observed that on Law.com that “Normal for me involves a lot of wasted time. At least once a week I drive an hour in traffic (each way) to sit through a calendar that takes a judge an hour to call, just to say, “not guilty.” That’s three hours to speak for three seconds…This pandemic has been an expensive lesson in [how] arraignment calendars need to give way to a system that spares judges, prosecutors, defendants, and their attorneys from using half their day in court to say two little words.”
  • Lawfare published an overview of how federal courts are adapting their operations to comply with social distancing.
  • In Bernalillo County NM “District Attorney Raul Torrez [announced] that his prosecutors will no longer physically go to ‘non-essential’ hearings…Torrez says prosecutors from the 2nd Judicial District will only appear in hearings via telephone or video connection.”
  • In New York NY, “Public defenders in New York City say the state courts are putting staff and attorneys at risk of COVID-19 exposure during arraignments. The Office of Court Administration has set up video conferencing, but the only person in the court who is on the video and not there in person is the defendant.”
• In Washington DC, “Republican Rob Portman[, of Ohio,] joined with Democrat Dick Durbin, of Illinois, to introduce a bipartisan resolution to allow senators to vote remotely during a national crisis. During certain crises, such as the current COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, guidelines from the CDC may advise against convening the full Senate in the Capitol.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, fundamentals of the existing student loan debt system are in flux. There are many articles out there, but a good place to start is Inside Higher Ed’s discussion of current proposals being floated at the federal level. Some key points (from the article):
  • Although Trump announced last week that “he will be waiving the interest of federal student loans[, ] student aid experts have said it doesn’t appear that the proposal would lower how much borrowers have to repay each month.”
  • A short-term break from monthly payments would likely be acceptable to right-leaning policy experts, “at least, as long as it is deferment and not some sort of forgiveness[.]”
  • In contrast, “the stimulus package put together by Senate Democrats…would not only defer monthly payments, but pay down the amounts owed[.]”
• Also in Washington DC, “Congressman Danny K. Davis (D-IL) along with Rep. Darin LaHood (R-IL) introduced the Retirement Parity for Student Loans Act of 2020, which would permit 401k, 403b, SIMPLE and governmental 457b retirement plans to make matching contributions to workers as if their student loan payments were salary reduction contributions.”
• In New York, “Governor Andrew Cuomo has suspended collections on certain student loans in the state.”
• US News & World Report published advice on “what to do if the Coronavirus affects your student loan payments.”
• The VP of Research for Savingforcollege.com said “he would expect the [student loan interest] rates for the upcoming academic year, which will be announced this spring, to fall to 1.9% for undergraduates, and to 3.5% and 4.5% for graduate students and PLUS loans, respectively.”
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• MarketWatch published an article arguing that “getting student loans erased in bankruptcy, while technically possible, is so hard and expensive that few people try; even fewer succeed. Without intervention by Congress and a change of heart at the Education Department, struggling borrowers will continue to be trapped in a virtual debtor’s prison: unable to pay what they owe and unable to move on with their lives.”

Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring

• JdSupra published “some action steps nonprofit executives, leaders and board members can take to minimize risk and mitigate the impact of the pandemic.”
• In Chicago, the ABA “launched a task force that includes representatives from the Legal Services Corp, the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, the National Center for State Courts and other groups, to address legal needs that could arise from the pandemic, including an uptick in domestic violence cases, employment-related cases and bankruptcy filings[.]”
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• Also in Chicago IL, the ABA released “Principles for Legal Education and Licensure in the 21st Century,” a document “aimed at aligning legal education and licensure more closely to better address the public’s legal needs.”
• In New York, “[a] New York State Bar Association task force has recommended several strategies to address an expected shortage of small-town lawyers set to hit rural areas across the state over the next few decades. The NYSBA’s Task Force on Rural Justice has recommended loan repayment programs, tuition assistance, relaxed residency requirements for public positions and increased hourly rates for assigned counsel in rural areas. The reforms would enable attorneys, typically saddled with major student loan debt, to take jobs in rural areas that pay lower than positions in cities and suburban towns.”

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• In Boston MA, “[c]oncerns over exposure to COVID-19 are increasing among Boston’s immigration attorneys after one of the courtrooms in Boston abruptly closed earlier this week.”
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• In Tennessee, the state’s “Republican-led Legislature has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider their failed challenge of the federal refugee resettlement program, which claims the state shouldn’t be forced to spend money on Medicaid and other services for refugees.”

Decarceration

• The Marshall Project put together a fantastic resource “rounding up [visitation] closures and other changes [to prison facilities across the country].” Their resource focuses on which facilities have suspended or limited visitation.
• Data for Progress released a memo, “Fighting the Coronavirus with Decarceration,” finding “strong, cross-ideological support for the strategy of dramatically reducing jail and prison populations to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Sixty-six percent of likely voters, including 59% of those who are “very conservative,” said that elected officials should be considering measures to reduce overcrowding in prisons and jails as a response to coronavirus.”

  Across the United States and Canada, various actors including NGOs, Public Defenders, and District Attorneys have begun to call for these measures–and some elected officials have agreed. We hope to collect as many of these various policy changes as possible into a centralized document to which we can all refer sometime within the next week. For now, I’ll leave you with the overview from Data for Progress.

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In Canada, “law societies across the country are enabling staff to work from home, while providing direction to legal professionals as they try to maintain practices during a time of social distancing.”
• In the United States, Newsweek published a list of “all the cities [and states] who have announced moratoriums on evictions during [the] Coronavirus pandemic.” (As of Monday March 16; things have continued since then but this article will get you started).
• In Baltimore, “pro bono groups…have begun implementing remote services to stay connected with clients in need of free legal aid.”
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• In Canada, National Magazine reviewed “judgments rendered by our top court over the last five years [which] show[] it has increasingly relied on the idea of ‘access to justice’ in handing down its rulings.”
• In Manitoba, the provincial “law society is welcoming proposed legislation that would allow for ‘limited practitioners’ in that province.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Ontario, “Attorney General Doug Downey has been left with little choice but to virtually shutter the Ontario Court of Justice after an unprecedented mutiny by all levels refusing to continue to attend the lower court in the face of COVID-19. The associations for criminal defence and Legal Aid lawyers have announced they’ll no longer appear at any OCJ courtroom after the chief justice ignored their repeated pleas to close the halls of justice to any in-person appearance.”

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• In British Columbia, “Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA-Plus) is now a required component of all cabinet, budget and Treasury Board submissions.” Writing for the Lawyer’s Daily, the Assistant Deputy Minister of Justice Service Branch of the BC Ministry of the Attorney General wrote about the implications of this policy for Access to Justice.

Criminal Justice Reform

• Across the United States, “[l]ocal law enforcement officials across the country are rapidly making major operational changes in preparation for the continued spread of coronavirus, as they face potential strains in resources and staffing without precedent in modern American history.” In some places, these measures include changes long sought by advocates of criminal justice reform. For example, in Dane County WI the sherriff told ABC that they were“working with all of our law enforcement partners, local, state and federal, to decrease the number of people who are physically arrested and brought to jail.”

  For one more example, in related news:

  • In Baltimore MD, “City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby told prosecutors [] to drop all pending charges for drug possession, attempted distribution, prostitution, trespassing, minor traffic offenses, open container and public urination…to reduce the potential spread of the virus in detention centers.”
• In New York, the District Attorneys Association of New York “called on Governor Andrew Cuomo to suspend new discovery and speedy trial reforms as the coronavirus pandemic grinds criminal court operations to a halt.”
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• Also in New York, “there [remains] a big divide over whether to roll back the state’s new bail law.”
• In Chicago IL, “Kim Foxx…took a major step toward re-election on Tuesday with a victory in the Democratic primary.”
• In Los Angeles CA, “[i]t’s looking more and more like there will be a November runoff in the race to be L.A. County’s next District Attorney.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! We have a theme this week. There’s news I don’t need to share with you all currently affecting every corner of our society–including the topics we cover together in this Digest. (For those of you who are interested, you can find NALP’s statement concerning COVID-19 here.) Here’s how COVID-19 is playing out in the Public Interest Legal world:

Some courts have begun suspending in-person operations. Some public defenders’ offices have begun calling for the release of pretrial detainees and vulnerable members of our incarcerated population. Some cities have begun placing moratoria on eviction proceedings and water utility shutoffs. It is not clear yet how federal immigration policy will affect public health in this moment. After the Fed announced plans to “pump in up to $1.5 trillion into the financial system in an effort to combat potential freezes brought on by the coronavirus,” some politicians on both sides of the aisle have begun asking whether other stimulus options, such as student loan debt relief, should also be considered.

Stay well,

Sam

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• “Hundreds of advocates across the U.S. are pressing the Trump administration to not allow the coronavirus response to trigger immigration enforcement…In [an open letter to Vice President Pence], the group presses the government to deem hospitals as ‘enforcement-free zones,’ similarly to immigration officials’ position during hurricanes and other major emergencies…Though neither the White House nor the Department of Homeland Security has commented on whether it will officially declare healthcare facilities enforcement-free zones amid the outbreak, ICE told the Miami Herald on Tuesday that[, ] ‘Coronavirus is not considered an exigent circumstance, and individuals seeking medical treatment for the virus should continue to do so without fear or hesitation[.]’”
  • Meanwhile, Vox noted that “the Trump administration’s public charge rule, which makes it harder for immigrants to obtain a green card when they receive government benefits, went into effect two weeks ago. The rule discourages immigrants from using Medicaid, and potentially leaves these people without access to affordable health care — which is particularly dangerous during times like this.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, “OPM has told agencies to report on their calendar year 2019 use of student loan reimbursements, one authority agencies can use to attract and keep employees in high-demand occupations.”
• Also in Washington DC, after “coronavirus fears sent markets into free fall, leading to the worst day in the stock market since 1987. In response to the dip, the Federal Reserve announced that it would be injecting more around $1.5 trillion in the market to help smooth short-term funding markets. Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, questioned why the Fed was ready to aid the markets but not Americans struggling with student debt. She tweeted, “FYI, the amount that the Fed just injected almost covers all student loan debt in the US. There is absolutely NO excuse for not pausing student debt collections, planning for mortgage &rent relief, etc. We need to care for working people as much as we care for the stock market.”
  • Meanwhile, also also in Washington DC, “Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Friday that the Trump administration would consider suspending people’s student loan payments as part of a larger strategy to limit the economic consequences of the coronavirus.“

Legal Technology

• Here on the Internet, Pro Bono Net published its Remote Legal Support Guide: A Best Practices Manual for Nonprofit and Pro Bono Innovation.

Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring

• In Washington DC, “the Supreme Court announced that it would close its doors to the public “until further notice” “[o]ut of concern for the health and safety of the public and Supreme Court employees.” The announcement follows the news earlier on Thursday that the Capitol would close to visitors until April 1, the first disease-related closure of the building to the public since the Spanish flu outbreak in 1918.”

Rule of Law

• In Georgia, “[t]wo would-be candidates have filed suit against Georgia’s top election official, saying he illegally cancelled a scheduled May 19t election for a seat on the state’s highest court to allow the governor to fill the position by appointment when it becomes vacant months later.”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In Tennessee, “the Chief Justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court…declar[ed] a state of emergency for the Judicial Branch of Tennessee government” the court has suspended “[a]ll in-person proceedings in all state and local courts in Tennessee…subject to exceptions[.]”
• In Kentucky, ,”[m]ost in-person court proceedings…have been suspended due to the state’s ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.”
• Across the U.S., “[i]n hopes of avoiding mass evictions in the coming weeks and months, tenant advocate groups and city council members nationwide are pushing for moratoriums on evictions in hopes of limiting the economic damage. If the coronavirus leads to evictions on a massive scale, the fallout could end up being one of the most consequential effects of the virus’s spread.”
  • In Oakland CA, “[m]ore than a dozen activists and tenant rights attorneys lined up to demand the city protect unhoused residents and low-income renters who may miss work and paychecks because of coronavirus fallout. They asked the City Council to halt eviction lawsuits in Alameda County courts, forbid landlords from pushing out tenants who can’t pay rent due to a coronavirus-related loss of income, and to stop closing homeless encampments in the city.”
  • In New York State, “lawmakers have introduced legislation to enact a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures during New York’s coronavirus outbreak. State Senators Brad Hoylman and Brian Kavanagh announced the bill on Thursday, echoing the economic concerns raised by a growing coalition of housing advocates and elected officials.”
  • In Boston MA, “Local officials and housing advocates are demanding a halt to the housing court’s ‘eviction machine’ in an effort to protect vulnerable residents from exposure as coronavirus spreads throughout the city.”
• In Atlanta GA, “To make sure everyone has access to water over the next two months, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms issued an administrative order to halt water service termination for any Watershed Management customer due to non-payment.”
  • In Detroit MI, “The city of Detroit will temporarily restore running water to thousands of households who have been disconnected due to unpaid bills. This action comes on the heels of public outcry that lack of water poses a serious public health threat amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In the Eastern District of Virgnia, the court continued “all misdemeanor, traffic, and petty offense dockets scheduled in all Divisions…from March 16, 2020, through April 30, 2020[.]”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In New York NY, The Legal Aid Society, Brooklyn Defender Services, The Bronx Defenders, New York County Defender Services, and The Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem called for “Immediate Release of Vulnerable Incarcerated New Yorkers in Response to Coronavirus”.
• Also in New York, after “Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that prison inmates are producing 100,000 gallons of hand sanitizer in response to price-gouging retailers[,… p]rison advocates call[ed] out the governor and the state’s correctional department for subjecting the prioners to work that equates to ‘slave labor.’”
  • Meanwhile, in a related story, “Jails and prisons are often dirty and have really very little in the way of infection control,” said Homer Venters, former chief medical officer at New York City’s notorious Rikers Island jail complex. “There are lots of people using a small number of bathrooms. Many of the sinks are broken or not in use. You may have access to water, but nothing to wipe your hands off with, or no access to soap.”
• In the U.S., “some public health officials…are proposing [] large-scale [prisoner] releases, like those already underway in Iran. There, officials approved the temporary release of more than 54,000 prisoners in an effort to combat the spread of the new virus.”
  • Mother Jones also reported that “Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez joined criminal justice advocates and public health experts to call on New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to grant emergency clemencies to older and sick prisoners.”
• In San Francisco CA, “in an effort to limit the spread of the coronavirus, the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office will begin filing motions to seek the immediate release of all clients being held pre-trial in San Francisco county jails who are at heightened risk of illness from the virus.”
• In New Orleans LA, “the Orleans Parish Public Defenders [asked] the Criminal District Court to immediately release from jail people being held on non-violent offenses and ensure inmates and detainees are safe.”

• Email from a public defender

  “I visited two in-custody clients today.
  Both learned about the virus and recent local cases from TV news. Neither received any information about the virus from anyone at the jail. No additional soap for handwashing. No PSAs. No literature. Nothing.”

  — Radley Balko (@radleybalko) March 12, 2020

   

• Talked to two different clients to in custody today. They’re scared. The people they’re with are scared. They’re vulnerable and they’re the last people anyone will try to help and they know it.

  — OneMileContainmentHat (@Popehat) March 13, 2020

  • (Ken Whitem, Brown White & Osborn LLP)

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! Major stories this week include the 9th Circuit’s decision temporarily blocking the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, three Senators’ concern over racial disparities in the federal student loan system, and widespread condemnation of Montgomery County Pennsylvania’s decision to fire its Chief and Deputy Chief Public Defenders after they filed an amicus brief critical of the county’s bail practices.

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

See you around,

Sam

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• In San Francisco, “[a] federal appeals court has decided to block the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” plan in two states along the U.S. border, following back-and-forth rulings over the program.”
• In the US, “[t]hose who provide services to immigrants and those who advocate on their behalf say the [Trump administration’s ‘Public Charge’ rule, which took effect on Feb. 24,] has a chilling effect on the greater immigrant community, including those who have become naturalized citizens.”
• In Houston TX, “President Donald Trump’s administration is fast-tracking the legal proceedings of thousands of immigrant children in its care and unveiling a pilot program in Houston to video stream their hearings — a move advocates say will jeopardize their asylum cases and speed up deportations.”
• In San Francisco CA, “Federal immigration agents arrested a man in front of San Francisco’s Hall of Justice this week, prompting outrage from the city’s public defender and district attorney.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, “United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), along with Senators Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), wrote to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) requesting information about how OCR plans to address alarming racial disparities in the federal student loan system through vigorous enforcement of the nation’s civil rights laws.”

Legal Technology

• In Florida, “the Florida Supreme Court will consider whether [ticket dispute app] TIKD poses a legal risk to its customers or merely represents the evolution of legal technology [after] traffic ticket attorneys complained to the Florida Bar that TIKD and its founder, Christopher Riley, were practicing law without a license.”
• In Washington State, the Seattle Times editorial board in favor of the State Senate’s version of the “groundbreaking privacy law” currently making its way through the state house, which differs from the House version in a number of respects. The board took particular care to note that “[u]nder the original Senate version, the state AG was given authority to enforce the law on behalf of Washington residents. The House version allows private parties to enforce the law, potentially creating a flood of litigation.”
• In New Jersey, “[l]awmakers…are proposing a bill to solidify data privacy guidelines and inflict tougher limits on the tech industry.”

Non-Profit Management & Hiring

• In New York NY, “the Public Interest Law Center (PILC)’s annual Public Interest Legal Career Fair marked its highest attendance ever, as 2,048 students from NYU Law and 19 other law schools met with representatives of 277 public interest employers from all over the country.”
• In Oregon, “[t]he Public Interest Environmental Law Conference that was scheduled to be held at the University of Oregon this weekend was canceled due to concerns about the coronavirus[.]”
• In Pennsylvania, “[t]he leader of Pennsylvania’s system of 14 state-owned universities told lawmakers Tuesday that it is urgent they act to help the schools in the face of sinking enrollment, rising student debt and a lagging commitment of public tax dollars to higher education.”

Rule of Law

• In Amsterdam, “[j]udges at the International Criminal Court…ruled that the prosecutor can open an investigation into alleged war crimes committed in Afghanistan. The decision…opens the way for prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity that may have been committed by the Taliban, by Afghani forces, and by the U.S. military and intelligence forces during the conflict.”

Access to Justice – Civil

• CityLimits.org reported on the nationwide impact of New York City’s Right to Counsel law: “it created a ripple effect. So far, Washington, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Newark, San Antonio, and Philadelphia have established the right to counsel laws, programs or initiatives. Other cities, such as Cleveland, Boston, Seattle, Detroit, Los Angeles and Santa Monica are considering or pushing for right to counsel in their respective communities.”
• In Wyoming, “[a] renewed effort to create an independent Guardian Ad Litem office has recently emerged in the state Capitol, largely to address a conflict of interest regarding the office’s current location inside the Wyoming Public Defender’s Office.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Montgomery County PA, “the county’s Board of Commissioners fired the two leaders of the Montgomery County Public Defender Office, Dean Beer and Keisha Hudson, shortly after they had filed an amicus brief recounting injustices in the county’s bail practices.”
  • In further news, “[t]wenty-seven lawyers and support staff in the [] County Public Defender’s Office wrote a letter of support for the former chief and deputy chief who were fired last week by the county commissioners…The letter [came] as the ACLU of Pennsylvania and other advocates, including NAACP- Pennsylvania, [were] co-sponsoring a 10 a.m. rally and press conference outside the courthouse [] to demand the county commissioners reinstate Beer and Hudson.”
  • Further in further news, The executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and Fair and Just Prosecution wrote that “[r]ecent deeply troubling events in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, have undermined confidence in the independence that is required of public defenders.”
• In Trenton NJ, “[l]egislation…which would expand the Office of Public Defender (OPD) representation of juveniles[] cleared the Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee[.]”
• In Macomb County MI, “longtime longtime criminal defense attorney Thomas Tomko was formally introduced as the first administrator of the [county’s Public Defender] office.”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In Santa Clara County CA, “a small group of [public defenders] are…fight[ing] the routine jailing of defendants who can’t afford bail or a private attorney [through] a pilot program called Pre-Arraignment Representation and Review, a county-funded initiative in which public defense attorneys and investigators meet with select defendants within 48 hours of their arrest.”
• In San Francisco CA, “the media has declared both [Maria Evangelista and Michelle Tong, deputy public defenders] to be winners in two of the three open judge seats.”
• In New York NY, “[a] Manhattan public defender is the latest addition to a crowded field of candidates for the 2021 New York County District Attorney race.”
• Also in New York NY, “[a] decrease in the number of criminal cases city prosecutors are pursuing suggests that the crime spike recently reported by the NYPD could be a ruse to incite fear over criminal justice reforms, a coalition of public defenders said[.]”
• In Harris County TX, “Democratic primary voters in the nation’s third-largest county instead chose [DA] Ogg’s more cautious, incremental approach to reform [over that of challenger Audia Jones].”
• Meanwhile, in Travis County TX, incumbent DA Margaret Moore will likely face a runoff election against Jose Garza, “a former public defender and labor rights lawyer who has vowed to end low-level drug prosecutions as a way to curb mass incarceration.”