Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello, interested public! Welcome to the end of another jam-packed week. Highlights revolve around student debt relief, where the details of various proposals are coming under greater scrutiny as some form of relief looks increasingly likely, and the Right to Counsel in Eviction, where states and localities are moving with renewed urgency as various pandemic eviction moratoria continue to expire. In criminal justice, a judge in Missouri ruled public defender “waiting lists” unconstitutional. And in Ontario, a superior court judge accepted the possibility that gun manufacturers may have civil liability for mass shootings under certain circumstances.

Take care of one another,

Sam

Editor’s Choice

• In a Brookings Institution paper worth reading in full, authors Andre M. Perryand Carl Romer of the Metropolitan Policy Program argued that “[s]tudent debt cancellation should consider wealth, not income”:
  
  Critics of student debt cancellation often focus on the higher income earnings of professionals…But these broadside critiques often miss three key details in the labor market. First, an American Economic Association study showed that while individuals with student loans do have higher incomes, they do not have statistically significant higher hourly wages, suggesting that student debt is forcing loan holders to work longer hours. Second, student debt pushes graduates to choose work they are less passionate about and away from public interest careers that offer lower salaries relative to corporate work. Third, a study in the Economics of Education Review shows that recent graduates with student debt take jobs that have higher initial salaries but lower potential wage growth.
  
  Critics of student debt cancellation also misrepresent who borrows and who holds federal student debt. According to our Brookings colleagues, Black borrowers typically owe 50% more in student debt upon graduation than their white peers. Four years after graduation, this gap increases to 100%. While poor and Black households’ student debt increases, nonbank marketplace lenders like Splash Financial and SoFi offer lower refinance rates to low-credit-risk households. By targeting the student debts of the highest-income and highest-net-worth households, private companies have forced the federal government to hold the highest-risk loans (those held by lower-income and low-wealth households), according to the Congressional Budget Office. So, by cancelling federal student debt, lawmakers are ipso facto aiding low-wealth households.
  
  [emphases added]

Free & Fair Elections

• In Washington DC, “[t]he Supreme Court hear[d] arguments [] in a pair of cases that could impact voting rights[.] The cases involve whether a third party can turn in someone else’s ballot and whether to count ballots that are submitted in the wrong precinct.”

Environmental Justice & Environmental Collapse

• In Houston TX, “[t]he Houston Bar Association (HBA) and its related organizations [are] offer[ing] legal resources and services for those affected by Winter Storm Uri.”

Immigration, Refugee, and Citizenship Issues

• In Washington DC, “[t]he United States could help pay for transportation, healthcare, legal services, and career and educational programs for migrant families separated under former President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” border strategy, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said.”
• In Illinois, “[a] House committee [] advanced legislation that would create a task force to look into the feasibility of providing legal representation to individuals subject to deportation proceedings in the state.”
• In New York, “federal judge Lawrence Vilardo criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement for failing to provide medically vulnerable people it is detaining in upstate New York access to COVID-19 vaccinations. ‘You’re doing nothing to get them the vaccine,’ Vilardo told the government attorney representing ICE. ‘Nothing. Zero.’ In late February, Vilardo ordered ICE to come up with a plan for vaccinating people detained at its immigration detention center in Batavia.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In the United States, “[r]acial justice has become a leading issue in the latest push for debt cancellation. Because Black students have to rely more on student debt to pay for their college education and then take much longer to pay it down after school, researchers have found that student debt is actually exacerbating the existing racial wealth gap among younger generations…The problem is, $10,000 worth of cancellation — the amount that President Joe Biden has said he’d support — is not enough to make progress on that racial justice goal, experts [told] Money…Recent research has shown that forgiving $75,000 would be needed to help roughly 80% of Black households with student loans by wiping out their debt and boosting their wealth.”
• In New York, “New York State has sued the Federal Education Department’s sole-source contractor FedLoan Servicing (or PHEAA, the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency or American Education Services) for ‘failing miserably in its administration of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness.’“

Pandemic in the Legal System

• In Marion County IN, “a new pro bono mediation project…pushed forward [despite the pandemic], launching a program that so far has garnered roughly 100 volunteers and has already helped resolve some 20 cases[:] ‘As courts started getting more used to doing hearings by Zoom or Webex or by phone, [we] reconnected and said, ‘Why not talk to the courts about doing mediations this way?’ ”
• In El Paso County CO, “[a] judge [] threw out a contempt charge he’d previously leveled against a public defender who refused to show up in person for a jury trial due to COVID-19 concerns, saying he believed the attorney learned his lesson and needed no further punishment.”

Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring

• In New York, the state’s “prosecutor rejected a proposal by Governor Andrew Cuomo for her to pick a lawyer to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct against him, after Cuomo’s office backtracked on Sunday on a plan to choose its own investigator. State Attorney General Letitia James said it was essential that Cuomo’s administration instead formally refer the matter to her office for investigation, which would give her subpoena power and ensure an impartial probe.”
• Also in New York, “New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has retained a prominent white-collar criminal defense lawyer to represent his office in a federal investigation into the state’s misreporting of COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents[.]”
• In Los Angeles CA, “[a] deputy…city attorney is suing her employer, alleging she suffered a backlash after spending four years demanding equal pay for her and other female employees in her office.”
• In Washington DC, “[t]he Justice Department under President Joe Biden backed off the Trump administration’s argument that a California donor-disclosure requirement for nonprofits is unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that upheld the state requirement, which requires charities to disclose their largest donors to state officials.”
• In Wisconsin, “Gov. Tony Evers signed a bill…that will boost pay for state public defenders…allow[ing] the State Public Defender to exceed the 10% cap for merit raises for the remainder of this fiscal year [and] help close the gap that was created between public defenders and the Assistant District Attorneys.”
• In Canada, “[the] Attorney General of Canada[] announced the Government of Canada’s support to Botler AI for the Pan-Canadian Triage System for Sexual Harassment, Misconduct & Violence. Botler AI has created an artificial intelligence system that anonymously sorts sexual misconduct complaints across Canada based on the details of individual situations and provides users with a personalized set of resources relevant to their own case.“

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In Connecticut, “[l]egislation that would provide tenants facing eviction the ‘right to counsel’ has been named a top priority of the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus and House Speaker Matt Ritter. Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney also supports the concept. A hearing on the bill was scheduled for [3/4/21].”
• In New York, “The Legal Aid Society released [a] statement calling on Albany to immediately enact the COIVD-19 Emergency Rental Assistance Program of 2021 (S2742B/A3918) now that New York’s 60-day blanket eviction moratorium [has] expired[.]”
• In Burlington VT, “[a] charter change proposal…[asking] voters if the city’s charter should be amended to include protections from evictions that don’t meet the standards of ‘just cause’…[passed] 8,829 to 5,187, according to the city’s unofficial results.”
• In Milwaukee WI, County District Supervisor Clancy argued that “[t]he time is now to adopt the Right to Counsel [in Eviction] in Milwaukee County.”
• In Texas, the Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court “request[ed] additional funding [for civil legal aid] because of the dire need for assistance,” arguing that “[c]ivil legal aid is an essential resource that ensures all Texans have equal access to the justice system. While legal aid providers are working tirelessly to provide these invaluable services, the need for assistance grows as the economic and health effects from COVID-19 continue and will increase on the heels of the winter storm.”
• In Ontario, “[a] Superior Court judge has accepted, in a preliminary decision in Price v. Smith & Wesson Corp., 2020 ONSC 1114, that gun manufacturers may have civil liability in Canada for losses caused by mass shootings when feasible safety measures could have prevented the harm but were not used.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Missouri, “[l]awmakers may increase public defender funding after [a state] judge rul[ed] against [the] state’s wait list.”
  • Relatedly, “[l]ast month, Missouri’s ‘waiting lists’ for public defenders were declared unconstitutional. Cole County Circuit Court Judge William E. Hickle ruled that the Missouri Office of State Public Defender violated the constitutional rights of indigent people awaiting trial by forcing them to wait for weeks, and even months, before being assigned an attorney.”
• In Wyoming, the ACLU of Wyoming argued that “a common sense-solution” to the state’s “[inability] to adequate fund the State Public Defender’s Office” would be to repeal the death penalty in Wyoming: “the Public Defender’s Office has spent significant resources on providing constitutionally required defense in death penalty cases. Even the most conservative estimates…show that between $1 million to $2 million is spent every biennium on the death penalty…Without the death penalty on the books in Wyoming, that money could immediately be re-appropriated within the Public Defender’s Office to provide for competitive salaries, proper staffing and other immediate needs with the office itself.”
• In Medina County OH, “Chief Public Defender Jocelyn Stefancin made a final stand [] to try to save the Medina County Public Defender’s Office from closure. Despite her pleas, the Medina County commissioners wouldn’t budge and said they will follow through with plans for the office to be terminated, effective April 30.”

Criminal Justice Reform and Counter-Reform

• In Los Angeles CA, “[v]ictims rights advocates joined with the support of Sheriff Alex Villanueva to launch a recall campaign against newly-elected Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón. Gascón campaigned on a reform agenda when he successfully unseated incumbent DA Jackie Lacey last year. But after he took office and began detailing how many of those reforms would take shape, victims advocates and others in law enforcement and even from within Gascón’s own office have begun to protest.”
• Also in Los Angeles, “[t]he City Countil voted [] to veto the mayor’s override of a spending plan to redirect some funds from the LAPD to social programs.”
• In Atlanta GA, “[a]fter Georgia’s attorney general refused to reassign two high-profile cases involving allegations of excessive force against Atlanta police officers, including the killing of Rayshard Brooks, the district attorney is asking the court to decide who should handle the prosecutions. Newly elected Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis sent a letter to Attorney General Chris Carr in January asking him to reassign the cases, raising concerns that actions by her predecessor, Paul Howard, made it inappropriate for her office continuing to handle the cases.”
• In Illinois, “Cook County Public Defender Amy Campanelli [talked] about the criminal justice reform bill signed by Governor Pritzker [] eliminating cash bail.”
• In Allegheny County PA, “the Abolitionist Law Center, a nonprofit law firm focused on criminal justice reforms…is suing [Common Pleas Judge Anthony Mariani…seeking ‘declaratory and injunctive relief’[.]” The Law Center “hasn’t been able to observe [Judge Mariani’s] courtroom via remote access, despite other courtroom participants using virtual access and other judges granting virtual access to several other ALC court watchers.”
• In Massachusetts, “[a] commission tasked with studying the civil service law and increasing transparency and the number of people of color in civil service positions did not hold its first meeting by the deadline required under the new policing reform law.”
• In South Carolina, “[state] senators…added a firing squad to the electric chair as alternatives if the state can’t execute condemned inmates by way of lethal injection. The Senate then approved the bill on a key 32-11 vote with several Democrats joining Republicans in the proposal which would allow South Carolina to restart executions after nearly 10 years.”
• In New York, “[t]he Monroe County Public Defender’s Office has sent a report to local police agencies in an effort to assist them in the state-mandated effort to reform law enforcement agencies.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello, interested public! I wish you all the best, here on the tail end of yet another wild week. As has become the norm, there are many stories below all of which would dominate the week’s news in another era. In the US, the President rejected calls for unilateral student debt relief from Democrats in Congress and some state attorneys general and drew sharp criticism from the ACLU for a new DHS policy memo that the ACLU says reneges on his commitment to “to fully break from the harmful deportation policies of both the Trump and Obama presidencies.” At the local government level, you will find two stories related to counter-reform efforts aimed at limiting the scope of the progressive prosecution moment. In Canada, at both the national and provincial level bar associations and governments are making plans for improving the justice system, drawing on lessons learned from the pandemic.

Take care of one another,

Sam

Editor’s Choices

• In the United States, Vice.com published an article examining a developing debate around how public defenders engage with social media: “Public defenders had blogged about their work as long as a decade ago, and tweeting about arraignments wasn’t new, but [as] it’s grown, however, criminal justice reform advocates and formerly incarcerated people have started to argue that these posts can put clients at risk of retaliation from judges and prosecutors, violate their privacy, and present ethical quandaries for public defenders talking so openly about their work on Twitter. The optics of white public defenders gaining likes or retweets on stories of Black and brown suffering has also been called into question. As advocacy efforts morph from live-tweets to slick video productions, and gain traction with a public increasingly likely to support justice reform, the question has become: who should be telling the story?”
• In Canada, the CBA published a profile of Aimée Craft, of two CBA President’s Award recipients in 2021. Professor Craft, discussed her work “dismantling the colonial history of law[.]” : “Indigenous law is not simply adding a splash of ‘Indigenous flavour’ into the Canadian legal system. ‘It’s actually more profound in that it questions the foundations of how we make decisions. Indigenous peoples have been excluded from this sphere of decision-making for a very long time.’ ”

Transition of Power

• In Washington DC, “[n]early 5,000 National Guard troops will remain in Washington through March 12 due, in part, to concerns about potential violence stemming from online chatter among QAnon supporters who suggest former President Donald Trump could still be inaugurated on March 4, according to the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.”
• Also in Washington DC, “[w]ith the NAACP as counsel, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) [] sued the former president, his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, accusing them of conspiring to stage the Capitol insurrection and violating a law known as the Ku Klux Klan Act. The complaint explains that the law, enacted in 1871, ‘was intended to protect against conspiracies, through violence and intimidation, that sought to prevent Members of Congress from discharging their official duties. The statute was enacted in response to violence and intimidation in which the Ku Klux Klan and other organizations were engaged during that time period.’”
• In Fulton County GA, “[a] Georgia prosecutor plans to examine a phone call between U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham and Georgia’s secretary of state as part of a criminal investigation into whether former President Donald Trump or his allies broke state law in trying to influence the results of the election, the Washington Post reported on Friday.”

Legal Ethics

• In the United States, “[w]hen President Donald Trump and his enablers began bringing that Big Lie [that the presidential election was stolen] to court, some experts warned that these lawyers may never face disciplinary proceedings. But Monday’s disbarment complaint against Sidney Powell and three additional attorneys for alleged misconduct in Michigan, as well as ethics complaints elsewhere against Rudolph W. Giuliani and others, are important steps in that direction.”

Environmental Justice & Environmental Collapse

• In Harris County TX, “County Attorney Christian D. Menefee is urging the public to report incidents of price gouging and other consumer complaints committed by those looking to take advantage of the tragedy[.]”
• In Washington DC, “As part of the grant-making associated with the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Infrastructure for Rebuilding America program, the agency will for the first time carve out some of that program’s $889 million budget for projects addressing climate change and environmental justice.”
• In Nottingham NH, “residents [this] town of less than 5,000 people, have backed an unusual law to protect the drinking water they pull from their wells. The Freedom from Chemical Trespass Rights-Based Ordinance, which voters passed in 2019, gives the streams, rivers, and tributaries that flow into Nottingham’s drinking water supply—along with all other ecosystems ‘and natural communities’—their own legal personhood. The ordinance was overturned last week, however, after a Rockingham County Superior Court judge ruled it was vague and unenforceable. But ‘rights of nature’ ordinances like this are actually part of a burgeoning trend in environmental law, and offer a relatively new way to think about protecting natural resources.”

Immigration, Refugee, and Citizenship Issues

• In Washington DC, “[t]he Department of Homeland Security issued a memo on interior enforcement [] that outlines government policy that will apply during the next 90 days and addresses the scope of who DHS considers a priority for deportation and interior immigration enforcement.” In a statement, the ACLU called the memo “a disappointing step backward from the Biden administration’s earlier commitments to fully break from the harmful deportation policies of both the Trump and Obama presidencies…it has chosen to continue giving ICE officers significant discretion to conduct operations that harm our communities and tear families apart.”
• Also in Washington DC, “[m]embers of the Congressional Black Caucus are calling on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to put an end to ‘mass deportations’ they say are being carried out in a flagrant breach of orders imposed by the Biden administration.”
• Again also in Washington DC, “the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) released a letter to [newly confirmed DHS Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas concerning alarming reports that there was an uptick in deportations before his confirmation, which may mean immigrants were not afforded due process in the rush to get them out of the country.”
• In California, “[t]he ABA’s immigration project in Texas has joined a lawsuit alleging that unaccompanied children affected by the Trump administration’s remain-in-Mexico program are being denied basic legal rights…The amended lawsuit, filed in federal court in California,[] says some of the children sent to Mexico under the policy have entered the United States on their own, yet they are denied legal protections given to other unaccompanied children.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, “President Biden is facing intense backlash from progressive lawmakers after saying Tuesday he would not sign a measure to forgive up to $50,000 in federally held student debt per borrower through executive action.”
  • Relatedly, “[a] multi-state group of attorneys general on Friday sent a letter to Congress urging the adoption of two resolutions that call on President Biden to cancel up to $50,000 in federal student loan debt.”
  • Finally, “President Joe Biden will ask the Department of Justice to review his legal authority to cancel student loan debt, the White House said on Wednesday, adding the president does not favor $50,000 in student loan relief without limitation.”
• Relatedly, NBC News reported that “Black voters want student loan debt eliminated altogether. And without substantive action, a sizable chunk of Black voters may consider stay home during the next election, according to a new…national poll shared exclusively with NBC News[.]”

Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring

• In New York NY, “[a] group of public defenders and social workers seeking to unionize their nonprofit legal organization got a boost from several local elected officials who joined them for a rally Wednesday…State Sens. Michael Gianaris and Jessica Ramos, Assemblymembers Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas and Zohran Mamdani, and Councilmembers Brad Lander and Jimmy Van Bramer called on Queens Defenders administration to bring back the two terminated staffers and voluntarily recognize the union.”
• In Washington DC, “[a] task force created by President Biden to create a safer workspace for federal employees during the COVID-19 pandemic has issued its first set of guidelines, telling agencies to punish those who refuse to wear masks and provide leave for employees to get vaccinated.”
• Also in Washington DC, “[t]he agency tasked with protecting federal employees who blow the whistle on wrongdoing is faulting an appeals board for creating a new standard those workers must clear to prove their case.”
• Also also in Washington DC, Dave Uejio, the Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, issued an open call for attorneys to join the agency he leads, including “Our work will be most effective when we are able to incorporate a broad range of perspectives. We are, therefore, particularly interested in hearing from a diverse set of candidates with a range of personal and professional experiences.”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In Canada, “a Canadian Bar Association task force said in a report released at its annual general meeting [that a] significant investment in technology and training in the correct use of that technology, funded by government, are both needed to improve access to justice[.]”
• In Washington DC, “Joe Biden met with a group of mayors and governors last week [and] bluntly told them to get ready for a legislative defeat: his proposed minimum wage hike was unlikely to happen, he said, at least in the near term…The comments…suggest that the president is more inclined to manage the fallout of it not being included than to pursue long-shot, political-capital consuming efforts to fight for its insertion.”
  • Relatedly, “[t]he Senate parliamentarian is expected to issue a preliminary ruling as early as next week on whether the wage hike can be included [in budget reconciliation], and Biden has notably not endorsed the calls of some Democrats who want to overrule any decision that would prevent its inclusion.”
• Also in Washington DC, “[w]ith the backing of civil rights organizations, labor unions, and economic experts, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley on Thursday morning unveiled a jobs guarantee resolution demanding that ‘meaningful, dignified work’ at a livable wage be made an enforceable legal right in the United States.”
• Georgia Public Broadcasting reported on how “[after] the pandemic struck and the SSA closed their 1,200 field offices across the country[,]…the number of monthly SSI applications and new benefit awardees has declined sharply. New data show that the number of new SSI awards given in January was the lowest on record — but it wasn’t because there were fewer people in need of the benefits.”
• In Ithaca NY, “city government, Cornell Law School and the Ithaca Tenants Union are collaborating to assist those facing eviction, as national [sic] economic crisis has left renters vulnerable. A new tenant housing hotline created by Ithaca Tenants Union, a practicum law class — where law students can provide cost-free legal advice or assistance to tenants while earning credit for their work — along with monetary assistance from a grant are being used to support renters through emergency rental assistance and legal resources.”
• In Olympia WA, the Washington State Senate debated “[a]n extension of an eviction moratorium for another two years and free attorneys for tenants who face eviction[, ] proposed in a new bill that landlords say would decimate their industry.”
• In New York NY, “[f]ewer than 2,300 New York City households have filed paperwork to delay eviction proceedings, with a Feb. 26 deadline looming.”
• In Princeton NJ, as “one study has found that evictions may have caused thousands of additional deaths because of displaced families catching or spreading COVID-19[,] The Eviction Lab at Princeton University…has tracked nearly 250,000 eviction filings since mid-March. The CDC order is preventing many of those people from losing their homes. But many others are being evicted regardless.
• In Maine, “[t]he office that oversees legal services for Maine’s poor is asking for more employees to fix a myriad of financial and constitutional problems identified by watchdog groups.”
• In British Columbia, “[t]he CBA-BC [released] Agenda for Justice 2021, a roadmap for action to improve the province’s justice system and modernize provincial legislation to ease access to justice for families, businesses and communities. It‘s been through the year-long pandemic that glaring needs for change, many of them technological, have been spotlighted.”
• In Ontario, “[t]he Ministry of the Attorney General is working with justice partners to move more justice services online and closer to communities through breakthrough modernization initiatives [via t]he proposed Accelerating Access to Justice Act, 2021.”
• Also in Ontario, the provincial government “introduced legislation Tuesday that would cement changes to how provincial judges are appointed, part of several reforms it said aim to increase access to justice.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Southern CA, “[a]s courthouses across Southern California begin to resume jury trials to tackle a backlog of criminal cases, public defenders are pushing state and county health officials to move them up the priority list for coronavirus vaccines. Since December, public defenders in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Clara and San Luis Obispo counties, among others, have banded together and sent letters to Mark Ghaly, secretary of the state Health and Human Services Agency, pleading to be included on the same priority tier as jail inmates for COVID-19 inoculation. Thus far, they say, their requests have fallen on deaf ears.”
• In Buffalo NY, “some 145 people saw their misdemeanor charges dismissed in Buffalo City Court before the evidence against them was even introduced. Prosecutors ran out of time to comply with laws guaranteeing the right to a speedy trial.”

Criminal Justice Reform and Counter-Reform

• In Los Angeles CA, “[t]he progress that newly elected Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón was elected to make is facing obstacles, including a lawsuit filed by his own prosecutors.” The piece (available as audio or a transcript) paints a vivid picture of how the progressive prosecution movement is changing the way law enforcement operates in California: “in Northern California where the DA felt that [Gascón] was not going to be appropriately punitive in his recommendations for how the charges went…she simply decided to take back jurisdiction of that case to ensure that it was prosecuted in the way that she felt comfortable with. And it’s interesting, you are seeing DAs for the first time that I’ve ever heard of in California, uh, having that conversation amongst themselves and amongst law enforcements about which jurisdiction when there is an option they want to file in[.]”
• In Okanogan County WA, former DA Arian Noma, “who [had] vowed to stop the over-prosecution of crimes and seek bail only when necessary” but resigned halfway through is term, “[spoke] publicly for the first time since his resignation [about how] he believes the online harassment campaign [which contributed to his decision to resign] had help from law enforcement and county colleagues, including people within his own office.”
• In Washington DC, “[c]ivil rights groups are pushing the Biden administration to take a stand against facial recognition technology, arguing the rapidly spreading software poses “profound and unprecedented threats” to Americans’ freedom and way of life. The American Civil Liberties Union and more than 40 other groups urged President Biden in a letter Tuesday to freeze federal use of facial recognition and block federal funds from being used by state and local governments to buy or access the artificial-intelligence tools.”
• In Oakland County MI, “[n]ew Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said Tuesday her office has taken steps that give the chance for nearly two-dozen “juvenile lifers” to get parole. According to McDonald, the prosecutor’s office has filed motions for re-sentencing of 22 cases, after reviewing 27 county-based juvenile lifer cases.”
• In Queens NY, DA Melinda Katz gave a video interview on her efforts to tackle criminal justice reform.

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello, interested public! I hope you’re all weathering the new year and our continuing shared challenges. The news continues to be jam-packed, but as other aspects of my work become somewhat more manageable I hope to help you sort through it again. This is a long edition, covering material related to the new administration in Washington, the ongoing pandemic and its effects on the legal system and on our social safety net more broadly, and continued reverberations from racial justice protests and challenges to the legitimacy of the recent national election. The most noteworthy story may be a recent survey indicating broad bipartisan appeal (among the populace, not necessarily politicians) for a right to counsel in eviction proceedings.

Take care of one another,

Sam

Transition of Power

• In Washington DC, “[i]n a last-minute attempt to assuage outgoing President Donald Trump’s privacy concerns, the Justice Department last month issued a legal opinion creating a situation where, upon taking office, President Joe Biden would not be able to access certain electronic records from the previous administration—even if those records are on the president’s computer hardware. The six-page memo—penned by the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) Deputy Assistant Attorney General Devin DeBacker[]— states that under the Presidential Records Act (PRA) the U.S. Archivist, not the incoming president, assumes responsibility for the ‘custody, control, and preservation of’ all records of the previous administration…Neil Eggleston, the former White House counsel to President Barack Obama during the Trump transition period, told Business Insider he was concerned that Trump’s legal team may try and use the memo to ‘claim an overly broad exclusion from the right of the Biden administration to access documents critical for the continuity of government.’”
• Also in Washington DC, “[a] high-profile Native American activist who formerly led the National Congress of American Indians and top environmental justice leaders and experts have joined the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, signaling President Joe Biden’s continued commitment to environmental and climate justice. The 14 new EPA appointees announced Tuesday do not require Senate confirmation, and many hail from backgrounds that touch civil rights work.”
• Also also Washington DC, “[a recent judicial] recommendation this month by [Colorado’s] two Democratic U.S. senators has drawn pushback from liberals [who] say the endorsement flouts President Joe Biden’s pledge to staff the federal bench with more civil rights lawyers and public defenders, and fewer corporate attorneys and prosecutors.”

Immigration, Refugee, and Citizenship Issues

• In Houston TX, “President Joe Biden’s administration has deported hundreds of immigrants in its early days despite his campaign pledge to stop removing most people in the U.S. illegally at the beginning of his term. A federal judge last week ordered the Biden administration not to enforce a 100-day moratorium on deportations, but the ruling did not require the government to schedule them. In recent days, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deported immigrants to at least three countries: 15 people to Jamaica on Thursday and 269 people to Guatemala and Honduras[.]”
• In Washington DC, “President Biden signed three new immigration-related executive orders Tuesday evening, including one to create a task force dedicated to reuniting migrant families that were separated at the southern border under the Trump administration.”
• Also in Washington DC, “The Biden administration is opening an overflow facility for unaccompanied migrant children apprehended at the US-Mexico border, the federal agency tasked with the children’s care told CNN in a statement. The Health and Human Services Department will reopen a facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, that can accommodate about 700 children and can be expanded if necessary.”
• Also also in Washington DC, “[a]dvocacy groups and immigration attorneys have cheered [the administration’s] early steps [at immigration reform], but warn that Biden’s overall success could be limited if he’s unable to tackle another problem that has been growing for years: the ever-growing case backlog in federal immigration courts. Without addressing the backlog, they say, Biden’s mission of achieving a fair and equitable immigration system won’t be complete.”

Pandemic in the Legal System

• In the United States, “[t]op judges from Nevada, Texas, Michigan and California detailed how the pandemic has forced them to make courts more accessible and service-oriented.”
• In Los Angeles CA, “[d]espite massive restrictions on businesses and restaurants for fear of spreading COVID, Los Angeles Superior Court is still holding some in-person sessions for evictions and traffic trials. Just last month, three LA County Superior Court staff members died of the virus. Hundreds of court employees and several judges have tested positive, putting scores of other court attendees at potential risk of infection.”
• In Baltimore MD, “[d]espite state orders limiting courtroom operations, Baltimore County courts are still scheduling hundreds of in-person hearings for low-level, nonviolent offenses each week, and the Maryland Defenders Union says it’s putting county attorneys, judicial staff and the public at risk.”
• In Prince William County, “attorneys at the Prince William public defender office began raising concerns about the treatment of clients being held at the [Prince William-Manassas Adult Detention Center], including complaints from inmates about the lack of hygiene during the outbreak and the use of solitary confinement to slow the spread of the virus.”
  • • In BuzzFeed, a public defender described the risks the legal system is imposing on her clients.
• In New York NY, “[p]ublic defender groups from across New York City have followed through on their threat to sue Gov. Cuomo in order to force the state to vaccinate inmates.”
• In Washington DC, “[t]he U.S. Department of Homeland Security says Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection will not conduct immigration arrests at or near COVID-19 vaccine distribution sites.”

State-Sponsored Violence

• In Washington DC, Human Rights Watch issued official recommendations to key Congressional representatives concerning the Justice in Policing Act of 2020, arguing that “research by Human Rights Watch and others has shown that police violence is inextricably linked to deep and persisting racial inequities and economic class divisions, perpetuated and exacerbated by laws and policies that prioritize policing and criminalization as the primary state response to a range of societal problems. When introduced, supporters claimed the JPA was “bold,” and “comprehensive,”–something that would “change the culture of law enforcement.” But for legislation to be meaningful and effective, it needs to address these societal conditions at their root not simply by modifying the law enforcement responses to them.”

Violence Against Protesters

• In Milwaukee WI, “[a] judge [] eclined a prosecutor’s’ request to have Kyle Rittenhouse arrested until he posts another $200,000 bail and reveals where he’s living. He did order Rittenhouse’s attorney to disclose his client’s address, under seal, to the court and the sheriff’s office, but not to the District Attorney’s Office. The prosecutors say Rittenhouse,18, charged with fatally shooting two protesters and wounding a third during violent protests in August, has been in violation of his bail conditions because he never updated the address he had listed on jail records.”
• In Buffalo NY, “[a] grand jury dismissed the case against two Buffalo, NY, police officers who were charged last year after video showed an elderly protester being shoved to the ground during a demonstration. Officers Robert McCabe and Aaron Torgalski had been charged with felony second-degree assault.”

Free & Fair Elections

• The New York Times reported that, “[i]n the latest volley in the battle over disinformation in the presidential election, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corporation has been sued by an obscure tech company that has accused his cable networks of defamation and contributing to the fervor that led to the siege of the Capitol.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In the New York Daily News, Rep. Mondaire Jones argued that “President Biden must use his authority to cancel $50,000 in student debt for every person with federal loans. Today.”
• In Washington DC, “Senate Republicans have unveiled a new stimulus proposal to counter the plan offered by President Bident and congressional Democrats. And student loan borrowers are left out, again.”
• Also in Washington DC, Rep. “Ilhan Omar has suggested a new tax on stock trades that could be used to pay off student debt.”
• Also also in Washington DC, after Senators Warren and Schumer called on President Biden to unilaterally cancel student debt, Forbes opined on how “this approach raises several concerns about the possibility of Congress–which Democrats control–passing student loan cancellation.”
• Also again also in Washington DC, “Navient, a student loan company, [was] ordered to repay $22 million to the government.”
• Again also also again in Washington DC, “Democratic Senators unveiled a sweeping bankruptcy bill [] that would dramatically reform the United States bankruptcy system, and make it easier for struggling Americans to discharge student loans and medical debt through bankruptcy.”
• CNBC discussed “what you can expect [from tax season] as a student loan borrower amid the pandemic’s ongoing relief.”

Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring

• In New York NY, “Deborah Archer, daughter of Jamaican immigrants, was last weekend elected the new president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), becoming the first person of African-American ancestry to head the 101-year-old organisation. A civil rights attorney who is a professor at New York University Law School, Archer will oversee the 60-member board and deal with operational, organisational, as well as fundraising issues.”
• In Queens NY, “[t]wo employees of the indigent defense organization Queens Defenders were fired on Monday, less than two months after staff announced a union drive with overwhelming support. Both employees, social worker Betsy Vasquez and attorney Anna Avalone, are outspoken supporters of the ongoing union drive at Queens Defenders. Pro-union employees and a union organizer said that the firings were illegal retaliation against the staffers for supporting the union…The Queens Defenders Union announced its drive for recognition as a chapter of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (ALAA) in December, claiming the support of 90 percent of eligible employees and multiple Queens elected officials.”
• In Miami FL, a federal judge ruled that “[a] former Broward County [] assistant public defender can pursue her lawsuit alleging she was fired for advocating for social justice issues during an unsuccessful campaign to unseat her boss.”
• In Canada, “[a] research team [from McMaster University] has spoken with leaders from front-line non-profit organizations, and their funding partners…to better understand how the pandemic is affecting organizations across Canada.”
• In the United States, Prof. Donald Moynihan of Georgetown University discussed his research into “how federal managers use performance data over time,” research which suggests that “[t]he current system GPRAMA had worked where GPRA and PART had failed: pushing managers to use performance data to make decisions.”
• In Washington DC, “[a] bipartisan, bicameral group of lawmakers is once again pushing to remove mandatory payments toward the health benefits for future U.S. Postal Service retirees, aiming to eliminate a controversial requirement upon which the cash-strapped mailing agency has defaulted for years.”
• Also in Washington DC, “[a] newly formed non-profit says it is reimagining philanthropy by supporting people, organizations, businesses and non-profits making a difference in communities of color in Virginia, Maryland and DC.”

Expanding Legal Practice

• In Arizona, “[a]nyone can now become a legal paraprofessional and represent clients in Arizona courts [after t]he Arizona Supreme Court earlier this year sanctioned paraprofessionals who could provide more affordable legal representation. Paraprofessionals can act for clients in misdemeanor cases with no possibility of jail time, or in family and small claims courts.”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In the United States, “[a]ccording to a new poll from Data for Progress and The Lab, a policy vertical of The Appeal, voters overwhelmingly want a fairer process in eviction cases…64% of voters—including 78% of Democrats, 61% of independents, and 51% of Republicans—believe Congress should pass a measure to fund legal services to prevent evictions. 68% of voters—including 75% of Democrats, 71% of independents, and 58% of Republicans—support a right to counsel in eviction proceedings, similar to the right that exists for criminal cases.”
  • Relatedly, in Nebraska, “[a] new bill in the Nebraska Legislature introduced by Sen. John Cavanaugh, District 9 of Omaha, would provide every tenant across the state with the right to an attorney when they walk into the courtroom.”
  • Relatedly, in Florida, “a handful of bills filed at the State Capitol seek to keep people in their homes. Every day in Florida, 180 new eviction notices are being filed.”
  • Relatedly, in Maryland, “[a]s the Maryland General Assembly session gets into full swing, many lawmakers are pushing bills meant to protect tenants.”
• In Los Angeles CA, “[t]he Social Justice Legal Foundation (www.socialjusticelaw.org) launched today with a $10 million pledge of support from Hueston Hennigan LLP…The Foundation – funded and created by the partners of Hueston Hennigan LLP – will collaborate with Columbia, Northwestern, Stanford, UCLA and Yale law schools to identify pressing legal issues and to mentor and develop a new generation of trial lawyers in the public sector…To address evolving societal crises, the Foundation will rotate its primary areas of attention every two years from among the following initial areas: economic justice, housing/homeless discrimination, LGBTQ+ rights, immigrant justice, Native American discrimination, voting rights and criminal justice reform. The Foundation’s cases and focus areas will be informed by its executive leadership, academic partners, other social justice organizations and fellows.”
• In Wisconsin, as of February 5th the Wisconsin State Bar is organizing “Wisconsin-licensed lawyers [to] offer free consultations, by Zoom or by phone, of up to one hour to small businesses. Businesses can get an additional session at no charge if the issue is not adequately resolved.”
• In Providence RI, “[t]he American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island is suing the attorney general’s office, challenging a $225 fee charged to a law student for records regarding plea deals that could have immigration consequences. The ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of Roger Williams University School of Law student Lindsay Koso, who is doing research for a law review article on state immigration law. One law requires the attorney general to give the legislature an annual report listing cases in which plea agreements were vacated because judges failed to tell criminal defendants that a plea could have adverse immigration consequences…[T]he lawsuit calls that charge “per se unreasonable” because the public shouldn’t have to pay for reports that an agency is required to submit publicly. And the lawsuit says the $225 fee is so large that it would deter Koso or other members of the public from pursuing the records.”
• In New Hampshire, “[a] new study has exposed serious financial woes and gaps in legal help for New Hampshire’s neediest residents, including victims of domestic violence – justice and safety challenges that have become more pressing with the pandemic.”
• In Pennsylvania, “[u]nder a new law, people experiencing homelessness will now have the ability to receive a free identification card from PennDOT.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Chesterfield County VA, “[t]he Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee approved legislation Wednesday morning that would create a public defender’s office in Chesterfield County and replace the county’s existing court-appointed attorney system, in which private attorneys are assigned by judges to represent defendants who can’t afford to hire counsel.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Interested public. So many urgent concerns clamor for our attention these days. I hope my attempt to be focused in this space suits your needs. Here is some news.

Take care of one another,

Sam

State-Directed Violence

• In North Carolina, “Donald Trump added controversy to the September law enforcement killing of antifa activist and murder suspect Michael Reinoehl, by alleging the U.S. Marshals ‘didn’t want to arrest him’ and proudly declaring, ‘We got him.’ Trump’s remarks came during a rally Thursday in Greenville, North Carolina. ‘We sent in the U.S. Marshals. Took 15 minutes, it was over, 15 minutes it was over,’ Trump said of Reinoehl’s death to cheers from the crowd. ‘We got him. They knew who he was. They didn’t want to arrest him, and 15 minutes, that ended.’”
• The Guardian reported that “[t]hree years after Donald Trump ordered a crackdown on undocumented migrants crossing into the US, lawyers are still struggling to find the parents of 545 children separated from them under the “zero-tolerance” policy, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.”

Free and Fair Elections

• In Washington DC, “[a] 36-year veteran of the Justice Department this week accused Attorney General William P. Barr of abusing his power to sway the election for President Trump and said he was quitting, making him the third sitting prosecutor to issue a rare public rebuke of the attorney general.“
• Also in Washington DC, “[a]fter a very long delay in an emergency election case, the shorthanded United States Supreme Court came to a 4–4 tie in an election law case out of Pennsylvania on Monday evening. While a tie result that leaves the lower court ruling standing is a clear short-term win for Democrats in making it easier to vote in the Keystone State in November, Republicans could end up with a much bigger victory if there is any post-election Trump v. Biden litigation.”
  • Commentary from CNN casts the ultimate stakes in this case as particularly weighty: “Normally, a state supreme court has the last word on state laws. So the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision should have ended the matter. The US Supreme Court’s 4-4 decision rejected the appeal, but if the Court had accepted the Pennsylvania Republicans’ argument, we would have been in for a whole new wave of federal judicial oversight over election rules. That would spell bad news for state constitutional protection for the right to vote, which is broader than the safeguards afforded under the US Constitution.”
• In California, “[t]he California Republican Party has admitted responsibility for placing more than 50 deceptively labeled “official” drop boxes for mail-in ballots in Los Angeles, Fresno and Orange Counties — an action that state officials said was illegal and could lead to election fraud.”

The Civil Service

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Interested public. So many urgent concerns clamor for our attention these days. I hope my attempt to be focused in this space suits your needs. Here is some news.

Take care of one another,

Sam

State-Directed Violence

• In Louisville KY, after “one of the unnamed jurors filed a court motion asking for the [grand jury proceedings concerning the police killing of Breonna Taylor] to be made public and accusing [KY Atty. Gen.] Cameron of using the jurors ‘as a shield to deflect accountability and responsibility’,” the Kentucky Attorney General “agreed to release the tape [of the proceedings] this week in response to a judge’s order.”
• In Pearland TX, Vice reported they had obtained “planning records…labeled highly confidential” concerning security forces’ preparations surrounding George Floyd’s funeral in June: “at least six ‘sniper teams’ were in place on rooftops and authorized to open fire if the situation spiraled out of control…, and [] ‘overwatch units’ were sent to monitor the crowd for violent ‘agitators.’ Pearland officials also welcomed a large contingent of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents to the city, including dozens of members of the immigration agency’s militarized tactical unit. Known as BORTAC, it’s equipped with military-grade firepower and commando-style uniforms, and deploys to conflict zones ‘around the world,’ according to the agency..The records show local and federal officials were ready and willing to open fire, even as the nation was undergoing a reckoning over systemic racism and excessive use of force by police in the aftermath of Floyd’s death.”

Free and Fair Elections

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Interested public. Here is some news.

Take care of one another,

Sam

Breonna Taylor

• In Louisville KY, “Civil RIghts lawyer Ben Crump, who represents Breonna Taylor’s family, blasted the Kentucky grand jury that decided not to charge any officers in her killing, calling it a ‘sham proceeding that did nothing to give Breonna Taylor a voice.’…The wanton endangerment charge ‘doesn’t make sense,’ Crump said, adding that the indictment was in connection to bullets shot into a white neighbor’s apartment, ‘but not for the bullets going in Breonna Taylors body.’…’Nothing seems to say Breonna mattered,’ Crump said of the decision announced Wednesday.”
  • In further news, “Breonna Taylor’s family is demanding the release of grand jury proceeding transcripts after a Kentucky grand jury indicted one officer for endangering Taylor’s neighbors during the police shooting that resulted in her death…Crump went on, ‘What did Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron present to the grand jury? Did he present any evidence on Breonna Taylor’s behalf? Or did he make a unilateral decision to put his thumb on the scales of justice to help try to exonerate and justify the killing of Breonna Taylor by these police officers? And in doing so, make sure that Breonna Taylor’s family never got their day in court.’ Family attorney Lonita Baker demanded a special prosecutor be appointed to present to a grand jury on Taylor’s behalf.”

Crimes Against Humanity

• In Washington DC, “Amnesty International USA today called for a halt on the nomination of Chad Wolf to serve as Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, unless and until all information relevant to Wolf’s involvement in human rights violations—including the family separations policy—is fully and thoroughly investigated…Amnesty International takes no position on the appointment of particular individuals to government positions, unless they are reasonably suspected of crimes under international law and could use their appointment to the position in question to either prevent accountability for these crimes or to continue their perpetration. The organization calls on Senators to thoroughly and fully investigate Chad Wolf given the gravity and range of rights abuses that have taken place during his leadership at the Department of Homeland Security.”
• In The United States, “[t]op U.S. House Democrats are investigating a whistleblower’s allegations that immigrant women in a Georgia detention center endured gynecological procedures without their consent or full understanding of the treatment that was being performed…Lawmakers want documents going as far back as 2015 about gynecological or obstetrical care people at the detention center or off site received, along with all communications between staff and medical providers. The letter also requested any documents about how the facility responded to coronavirus outbreaks and what measures were taken to prevent the spread. Democrats requested those documents by Oct. 2.”
• In Mexico, “[Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said] Mexico is interviewing at least six women who may have been subject to improper medical procedures, including hysterectomies, at a U.S. immigration detention center in Georgia[.] If the improper procedures are confirmed, measures would have to be taken, Ebrard said, without giving details. He called the abuse described in a whistleblower’s complaint ‘unacceptable.’

Rule of Law & Voting Rights

• In Washington DC, The Atlantic reported that “[a]ccording to sources in the Republican Party at the state and national levels, the Trump campaign is discussing contingency plans to bypass election results and appoint loyal electors in battleground states where Republicans hold the legislative majority. With a justification based on claims of rampant fraud, Trump would ask state legislators to set aside the popular vote and exercise their power to choose a slate of electors directly. The longer Trump succeeds in keeping the vote count in doubt, the more pressure legislators will feel to act before the safe-harbor deadline expires.”
• In Slate, Professor Richard Hasen of UC Irvine, a national authority on election law, wrote “[w]ith less than six weeks to go before Election Day, the litigation strategy of the Trump campaign and its allies has become clear: try to block the expansion of mail-in balloting whenever possible and, in a few key states, create enough chaos in the system and legal and political uncertainty in the results that the Supreme Court, Congress, or Republican legislatures can throw the election to Trump if the outcome is at all close or in doubt. It’s a Hail Mary, but in a close enough election, we cannot count the possibility out. I’ve never been more worried about American democracy than I am right now.”
• In Pennsylvania, “[e]lection experts and lawyers are bewildered by a press release from the Department of Justice, in which the department said it had begun an inquiry into a handful of military ballots in a northeastern Pennsylvania county. Most unusually, the release revealed that the voters had cast their ballots for President Donald Trump…’It is hard to express how illegitimate the press release is. That’s the problem,’ Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School, said in an interview, noting that it wasn’t necessarily bad that the department was investigating. “It is really improper for DOJ to be putting out a press release with partial facts,” Levitt continued. ‘And it is career-endingly improper to designate the candidate for whom the votes are cast. There is no federal statute on which the identity of the preferred candidate depends.’“
• In Florida, “Attorney General Ashley Moody [] called for an investigation into an effort backed by Mike Bloomberg to help restore the voting rights of thousands of felons ahead of the November election. The former New York City mayor partnered with the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition to help raise at least $16 million for felons to pay off outstanding legal fines and fees in order to regain the right to vote. The effort is targeting around 32,000 former prisoners who owed less than $1,500 in restitution fees and had already registered to vote.”
  • Relatedly, “Franita Tolson, a law professor at the University of Southern California, noted that Florida lawyers had indicated in court that requiring people to repay fines and fees did not amount to a poll tax. Objecting to having someone else pay fines and fees undermined that argument, she said in an email.”
• In Fairfax VA, “[a] group of Trump supporters waving campaign flags disrupted the second day of early voting in Fairfax, Va., on Saturday, chanting “four more years” as voters entered a polling location and, at one point, forming a line that voters had to walk around outside the site…Election officials said that the group stayed about 100 feet from the entrance to the building and, contrary to posts on social media, were not directly blocking access to the building. But they acknowledged that some voters and polling staff members felt intimidated by what some saw as protesters.”
  • Relatedly, in Washington DC, “Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP) has released fact sheets on unlawful militias for all 50 states. The fact sheets provide key information about lawful and unlawful militias, state laws prohibiting private militias and paramilitary activity, and what to do if citizens see groups of armed individuals near polling places. ‘Local officials, law enforcement, and voters need to know that groups of armed individuals have no legal authority under federal or state law to show up at voting locations claiming to protect or patrol the polls,’ said MaryMcCord, Legal Director of ICAP and a former Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the Department of Justice.”

Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring

• In Washington DC, “President Trump…expanded a ban on racial sensitivity training to federal contractors. His administration had instructed federal agencies to end such training earlier this month…’Americans should be taught to take PRIDE in our Great Country, and if you don’t there’s nothing in it for you!’ he tweeted.”
• You can view the full executive order at the White House website.

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Interested public. No words today, again.

Take care of one another,

Sam

Editor’s Choice(s)

• In Geneva, “[t]he UN human rights office said on Friday that the images of the shooting of Black man Jacob Blake in Wisconsin appeared to show that the police officer had used ‘excessive’ force that was likely discriminatory in nature. ‘From the images available that we’ve seen at this point, the police appear to have used force against Jacob Blake that would seem to be excessive,’ Rupert Colville said at a virtual briefing in Geneva, saying the use of force did not appear to comply with international standards.”

COVID-19 and Remote Legal Practice

• In Canada, a second-year law student at McGill argued in The Lawyer’s Daily that “the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the challenges faced by [Self-Represented Litigants]. As the legal community scrambles to understand and adjust to the reality of many COVID-19 related changes, the impacts on SRLs must not be forgotten.”
• In Berrien County MI, the Herald Palladium described “the innovative efforts the [] County Public Defender’s Office has put in place to remain open and provide access for clients during the coronavirus pandemic.”

Rule of Law & Voting Rights

• In Washington DC, “Secretary of State Mike Pompeo broke long-standing tradition by giving a convention speech while still serving as chief diplomat. This reportedly could violate his department’s own policy in addition to the Hatch Act. Additionally, Homeland Security Department acting Secretary Chad Wolf presided over an immigration naturalization ceremony during a pre-taped event that was aired during the convention, which a top House Democrat and a government watchdog group asked OSC to investigate. The White House and the agencies maintained they took precautions to follow the law.”
  • In further news, “Trump held a naturalization ceremony for new citizens, recorded at the White House and aired hours later as part of the Republican convention programming…The party also broadcast Trump issuing a presidential pardon to a convicted bank robber, and sought and received a permit to stage a fireworks show from the Washington monument.”
• Also in Washington DC, “[f]ive non-profits, including three voter advocacy groups, filed a lawsuit [] against President Donald Trump’s social media executive order from May, arguing it hurts the rights of voters who receive information through social media about mail-in voting.”
• In Portland OR, “[f]ederal agents sent by President Donald Trump to protect federal buildings in Portland are now under an injunction barring them from assaulting journalists and legal observers. The government says it will appeal.”
• In Kenosha WI, “[a] Seattle-based nonprofit group that serves food to protesters said [] that several of its members were still in police custody in Kenosha, Wis., after law enforcement officers sprang from unmarked cars and arrested them ahead of Wednesday night’s demonstrations in the city. The arrests were recorded by a bystander and shared widely on social media, renewing concerns that unidentified officers could be shielded in crackdowns on demonstrators.”
• In Michigan, “[a] nonprofit group tied to influential conservatives who worked closely with President Donald Trump to elevate two Supreme Court justices is urging key states to clean up their voting rolls — a practice voting-rights groups and Democrats argue seeks to ‘purge’ legitimate voters.”
• In California. Washington, and Texas, several “cities and counties [] sought a preliminary injunction to stop the U.S. Census Bureau from moving forward on an expedited plan to complete the 2020 count. The filing in U.S. District Court in San Jose came a week after the same parties filed a federal lawsuit against the plan announced Aug. 3 to compress 8 1/2 months of data collection and processing into 4 1/2 months, which [LA City Attorney Mike] Feuer said would result in an alarming population undercount.”

Legal Technology

• In the United States, “according to a privacy assessment recently published by the agency[,]” Customs and Border Patrol “will now upload [data from digital devices seized from travelers at or near the country’s borders, often without charging them with a specific crime] to a searchable, agency-wide surveillance database and maintain for up to 75 years.”
  • Privacy assessment published here.
• Also in the United States, “[a] coalition of 15 public interest groups states that PACER raises more than $140 million annually for the U.S. Courts, although some estimates put the cost of storing and retrieving that data at just over $225,000. They note the cost to store data has decreased 99.9% in the last two decades but the judiciary has chosen to increase PACER fees from $0.07 to $0.10 a page. The groups are urging Congress to advance legislation to eliminate PACER fees entirely.”
• Also in the United States, The Pew Charitable Trusts “created a framework that describes the four essential elements a portal should provide to help users navigate a legal issue and take informed action. Portals should enable users to ask questions about a legal issue, interactively refine their requests, learn about their options, and connect with relevant resources—such as legal aid and social services organizations or court websites—that can help.”
• In Pittsburgh PA, “[a] new proposal introduced to the Pittsburgh City Council this week would ban police use of facial recognition software and predictive policing technology, though the city’s law enforcement agency says it isn’t currently using either technology.”
• In San Francisco CA, “Rocket Lawyer…announced the release of RocketEvidence, its new mobile app feature that enables users to easily share video and other digital media documentation with attorneys for review.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In the United States, analysis from Student Loan Hero revealed that “[n]early half of Black borrowers regret borrowing in the first place, and it’s easy to see why: 4 in 10 survey respondents said their debt didn’t lead them to their desired career. And 7 in 10 said their repayment had delayed key financial milestones, such as saving for retirement.”

Immigration, Refugee, & Citizenship Issues

• In San Diego CA, “[a] an Diego Union-Tribune analysis of 10 years of [asylum] court outcomes uncovered many symptoms of the system’s biases — shortcomings that date to the system’s creation.” The analysis concluded that “the system has chronically fallen short of its promise of safety.”
• In Houston TX, “[t]he Trump administration has sharply increased its use of hotels to detain immigrant children as young as 1 before expelling them from the United States during the coronavirus pandemic despite facing outcry from lawmakers and human-rights advocates.”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In the United States, “[a]n increasing number of legal services programs have secured CARES Act funding to expand tenant representation. These grants come from CDBG-CV, the Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF), and Emergency Services Grants (ESG).”
• In New York NY, “[t]he Legal Aid Society will take legal action if Mayor Bill de Blasio succumbs to local pressure to move homeless shelter residents from hotel rooms across the city back to congregate housing before it is safe, the group said[.]”
  • Relatedly, “[o]n behalf of the West Side Community Organization, attorney Randy Mastro has given the city 48 hours to commit to a timeline to relocate the new residents. If they don’t make this commitment, the group has threatened to sue.”
• In San Francisco CA, “Mayor London Breed expressed concerns on Thursday about the city’s budget after supervisors approved changes to her proposed budget for the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 fiscal years…[In particular, t]he committee [] approved an additional $750,000 in the budget to expand the city’s Tenant Right to Counsel program…Under Breed’s budget proposal, the program would’ve faced cuts by as much as $1 million.”
• In Pennsylvania, with the state’s “moratorium on evictions and foreclosures set to expire on Monday, Gov. Tom Wolf said he prefers the legislature to take action as opposed to issuing an extension by executive order. But lawmakers won’t have time to come up with a fix before the deadline arrives.”
• In New York, “[w]hile testifying in front of the New York State Legislature on Friday, Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence Marks warned lawmakers that the courts may have no choice but to return holding eviction proceedings by Oct. 1 as the Office of Court Administration feels that it doesn’t have the authority to extend such a moratorium indefinitely. Marks added that if the State Senate believes that the moratorium should exist beyond that date, that they, along with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, have to be the ones to get it done.”
• In Oregon, “advocates say[] landlords are taking advantage of those hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic: undocumented Oregonians, particularly renters…[who] are ineligible for government assistance, such as unemployment and stimulus checks, and often lack savings and access to health care.”
• In Detroit MI, “Mayor Mike Duggan reminded residents Wednesday the city has about $12 million available and other services for residents who are at risk of losing their homes as an eviction crisis looms.”
• In Rochester NY, “[e]very Rochester resident facing eviction proceedings in a city court will now have access to free legal representation under a program that launched Tuesday.”
• In Hawaii, “the state’s labor department is reaching out to Hawaii’s legal community for volunteer help resolving thousands of backlogged unemployment insurance claims.”
• In the United States, “IAALS, the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, and the Netherlands-based HiiL (The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law) recently launched the largest-ever survey of its kind as part of their US Justice Needs project. Funded by Bohemian Foundation, the US Justice Needs survey will reach 10,000 people in the United States and seek to uncover their experiences in accessing justice when they need it.”

Access to Justice – Criminal & Decarceration

• In Baltimore MD, “Marianne Lima[, who] oversees pretrial litigation for Baltimore’s public defender’s office, [] is concerned that clients whose cases are delayed because of coronavirus are forced to pay high fees for ankle monitoring services until trial.”
• In Georgia, “[t]he Georgia Public Defender Council’s executive director will restore a nearly full complement of attorneys to the council’s appellate division by the end of September.”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In New York NY, “[m]ore than 50 nonprofits, including social services organizations, advocacy groups and religious institutions, sent a letter that calls on New York City leaders to adopt an agenda featuring a slate of police reforms.”
• In Brooklyn NY, “District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced on Monday that he is one of 42 prosecutors from across the country who have signed a pledge to reject campaign contributions from law enforcement unions, including the Police Benevolent Association in New York City.”
• The Intercept argued that “Wesley Bell’s decision not to charge the officer who killed Michael Brown exposes the limits of the movement to elect reform prosecutors.”
• In Contra Costa County CA, “District Attorney Diana Becton made a case for her ‘Reimagine Youth Justice Task Force,’ a varied group of advocates working to divert as many young offenders as possible away from incarceration and toward more progressive programs.”
• In Kansas, “Gov. Laura Kelly renominated a federal public defender for a spot on Kansas’ second-highest court despite his initial rejection by the Republican-led state Senate, saying he is undoubtedly the most qualified person for the job.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Interested public. Much news again this week, a pattern that seems unlikely to slacken anytime soon. Dozens of nonprofits weighed in on the debate about diploma privilege, while the Bexar County DA sought guidance on whether he could hold the USPS liable for violating election law. The House Education and Labor Committee heard testimony about the potential effects of the most recent executive order concerning student debt, and some excellent reporting from the Davis Vanguard, a California paper, described efforts in Missouri and Virginia to remove prosecutorial discretion from reform-minded prosecutors–in the former case by replacing their judgment with that of the state Attorney General, and in the latter with the judgment of the court.

Take care of one another,

Sam

Editor’s Choice(s)

• In the United States, “a coalition of more than 120 public interest organizations…issued a powerful public letter to the National Board of Bar Examiners and 34 state boards overseeing their bar examinations in response to the ongoing problems and systematic unfairness resulting from efforts to administer the bar exam during a global pandemic. Due to the demonstrated inability of state bars to respond to this crisis effectively or equitably, the broad coalition representing civil rights, legal services, and national advocacy organizations called for these licensing bodies to provide diploma privilege to recent law school graduates in lieu of the exam.”
  • Meanwhile, “[o]n the day Florida had been scheduled to hold its bar exam online due to the coronavirus pandemic, before software bugs upended those plans, Florida’s chief justice issued a video message Wednesday apologizing to bar applicants and acknowledging the failure of officials responsible for the test.”
• In the United States, “[t]he American Bar Endowment has supported [access to justice] initiatives through its Opportunity Grant Program in recent years and is now looking for the next round of programs and projects aiming to address the public’s critical legal needs. The deadline to apply for the 2021 grant cycle is Oct. 2, with optional letters of intent due by Aug. 21.”

COVID-19 and Remote Legal Practice

• In Maryland, “[u]nion for Maryland Legal Aid employees claims top lawyers were fired to squash dissent over coronavirus reopening.”
  • Moreover, “[t]he sudden departures, which took place one day before state and federal eviction bans expired, have stoked concern that the organization will be less prepared to respond to an expected wave of evictions and other hardships triggered by the health emergency.”
• In Ontario, “[t]he federal government needs to step in to avert a funding crisis facing Legal Aid Ontario that could prevent access to justice for thousands of people hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic, say some lawyers and leaders on the front lines of legal aid.”
• In Sacramento CA, the Davis Vanguard published an illuminating account of the interpersonal dynamics at play as courts conduct arraignments via Zoom.

Racial Justice

• In the United States, “[b]ackers of a nationwide initiative by law firms, launched in the wake of George Floyd’s death, to tackle systemic racism in the law are drafting paperwork to formalize it into an industry-funded nonprofit.”
• Also in the United States, the US Conference of Mayors published its “Report on Police Reform and Racial Justice” (discussed in an earlier edition of the digest).
• In Concorn NH, “a long-time law professor and former public defender advised the [state] panel on police accountability [that e]very prosecutor in the state should have training on racial profiling.”
• In Gainesville FL, “University of Florida law students are demanding college officials grant a professor’s appeal to teach her racial justice courses online this semester, a request that was denied by the school, effectively canceling the classes.”

Rule of Law & Voting Rights

• In Bexar County TX, “DA Joe Gonzalez sent a letter to Attorney General Ken Paxton, asking if he can prosecute federal officials who violate Texas election laws.”
  • Meanwhile, in Washington DC “[a] former high-ranking official who previously oversaw the leadership of the U.S. Postal Service said Tuesday that while she applauds Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s latest commitment to delay proposed changes to mail services, she is still worried about the impact on mail-in voting this November.”
• In the United States, “[t]he U.S. Postal Service is rerouting mail away from at least some of its smaller processing plants, creating more uncertainty surrounding recent changes that could lead to slower mail delivery.”
  • Meanwhile, “[a]ttorneys general in several states are looking into ways to sue the federal government and block it from reducing mail service.”
• In New York NY, “U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero emphatically upheld a subpoena ordering Trump’s accountants to hand over [his tax returns], siding with Vance in the prosecutor’s probe of Trump’s alleged financial misdeeds.”
• In Washington DC, “[t]he top attorney at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) [] rejected a nonpartisan congressional watchdog’s report which concluded that two of the agency’s top officials—Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf and Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli—were ineligible to serve in those roles.”
• Also in Washington DC, “President Trump can give his convention speech from the White House and White House officials can assist and attend in specific circumstances without violating the Hatch Act, the independent agency that oversees civil service law said last week.”

Pro Bono Publico

• The Indiana Lawyer published an excellent overview of states’ mandatory and voluntary pro bono reporting programs, focused on Indiana.
• In Ohio, “[p]ro bono financial contributions from attorneys to low-income Ohioans have increased significantly in the past year, according to a new interactive dashboard.” (Dashboard available here.)

Legal Technology

• In New York NY, “Blue J, the leading provider of AI-backed legal predictions, announced today the launch of its COVID-19 relief programs and credits guided analysis tools for the United States and Canada.”
• Lawfare published a policy analysis of Client-Side Scanning, “a system…to scan photographs and messages before they are sent from a user (or after received by another user) in order to determine whether the images or messages in question contravene legal prohibitions.”
• The Wall Street Journal reported that “[i]n the last few years, companies have started using such race-detection software to understand how certain customers use their products, who looks at their ads, or what people of different racial groups like. Others use the tool to seek different racial features in stock photography collections, typically for ads, or in security, to help narrow down the search for someone in a database…The field is still developing, and it is an open question how companies, governments and individuals will take advantage of such technology in the future. Use of the software is fraught, as researchers and companies have begun to recognize its potential to drive discrimination, posing challenges to widespread adoption.”

Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring

• In Delaware County PA, “[s]taff attorneys of the [] Public Defender’s Office have voted 33-3 to unionize, according to a release.”
• In Broward County FL, Public Defender Howard Finkelstein fired Ruby Green, “the assistant public defender who lost to Howard Finkelstein’s chosen successor Tuesday night…on Wednesday morning in a terse e-mail.”
• In Washington DC, “[a] union representing employees at the Social Security Administration accused the agency of withholding basic information and refusing to bargain over reopening procedures, even as some employees have been called back into physical offices.”
• In Ontario, “[a] recent survey of organizations run by the Ontario Non-profit Network (ONN) revealed some troubling figures: one in five of the survey’s 1,100 respondents say they may have to shut down by the end of December. Another quarter said that 2021 will likely be a greater financial struggle than this year.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, “Ben Miller — vice president for postsecondary education at the Center for American Progress — told the House Education and Labor Committee that [the executive order extending an interest-free pause on federal student loan payments for the remainder of 2020] could lead to some big problems. ‘There’s little chance the economy will be in strong shape by then,’ Miller stated. ‘Having roughly 26 million borrowers all enter repayment during the holidays — it’s an implementation disaster in the making.’ He offered him a different plan, however, suggesting ‘an approach that pauses payments for a full year and ties interest restarting to positive economic indicators would be much better.’”
• Also in Washington DC, “[w]hile Congress is currently in recess, Republicans have been trying to piece together a pared-down stimulus package amidst failing negotiations regarding a larger, more expensive plan. Their draft proposal, which has been put together in advance of lawmakers’ return to Washington D.C. in September, calls for a variety of economic relief. However, as Forbes noted, their proposal would not provide any student loan relief.”
• In Wisconsin, “Governor Tony Ever’s task force on student debt released reports outlining eight recommendations for how Wisconsin can provide relief and protection for student debt holders.”
• In California, “a recently resurrected bill that would add consumer protections for student loan borrowers and establish a Student Borrower Bill of Rights in California is expected to be heard in the Senate Appropriations Committee, one of the last hurdles towards passage.”
• On the internet, “[s]peaking at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) told viewers that Joe Biden will ‘cancel billions in student loan debt’ if he is elected President.”

Immigration, Refugee, & Citizenship Issues

• In Denver CO, “[h]undreds of other Denver residents face an immigration judge without a lawyer because there is no public defender system in immigration court. Even more people could soon be added to that tally due to a shortfall in money for the Immigrant Legal Services Fund. The fund funnels a combination of city dollars and private donations to four nonprofits that help indigent Denver residents fight deportation and apply for legal residence by providing legal assistance. A $50,000 decline in money from the city paired with a drop in private donations has caused the fund’s 2020 budget to fall to $250,000 from the approximately $385,000 it received in fiscal years 2018 and 2019.”
• In Maryland, “[a] nonprofit coalition is asking a Maryland federal court to sanction the Trump administration, saying the government is intentionally misleading the public and disobeying multiple court orders after the U.S. Supreme Court instructed it to reinstate the Delayed Action for Childhood Arrivals program.”
• In El Paso TX, “an immigration nonprofit changed in a complaint sent to the city’s district attorney [that] Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers routinely sexually harass and assault detainees at the El Paso Processing Center[.]”
• In Bend OR, “[a] federal judge [] said she wasn’t convinced that the detention of two men in Bend by ICE agents was unlawful and denied a nonprofit law office’s motion for a temporary restraining order against the federal immigration agency.”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In Utah, the state “will try out new law practice business models that allow for more participation by nonlawyers after the state Supreme Court unanimously OK’d a standing order that goes into effect Friday authorizing a pilot program aimed at improving access to justice in the state.”
• In Chattanooga TN, “the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga…is shifting [its work] as lawyers prepare for an eviction boom. On July 24, the CARES Act eviction ban on subsidized housing ended. 30-day notices expire soon, and lawyers like Emily O’Donnell are preparing for an onslaught. ‘The reality is we just don’t know until we see it,’ she said. ‘But we do know is that this eviction problem is going to last longer than we anticipated.’“
• In Cleveland OH, “Legal Aid is taking on an increased number of cases, especially in the areas of housing law and employment law. Already, compared to the same time last year, the organization has seen a 25% increase in landlord-tenant cases and a 46% increase in work-related issues such as unemployment.”
• In Ontario, a class-actions lawyer said “the Ontario government’s recent amendments to the Class Proceedings Act are an attempt to raise the bar on class-action certification[.]”

Access to Justice – Criminal & Decarceration

• In Honolulu HI, “[the] Public Defender’s Office wrote a letter to Chief Ballard asking for increased discretion when making arrests due to COVID-19 spiking at the O’ahu Community Correctional Center.” The Honolulu Police Department Chief responded at length, “wr[iting] that the Public Defender’s Office’s request is ‘not viable.’ ‘It sacrifices the safety of the law-abiding citizens in our community and allows those who choose not to follow the law to run free…I also encourage you to direct your efforts to the Department of Public Safety and urge them to address the issues plaguing their facilities.’ “
  • Meanwhile, “[t]he Hawai‘i Supreme Court is requesting a list of all inmates who qualify for an expedited release from the Public Safety Department’s correctional facilities statewide.”
• In New Orleans LA, “[t]he New Orleans City Council’s Criminal Justice Committee on Monday voted in favor of an ordinance that would require the city to give the Orleans Public Defenders at least 85 percent of the money it gives to the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s office — a proportion roughly equal to the number of criminal defendants in Orleans Parish that the public defenders estimate they represent.”
• In Nevada, “indigent defendants…won preliminary approval for a consent judgment that would force the state to reform its public defender system, which advocates say has been broken for years.”
• John Jay College’s Center on Media Crime and Justice argued that “President Trump is loading the bench with former prosecutors … [and b]y doubling down on the status quo of prosecutors as judges, the Trump Administration is embracing a formula that has ushered in an unprecedented era of mass incarceration in the United States… Despite their neutral mandate, judges, like the rest of us, are influenced in their decision-making by their personal characteristics. Indeed, some studies show former prosecutors are more likely to rule against criminal defendants than their peers.”

Criminal Justice Reform

• The Davis Vanguard reported on a practice emerging in Missouri and Virginia: “[e]arlier this week the Vanguard reported on efforts by the Missouri Governor, Attorney General and Legislature to strip St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner of her powers, by giving the AG the power to directly prosecute certain cases. In Virginia something similar is happening, except that the impetus is coming from the Arlington County Circuit itself. On March 4, 2020, the Circuit Court entered an order that would require that the Commonwealth Attorney in Arlington justify all charging decisions and writing—decisions on whether to dismiss, charge or even settle cases in her jurisdiction. As one source put it, “decisions that are at the core of the exercise of independent prosecutorial discretion.”
• In New York, “[t]he New York Civil Liberties Union on Thursday published a full database of police misconduct reports after a federal appeals court in Manhattan denied a request by police unions to block their release.”
• In the United States, “[t]he U.S. movement Campaign Zero recently partnered with the Kira Systems, a Canadian company which builds contract analysis and review software, and together have analysed hundreds of police union contracts, determining how these contracts enable police to evade accountability for misconduct.”
• In Ontario, the province “has ended police access to a COVID-19 database after a legal challenge was filed by a group of human rights organizations. Aboriginal Legal Services, the Black Legal Action Centre, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario were all parties to the lawsuit.”
• In Massachusetts, “[r]ecords requests sent by WBUR to all 11 district attorney offices in Massachusetts reveal[ed] a patchwork of Brady policies. The Middlesex DA’s list appeared to be the longest and most up-to-date. Five DA offices said they do not keep any such officer list at all…The inconsistency of prosecutors’ Brady practices raises questions about how those that don’t organize information about police misconduct comply with their constitutional requirements in court.”
• In Virginia, “[l]ocal prosecutors [were] cautiously optimistic about Tuesday’s special legislative session on criminal justice reform, although the area public defender said big changes are long overdue.”
• In Portland OR, “Oregon State Police [] said they were withdrawing protection from Portland’s federal courthouse over frustration at a prosecutor’s decision not to indict many people arrested in protests there.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Interested public. Another behemoth digest this week. Major stories include new research from the Center for American Progress & the American Bar Association and a new executive order extending the moratorium on student debt collections.

Take care of one another,

Sam

Editor’s Choice(s)

• In the United States, the Center for American Progress released “Pipelines to Power: Encouraging Professional Diversity on the Federal Appellate Bench”, a report concluding that:

“professional diversity on the federal appellate courts is severely lacking, with significant implications for the type of legal expertise underlying the opinions these judges issue. Only about 1 percent of sitting circuit court judges have spent the majority of their careers as public defenders or within a legal aid setting. In contrast, the federal appellate bench is swamped with those who spent the majority of their careers in private practice or as federal prosecutors—making up more than 70 percent of all sitting appellate judges. No sitting judge spent the majority of their career with a nonprofit civil rights organization…This lack of diversity not only reflects the closed and elitist nature of the federal appellate bench but also represents a barrier to the courts’ ability to develop intellectually rich jurisprudence grounded in an awareness of a broad set of individuals’ experiences across the country. To improve this state of affairs, significant disruptions are needed—from law school through every stage of an attorney’s prejudicial career—to broaden pathways to the federal bench and challenge long-held assumptions on the “right” type of attorney to take up a gavel.” (emphasis added)

• Also in the United States, the American Bar Association released its “2020 Profile of the Legal Profession”, a report in which “[t]wo new section were created specifically for the 2020 Profile: A statistical look at legal desserts–areas with few lawyers–including the number of lawyers in every U.S. county and maps that show where lawyers are and aren’t, [and a] survey…that measures how law school debt is affecting everyday life for young lawyers.”
  • As one source summarized the report’s student debt section: “student loan debt affects nearly every facet of [new lawyers’] lives: 48% said they had postponed having children or decided not to have children. 29% said they had postponed marriage or decided not to get married. 56% postponed buying a home or decided not to buy a house. Some reported moving in with parents. 37% chose a job because of a higher salary over a job they wanted more.” (emphasis added)

COVID-19 and Remote Legal Practice

• In Philadelphia PA, “[a] family court judge has refused to wear a face mask during in-person court hearings amid the COVID-19 pandemic and has sometimes ordered lawyers to remove their face masks, according to a letter by a public defender group.”
• In Mississippi, “[t]he Mississippi Supreme Court will reevaluate the possibility of allowing plea hearings in felony cases to be done by videoconference.”
• In Alaska, “[w]ith coronavirus on the upswing, a group of recent law school graduates say it’s too risky to sit indoors for the Bar exam. They’re asking the Alaska Supreme Court to allow applicants to practice law without taking the two-day proctored test.”
• In Maryland, “[m]embers of the Maryland General Assembly penned a letter Thursday, appealing to the Maryland judiciary to consider allowing recent law school graduates to practice without passing the bar exam, citing a series of safety concerns surrounding test administration during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
  • Also in Maryland, “[f]our top attorneys with Maryland Legal Aid were fired last month after sending a letter to their boss that pushed back against plans to reopen the offices during the pandemic.”
• In New Jersey, the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey issued formal objections to the state’s Administrative Office of the Courts plan for partially remote jury trials.
• In Oklahoma, “[t]he COVID-19 pandemic has complicated how…lawyers who serve older Native Americans in rural parts of [the state]…safely continue their work.”

Rule of Law & Voting Rights

• In Washington DC, “President Trump [] suggested he was holding up a deal on coronavirus relief in part to ensure the U.S. Postal Service would not have sufficient funds to handle mass mail-in ballots this fall, falsely conflating various pressures the agency is facing.”f
• In Florida, “felons [and] lawyers face ‘tremendous confusion’ on voting rights.”
• In Boston MA, “[w]ith just under eight weeks to respond to the U.S. census,…[s]everal populations in the city are at risk of being undercounted, including people of color, immigrants, renters and crowded households[; ]Several nonprofit organizations have asked the secretary’s office to release funding previously promised, so that Boston can get the funding and representation it needs for the next 10 years.”
• In New York, “President Donald Trump [] insisted that a grand jury subpoena for his tax returns was overly broad and issued in bad faith and that as President he deserves extra protection from what he called harassment by Manhattan’s district attorney.”

Legal Technology

• In Canada, a policy analyst on technology, cybersecurity and democracy at Ryerson University argued that “[c]ountless studies, inquires and commissions on Canadian policing have identified Black and Indigenous peoples as disproportionately vulnerable to police surveillance and violence…The adoption of data-driven technologies that expand the scope and depth of surveillance by police therefore moves beyond privacy and involves questions related to our democracy, including human dignity and the right to be free from discrimination. This makes the issue a concern for all Canadians.”
• In Dallas TX, “[t]he Dallas County Public Defender’s Office and Uptrust, the social justice communication platform, have announced a new partnership to employ Uptrust’s two-way communication technology to help defendants make it to court.”
• In New Jersey, “[i]n a case involving the intersection of technology, privacy rights and law enforcement, the state Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that neither federal nor state laws protected a former Essex County sheriff’s officer…from disclosing the pass codes to his iPhones.”
• In Florida, residents “facing eviction have access to a new online tool to create a legal response based on the state’s limited extension of a moratorium on evictions for nonpayment directly related to COVID-19.” The tool is http://floridaevictionhelp.org/

Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring

• In New York, “Attorney General Letitia James announced [a] lawsuit [against the National Rifle Association (NRA),] filed after an 18 month investigation conducted by its office. The lawsuit claims that the NRA has violated the state’s non-profit laws by illegally redirecting tens of millions of dollars from the group through excessive expenses, contracts that directly benefited relatives or close associates of high ranking members and board memebers and grossly excessive salaries and bonuses.”
• In The United States, “[t]he Association of Administrative Law Judges accused the Social Security Administration of breaking federal labor law when it implemented a partial union contract on Monday.”
• In Government Executive, a correspondent took “a look at Kamala Harris’ Record on Federal Workforce Issues.”
• In Maryland, “[s]taff from the state’s office of the public defender are planning to unionize after going public earlier this month.”
• In Hawaii, “nonprofits are adapting their services and business models to patch up sudden funding gaps generated by the financial chaos unleashed by COVID-19. Experts say the current economic climate will undoubtedly force some philanthropic organizations to merge or close.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In the United States, “new polling shows that measures to help those with student debt remain overwhelmingly popular.”
• In Washington DC, “President Trump signed an executive memorandum that purports to temporarily extend student loan relief for millions of Americans. Trump issued the memorandum after Congress was unable to reach a compromise on extending student loan relief and other economic assistance programs that are expiring…Advocates for student loan borrowers slammed the president’s memorandum as woefully insufficient.”
  • Meanwhile, Student Loan Hero advised that “the suspension will end eventually, so it’s worth preparing now for that new beginning.”
• Also in Washington DC, a new “investigative report, issued by The American Federation of Teachers and the Student Borrower Protection Center, examined records accessed through state and federal open records requests. The authors argue that there continues to be widespread problems with the PSLF program.”
  • The full report, “Broken Promises: Employer Certification Form Failure,” is available here.
• In Forbes, a contributor discussed “What Kamala Harris Could Mean for Your Student Loans.”

Immigration, Refugee, & Citizenship Issues

• In the United States, “[t]he Trump administration has argued that, because of the pandemic, it must circumvent protections built into immigration law for migrant children, which dictate they should be turned over to the Department of Health and Human Services (and ultimately to sponsors in the U.S.) and given a chance to seek asylum. Administration officials have said that they can’t risk that infected children would spread COVID-19 through the system. Yet even after children test negative for the virus, they aren’t being allowed to access the usual protections.”
• In Farmville VA, “[a] federal judge has ordered immigration authorities to stop transferring people in and out of a detention center [] that has become a hotspot for the coronavirus. The National Immigration Project and Legal Aid Justice Center filed a lawsuit late last month [in which t]hey alleged that large numbers of detainees were transferred into crowded conditions before they were quarantined, leading to what the New York Times called the worst outbreak of coronavirus at any such facility in the U.S.”
• In Bend OR, “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Field Director David Drasin refused an immigration attorney’s demand to meet with men seized from the streets of Bend, Oregon, and held on a bus for hours as protesters tried to block the bus from moving, according to a new lawsuit.”
• In Tijuana Mexico, “[s]ince the US government enacted a policy known as “Remain in Mexico” in January 2019, asylum seekers have been forced to wait for months in violent towns across the border until their US asylum hearing date, forcing many into makeshift camps as shelters filled up – a situation made even more precarious recently as Mexico has some of the highest COVID-19 infection and death rates in the world.”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In the United States, “legal aid providers are estimating the national price tag for helping tenants facing the prospect of losing their places to live will top $2.5 billion.”
• Also in the United States, “housing experts say that [the executive action President Donald Trump took, which is] being billed as an eviction moratorium is really just a few recommendations that will not actually do much, if anything, to keep renters in their homes.”
• In New York, “[t]he freeze on residential evictions in New York that began in March because of the pandemic will be extended until October 1, state court officials announced on Wednesday…A new memo from Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence Marks says renters cannot be removed from their homes before October, but eviction proceedings filed before March 17 can resume, only if conferenced in front of a judge. Eviction cases filed after March 17 remain suspended.”
• In New York NY, “Mayor Bill de Blasio announced [] the city’s newest initiative to help renters and tenants struggling due to the coronavirus pandemic[:] the Tenant Protection Portal that will be free and accessible to all tenants.”
• In Indiana, “[a] statewide moratorium on evictions and utility shut-offs is set to expire Friday, which could leave thousands of Hoosiers scrambling for help…[T]he director of the Fort Wayne Housing Authority…says he’s seeing more and more clients seeking state rental assistance now that the moratorium on evictions is slated to end.”
• In Northeast Ohio, “housing advocates [] are working to connect those facing eviction with resources and legal representation as courts resume hearings.”

Access to Justice – Criminal & Decarceration

• In San Quentin CA, “[i]n order to minimize the number of COVID-19 patients, health experts recommended cutting San Quentin’s population by 50%. But this recommendation has been met with hesitation. Alameda County Chief Public Defender Brendon Woods told YR Media that before the outbreak happened, he submitted a proposal to Governor Gavin Newsom in which he outlined a plan to cut California’s prison population by about 30% to minimize the chances of major outbreaks. But Governor Newsom didn’t adopt his proposal, and Woods said another major prison outbreak is ‘just a matter of time.’”
• In New York NY, “[t]he Bronx Defenders, one of the city’s largest nonprofit legal advocacies, and the New York Giants pro football team are pairing up ‘to combat inequities in the criminal, immigration, family, and civil legal systems,’ according to a joint news release from the organizations.”
• In Chicago IL, “[a] Cook County judge [] denied a request by the public defender’s office and a coalition of activist groups to immediately make Chicago police give suspects speedy access to phone calls after arrest, saying the circumstances do not constitute an emergency that requires him to step in.”
• In Oahu HI, “[as t]he outbreak of COVID-19 cases in the state corrections system continued to expand…Hawaii Public Defender James Tabe said Sunday night that his office is working on a new request to the Hawaii Supreme Court to take steps to reduce the inmate population to allow for social distancing and help slow the spread of the disease.”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In the United States, “[t]he U.S. Conference of Mayors has tapped Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr to help put together a list of reforms and recommendations aimed at building trust between police departments and their communities while rooting out racist policing practices.”
• Also in the United States, “[m]ass arrests following nights of tumultuous unrest in Chicago and Portland, Ore., have pitted liberal prosecutors against police and even Democratic allies over concerns that lenient charges will lead to further property damage and violence.”
• In Washington DC, “[t]he DC Police Union is seeking an injunction that would block Mayor Muriel Bowser from publicly releasing the body-camera footage and names of police officers who have “committed an officer-involved death” in the nearly six years since the camera program’s inception. A new D.C. law mandates that Bowser release the information by Saturday.”
• In Portland OR, “Multnomah County’s newly elected District Attorney, Mike Schmidt, unveiled a new policy on how his office will prosecute cases for those arrested during the protests in Portland. The policy [] says the district attorney’s office will decline to prosecute cases where charges only involve violations of city ordinances, or cases that don’t involve ‘deliberate property damage, theft, or threat of force against another person.’”
• In Pima County AZ, “[a]fter 40 years of the prosecutor’s office in Pima County being under the same leadership, Laura Conover overwhelmingly defeated the hand-picked replacement of 24-year sitting DA Barba LaWall—out-distancing her nearest opponent, the head of the homicides investigation unit, by a 57-36 margin…Just since May, she is the latest in a string of wins for progressive prosecutors—Mike Schmidt in Portland, Jose Garza in Austin, Mimi Rocah in Westchester, NY, Eli Savit in Michigan, and Kim Gardner in St. Louis.”
• In Hennepin County MN, “[a] study of one year’s traffic data in Minneapolis shows Black Drivers accounted for nearly 80 percent of police searches and routine traffic stops in the predominantly-white city.”
• In Salt Lake City UT, “[s]ome Black Lives Matter protesters…could face up to life in prison if they’re convicted of splashing red paint and smashing windows during a protest, a potential punishment that stands out among demonstrators arrested around the country and one that critics say doesn’t fit the alleged crime.”
• On the Internet, Democracy Now “host[ed] a debate on [Kamala Harris’] record as California attorney general and San Francisco district attorney, when she proudly billed herself as “top cop” and called for more cops on the street. San Francisco Deputy Public Defender Niki Solis says Harris was the state’s most progressive DA and advocated for “so many policies and so many alternatives to incarceration.” Law professor Lara Bazelon says Harris was on the wrong side of history for often opposing criminal justice reform, though her record did change as a senator.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Interested public. Another behemoth digest this week. Major stories include the growing chorus of concern about a coming wave of evictions, weighty deliberations at the ABA (see Editor’s Choices).

Take care of one another,

Sam

Editor’s Choice(s)

• In the United States, over 100 deans of law schools wrote to the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, arguing that “[p]reparing law students to be lawyers requires that they should be educated with respect to bias, cultural awareness, and anti-racism,” and “collectively urg[ing] the Council to charge the Standards Review Subcommittee to study and consider enacting a requirement that every law school must provide training and education of its students with regard to bias, cultural awareness, and anti-racist practices.”
• In Chicago IL, “[a] resolution urging state courts of last resort to cancel in-person bar exams during the COVID-19 pandemic, and develop alternate plans to license candidates, will be considered by the ABA House of Delegates assembly.”

COVID-19 and Remote Legal Practice

• In Canada, an opinion piece in Canadian Lawyer argued that “[w]ith less money to spend, individuals may choose to forgo hiring lawyers and do their own legal work; To this end, lawyers should be open to alternatives to charging by the hour. Creating a fee arrangement that works for the client can provide more certainty that you will be paid for your work.”
• In Texas, “[r]emote appearances and filing through email are two of the technology improvements that COVID-19 has forced on the immigration courts, according to immigration lawyers and a judge.”
• In Louisiana, “[m]ore unexpected delays have brought on continuances to trials that were scheduled to take place over the past three weeks.”
• In Missoula County MT, “[a]ttorneys in Missoula’s state public defender’s office issued a letter to the local judiciary [] urging judges to cease in-person hearings until Missoula County is no longer designated a hot spot and confirmed COVID-19 cases have made a steady decline.”

Rule of Law

• In Hawaii, “[a]ttorneys argued before the Hawaii Supreme Court [] over how much lawmakers should allow the public to weigh in on legislation as laws are being drafted and voted on[, ] considering a lawsuit challenging the Legislature’s practice of stripping bills of their original content and substituting something entirely different.”
• In Washington DC, “[t]he leadership of the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Tuesday introduced a pair of bills aimed at expanding whistleblower protections for federal employees and preventing agencies from retaliating against feds who file information requests through transparency laws.”
• Also in Washington DC, “[P]resident Donald Trump [] placed Anthony Tata into a key Pentagon position after the Senate Armed Services Committee effectively doomed his nomination for a related role, side-stepping Congress and exploiting a legal loophole that may allow Tata to take the top job without Senate confirmation at all.”
• Also also in Washington DC, “President Donald Trump on Monday erroneously claimed that he had the authority to issue an executive order to restrict the growing number of states that are moving towards universal mail-in voting for the 2020 election due to the ongoing pandemic. Legal experts were quick to point-out that any such order would undoubtedly be unconstitutional, as presidential elections are run by individual states.”
• In Manhattan NY, “[the] district attorney’s office suggested that President Donald Trump and his business were under investigation over bank and insurance fraud, according to court documents filed Monday. The documents — filed as part of an ongoing legal battle between District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. and Trump over Trump’s tax returns — mention ‘public reports of possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.’“

Legal Technology

• In New York NY, “[t]he Legal Aid Society, the City’s largest provider of criminal defense and civil legal services, announced today that it is partnering with Uptrust, the social justice communication platform, to reduce the number of Failure to Appear (FTA) incidents, arrest warrants, and pre-trial technical violations in New York City. The partnership will apply Uptrust’s innovative and unique two-way communication technology to reduce jail populations and save millions of taxpayer dollars.”
• In Forbes, a contributor argued that “rather than pass a generally applicable privacy statute [Congress] should explore the possibility that strong privacy rules might be one policy response to the lack of competitive alternatives in markets controlled by the dominant technology companies.”
• In Washington DC, “[a] federal appeals court [] upheld a district court’s finding that the federal judiciary had improperly covered certain expenses with PACER fees in a class action lawsuit challenging the user fees charged for access to court records.”
• In California, “[a] proposal to bolster the [California Consumer Privacy Act] has received enough signatures to qualify for November’s general election ballot.”
• In Chicago IL, “[t]he SAND Lab at University of Chicago has developed Fawkes1, an algorithm and software tool (running locally on your computer) that gives individuals the ability to limit how their own images can be used to track them. At a high level, Fawkes takes your personal images and makes tiny, pixel-level changes that are invisible to the human eye, in a process we call image cloaking. You can then use these “cloaked” photos as you normally would, sharing them on social media, sending them to friends, printing them or displaying them on digital devices, [etc.].”
• In the United States, “[p]rotests over racial inequality are exposing tensions between law enforcement access to digital data and citizen rights against unwarranted searches, which may force courts to grapple with how to protect people’s privacy.”

Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring

• In Maryland, “a district court dismissed a federal employee union’s lawsuit that claimed the Office of Special Counsel’s guidance on using the terms ‘impeachment’ and ‘resist’ at work violated free speech protections and was a misinterpretation of the Hatch Act.”
• Also in Maryland, “[i]n an effort to rein in caseloads, improve working condition and have a greater voice in the criminal justice system, the public defenders of Maryland are unionizing.”
• In Minnesota, “[t]he Minnesota Supreme Court concluded, in a July 29, 2020, decision*, that an unpaid student intern working at a local nonprofit was entitled to the same protection against discrimination found in the Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA) as paid employees.”
• In New York, “[the] state’s attorney general sued to dissolve the National Rifle Association on Thursday, alleging senior leaders of the non-profit group diverted millions of dollars for personal use and to buy the silence and loyalty of former employees.”
• In Chicago IL, the Chicago Sun Times’ Editorial Board published a piece arguing against “the new [Metropolitan Water Reclamation District] rules[, which] require individuals at nonprofits to register as lobbyists and record all discussions they have with officials at government agencies, even if that interaction is nothing more than answering the phone when an official calls for technical advice.”
• In Washington DC, “[a] Federal Labor Relations Authority regional director last week reaffirmed that federal immigration judges are not management officials and therefore can unionize, rejecting an effort by the Justice Department to decertify the National Association of Immigration Judges.”

Immigration, Refugee, & Citizenship Issues

• In New York, “the state’s nonprofits serving immigrants in detention revealed that not only were their contracts cut in late June, but that came on top of the state not reimbursing contracts from last fiscal year.”
• Also in New York, “[an appeals court ruled that a] judge [had] correctly struck down a new Department of Homeland Security rule that went into effect earlier this year denying green cards to legal immigrants who use Medicaid, food stamps and other forms of public assistance[.]”
• In Virginia, “[t]wo college students sued the Trump administration over a recent change in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that they say places a heavy financial burden on young people.”
• In Washington DC, after President “Trump issue[d an] election-year order on H-1B visas and federal contracts[, e]xperts say it is unclear what a new executive order issued by Donald Trump on federal contracting will accomplish, though it may be followed with additional measures to restrict companies that employ H-1B visa holders.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Pennsylvania, “[a]ttorney General Josh Shapiro permanently shut down Equitable Acceptance’s efforts to operate in Pennsylvania, and is requiring the company to cancel nearly $200,000 in debt for its former Commonwealth customers.”
• In Washington DC, @realDonaldTrump tweeted that President Trump had “notified [his] staff to continue working on an Executive Order with respect to Payroll Tax Cut, Eviction Protections, Unemployment Extensions, and Student Loan Repayment Options.” Forbes analyzed what this statement might signify.
• In New York, “[t]he New York State Department of Financial Services sent a letter to U.S. Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on behalf of a multi-state coalition of student loan advocates urging the Secretary to take proactive steps to protect student loan borrowers.”
• In the United States, Benefits Pro published an article discussing how “[e]mployers recognize need for solutions that address employee student debt post COVID-19[.]”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In the United States, “[t]he clock is ticking for Americans who are struggling to pay rent amid the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. The $600-a-week enhanced unemployment benefits created in Congress’s CARES Act runs out on July 31. The federal eviction moratorium—which protected about one quarter of American renters—expired July 24. Many of the patchwork state and local eviction moratoriums have already ended, with more expiration dates on the horizon for others. The U.S. Census Bureau’s weekly survey of American households recently found that 26.4 percent of Americans have either already missed a rent or mortgage payment or have little to no confidence that they will be able to pay their next month’s rent on time.”
• In New York NY, “New York’s court system is expected to begin processing new eviction cases [] for the first time since March, and the Legal Aid Society is predicting 14,000 households will face eviction immediately.”
• In Rochester NY, “Rochester’s City Roots Community Land Trust, in partnership with the Yale Environmental Protection Clinic, released a guide — Confronting Racial Covenants: How They Segregated Monroe County and What to Do About Them.”
  • Also in Rochester, “residents threatened with eviction would be guaranteed free legal representation under a bill expected to pass City Council this month, as the city braces for an anticipated deluge of eviction cases from landlords looking to recoup income lost during the pandemic.”
• In St. Louis MO, the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis “explore[d] the influence that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on student debt, demonstrating the inequities that have let low-income households fall further behind and what this means for these households’ financial outlook.”
• In USA Today, Rep. Joe Kennedy III argued that “[w]e absolutely must extend the nationwide moratorium on evictions. But an emergency stopgap won’t be enough. We must fortify the legal rights and protections for all low-income Americans who encounter our civil justice system. And we must make sure those in need have access to those protections through legal representation.”
• In Massachusetts, “[a] group of tenant advocacy groups will not be able to intervene in a legal challenge to Massachusetts’ eviction moratorium, a federal judge ruled from the bench on Tuesday.”
• In Salt Lake City UT, “[e]victions could be coming over the next few months, after moratoriums ended and certain federal benefits have run out.”
• In Louisiana, “[t]he head of the New Orleans legal aid office says calls for help from people who have lost their jobs have increased more than 600 percent.”
• In Texas, “[s]ources say a potential surge in evictions looms as the next big threat to Central Texans related to COVID-19.”
• In Ontario, a “new omnibus bill, passed in July, introduce[d] more stringent tests which lawyers say will make it difficult to sue institutions through class-actions.”
• In Cook County IL, “[a] legal services group is asking a Cook County judge to address delays in domestic violence cases. Legal Aid Chicago filed a suit [] seeking mandamus relief against the clerk of the Cook County Circuit Court, arguing it has not received copies of orders of protection for its clients and that the clerk’s office has not made good on a promise to implement a timely delivery system.”

Access to Justice – Criminal & Decarceration

• In Nevada, “[t]he ACLU of Nevada, which sued the state in 2017 for failing to provide public defense for people who couldn’t afford a lawyer in rural counties, announced Thursday it had reached a settlement that ensures people who have been charged with crimes that could be punished with imprisonment receive counsel.”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In Miami FL, WLRN reported that “an internal committee inside the prosecutor’s office makes decisions about how money raised from criminal defendants is spent[–a practice which] has raised questions of conflict of interest[.] Some groups that received tens of thousands of dollars in funding are closely connected to State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle.”
• In Minneapolis MN, police data revealed that “police stop and search a disproportionate rate of Black and East African drivers and their vehicles during routine traffic stops compared with other races.”