Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello, interested public!

Squeaking in under the wire this week, but here we are with the news. In Washington DC, amicus briefs are stacking up in support of the Biden Administration’s student loan forgiveness plan while the Administration followed up with new proposals for low-income borrowers that critics pointed out leave graduate students out of the picture. Public Defense is getting attention from high officials across the United States. Florida is facing a class action over its decision to fly Venezualan migrants to Martha’s Vineyard last September, while in New York advocates are pushing for an immigrants’ right to counsel in deportation cases. Nebraska, in a Supreme Court case, is considering whether tenants facing eviction have a constitutional right to a jury trial. As always, these stories and more are in the links below.

Take care of one another,

Sam

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, “[t]he US Department of Justice (DOJ) Wednesday filed an 86-page brief with the Supreme Court in response to two cases against President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan: Joseph Biden v. State of Nebraska and Department of Education v. Myra Brown.” (brief available here)

  • Relatedly, “[m]ore than a dozen amicus curiae briefs were filed with the U.S. Supreme Court this week in favor of President Joe Biden’s one-time student loan forgiveness plan by a coalition of legal scholars, economists, consumer advocates, higher education experts, and governments across the country, among others.” (links to the various briefs included in the article)

• Again also in Washington DC, “[t]he U.S. Department of Education unveiled a proposal Tuesday that would overhaul a federal student loan income-driven repayment plan, and, if implemented, could help millions of low-income borrowers. However, it’s unclear how the agency would be able to finance the program. Many student debt relief advocates also criticized the proposal for leaving out graduate students and parental loans.”

Immigration & Refugee Issues

• In San Diego CA, “[a] legal defense [drafted after Trump’s family separation policy] exposed Section 1326 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which makes it a crime to unlawfully return to the U.S. after deportation, removal or denied admission, as racist and a violation of equal protection rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. And it became the legal framework for a never-before-seen ruling in August 2021 by Nevada U.S. District Judge Miranda Du. She struck down the law as unconstitutional and discriminatory against Latinos when she dismissed an illegal reentry charge against Mexican immigrant Gustavo Carrillo Lopez, though she didn’t block enforcement and prosecutions haven’t stopped as the government appeals the case.”

• In Florida, “[the State] may end up paying up to $1 million to defend itself in a class action lawsuit filed over its decision to fly nearly 50 Venezuelan migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts last September.”

• In New York, “[the state] could soon become the first state to establish the guaranteed right to counsel for people facing deportation and ensure fairness in immigration court with the proposed Access to Representation Act.”

• In Boston MA, “Harvard University has rescinded a fellowship it had offered to a leading human rights activist over what he says was his group’s criticism of Israel. Kenneth Roth, who headed Human Rights Watch until recently, was recruited last year by the Harvard Kenney School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy to become a fellow. He accepted. But a few weeks later, in July, Roth said the center called and told him that the school’s dean had vetoed the fellowship. Roth believes it was due to his and his group’s criticism of Israel. Over the years, the group has issued a number of reports saying that Israel appears to have committed war crimes against the Palestinians.”

Rule of Law; Free and Fair Elections

• In New York NY, “[a] trio of high-powered attorneys…announced the launch of their new nonprofit firm, which they say will focus on fighting a ‘new authoritarian threat to our democracy and individual rights.’”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• The Chronicle of Philanthropy published a narrative profile covering the rise of non-profit unions: “The list of cultural institutions, advocacy groups, and social-service organizations that have unionized includes big names like the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and Common Cause, along with smaller ones like the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits. Even as the economy cools and fears of recession grow, both union organizers and consultants who advise nonprofit leaders on the issue say nonprofit staff are continuing to unionize at the same fast pace.”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In Jersey City NJ, “one group wants to give tenants an attorney to fight evictions, so the deck isn’t stacked in favor of landowners[;… a] town hall…include[d] speakers on housing justice topics, feedback from the audience, and a presentation on the Right to Counsel campaign.”

• In Lincoln NE, “[t]he Nebraska Supreme Court began hearing arguments Wednesday on a case looking at whether Nebraskans being evicted from their homes have a constitutional right to a jury trial.”

• In Georgia, “[s]ix legal kiosks will be installed in rural Georgia counties, allowing residents to receive legal assistance and information at safe and convenient locations. At the kiosks, users will be able to apply for legal services, meet with their attorneys virtually and access automated self-help tools for pro-se litigants.”

• In Clark County NV, “[t]he Civil Law Self-Help Center located at the Regional Justice Center is assisting 300 people a day who are seeking help because they are at imminent risk of eviction. According to a release, the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada is hosting a briefing [on the crisis] on Tuesday, January 17, 2023, at 9:30 a.m.”

• In Florida, “The Supreme Court is weighing a Florida Bar panel’s recommendations for improving access to legal services, proposals that run the gamut from a commission to coordinate access for self-represented litigants, to expanded use of certified legal interns and better promotion of pre-paid legal service plans.” (detailed in their report, available here)

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Maine, “Gov. Janet Mills is proposing $17 million in new funding for public defenders and court-appointed defense attorneys as part of the $10.3 billion state budget plan she unveiled[]. The additional money marks a significant shift in her administration’s stance toward public defense and includes $3.6 million to hire 10 public defenders.”

• In South Dakota, “[Chief Justice Steven] Jensen called for a bill to create a study group that would focus on the creation of a statewide public defender system.”

• In Iowa, “Supreme Court Chief Justice Susan Christensen…said Iowa is facing a critical shortage of contract attorneys willing to accept cases representing indigent clients[:]… ‘Our federal and state constitutional obligation to provide indigent counsel is on the verge of snapping.’”

• In Wisconsin, “[s]tate officials are warning of potential miscarriages of justice as Wisconsin faces a shortage of both public defenders and prosecutors.”

• In Montana, “[the state legislature is weighing a bill that t]he Office of the Public Defender [testified] will [allow them to] better serve citizens in times of crisis[.]”

• In Los Angeles CA, “[a] program that provides some of the poorest criminal defendants with private legal representation will undergo major changes this year for the first time in a quarter century, after Los Angeles County chose not to renew a long-standing Bar Assn. contract to administer it with taxpayer dollars.”

• In San Angelo TX, “[t]he new Concho Valley Public Defenders Office could expand to include several Big Country Counties including the Abilene area if Tom Green County Commissioners accept a new Texas Indigent Defense Commission grant[.]”

Criminal Justice Reform and Counter-Reform

• In North Carolina, “Duke University has released the findings of a study of plea agreements in the Berkshire District Attorney’s office that it describes as an unprecedented look into the shadowy world of dealmaking that accounts for the conclusion of the overwhelming majority of criminal cases.”

• In Ontario, “Federal Justice Minister David Lametti and Cassidy Caron, the president of the Métis National Council, announced that $1.5 million in federal funding will go to ‘support Métis-led engagement that will inform the development of an Indigenous Justice Strategy to address systemic discrimination and the overrepresentation of Indigenous people in Canada’s justice system.’”

• In San Francisco CA, “[the] Public Defender’s Office is accusing the District Attorney of violating state law that protects juvenile records.”

• Also in San Francisco, “[f]ederal public defenders representing indigent criminal defendants in several states including Arizona, California and Texas are urging appeals courts to strike down prohibitions on criminal defendants and felons possessing guns.”

• In New York, “Governor Kathy Hochul is once again proposing to give judges more discretion when setting bail…But bail reform advocates argue that the least restrictive standard already allows judges to look at a person’s criminal history and flight risk. They also say that this “least-restrictive” standard has been a “well-established United States Supreme Court precedent protecting the presumption of innocence.” Without this standard, Legal Aid says more people will end up in jail before they are convicted of any crime.”

• Also in New York, “senators, union leaders, reproductive rights organizations, and advocates for due process and civil rights gathered at the state capitol building in Albany to call on the governor to change her mind on nominating LaSalle, citing the judge’s judicial records — which critics say includes decisions that are anti-labor, anti-due process, and anti-abortion.”

• In Harrisburg PA, “[t]he Pennsylvania Senate on Wednesday indefinitely postponed the impeachment trial of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, adding new uncertainty to an effort by Republicans in the state legislature to remove the city prosecutor.”

• In Bexar County TX, “Harvard Law School has launched a study in Bexar County to learn more about the effects of short-term jail time on people who are arrested but haven’t seen their case determined.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello, interested public! I stepped away at the end of last year for family reasons, but I’m back. And as it happens, there’s still news to cover. Major stories (for the period since December 25th) include the Supreme Court case that will determine the fate of the Biden administration’s student debt relief scheme, a bellwether ruling in the impeachment proceedings against Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner, and a report out of Connecticut showing that the state’s new right-to-counsel-in-eviction program saved the government millions in emergency services. As usual, these stories and more are in the links below.

Take care of one another,

Sam

Editor’s Choice

• Somewhere in the United States, “[a]n artificial intelligence is set to advise a defendant in court for the first time ever. The AI will run on a smartphone and listen to all speech in the courtroom in February before instructing the defendant on what to say via an earpiece. The location of the court and the name of the defendant are being kept under wraps by DoNotPay, the company that created the AI.”

  • Relatedly, a legal columnist in Canada published some of his interactions with ChatGPT, the Large Language Model that DoNotPay appears to be using.

  • Relatedly, OpenAI, the publisher of ChatGPT, clearly states that “during RL [reinforcement learning] training, there’s currently no source of truth”–meaning that the AI is trained to produce text that is convincing, rather than text that is truthful.

  • Relatedly, “US professor Curtis Bell,…while using ChatGPT to research a US-Canada border dispute in the Beaufort Sea…discovered it making up basic facts.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, “[t]he U.S. Departments of Education (ED) and Justice (DOJ) remain committed and confident in the Biden-Harris administration’s student debt relief program, filing a legal brief with the U.S. Supreme Court about it, according to a statement from Secretary of Education Dr. Miguel A. Cardona.”

• Also in Washington DC, “[t]ucked inside the $1.7 trillion government spending bill…are a host of significant retirement reforms, including a series of provisions that experts say is nothing short of a redefinition of the private retirement system itself…Of interest to people holding student loans is Section 110 of the bill that treats student loans as deferrals for the purpose of retirement savings. What that means in practice is, beginning in 2024, if the company chooses to provide the benefit, a worker could write a check for their monthly student loan bill, but in the process also earn a “match” for their 401(k), 403(b), or SIMPLE IRA account.”

• In New York, “[t]he New York State Department of Labor says it has put enforcement measures in place to avert employment certification delays for those applying for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. This program allows eligible full-time public service and nonprofit workers to apply to have the remainder of their federal student loan debt forgiven after 120 qualifying payments.”

Immigration & Refugee Issues

• In Washington DC, “[t]he Supreme Court is keeping pandemic-era limits on asylum in place for now, dashing hopes of migrants who have been fleeing violence and inequality in Latin America and elsewhere to reach the United States.”

• Also in Washington DC, “President Biden…announced his administration will once surge federal employees and other resources to the border as it ramps up its efforts to crack down on unlawful migrant crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border, pairing the new policies with additional pathways for legal migration.”

  • Relatedly, “[t]he plan…did not sit well with several pro-immigration advocacy groups who argue the Biden administration is acting too much like the Trump administration.”

Rule of Law; Free and Fair Elections

• In Queens NY, “[a] third prosecutor’s office said…it would be looking into U.S. Rep.-elect George Santos after details surfaced that the now-embattled Republican lied about his heritage, education and professional pedigree as he campaigned for office.”

Reproductive Rights

• In South Carolina, “[t]he South Carolina Supreme Court…struck down a ban on abortion after six weeks, ruling the restriction enacted by the Deep South state violates a state constitutional right to privacy.”

• In Washington DC, “[the Justice Department said in a new opinion that t]he U.S. Postal Service can continue to deliver abortion pills through the mail regardless of their destination and the laws in that state.”

• Also Washington DC, “U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., along with Senator Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Congresswoman Susan Wild, D-Pa., introduced the Right to Build Families Act of 2022. The bill, if enacted, would prohibit state and local governments from imposing limitations to access to assisted reproductive technology, as well as all medically necessary care surrounding such technology.”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• In Washington DC, “[a]s part of a rules package governing the 118th Congress, House Republicans will allow individual lawmakers to reduce the number of federal workers at specific agencies or cut their compensation as a provision of or an amendment to an appropriations bill. The legislative policy, known as “the Holman Rule,” dates back to the late 19th century and was last revived in 2017. Democrats eliminated the provision when they took control of the House in 2019.”

• Also in Washington DC, “[e]fforts have been underway for a while now on return-to-office strategies and real estate assessments for the federal workforce, following maximum telework during the initial phases of the coronavirus pandemic. But earlier this week, the mayor of the nation’s capital asked for some more specifics: she said she wants “decisive action” by the federal government on what the future of the federal office will look like, in order to help revitalize the downtown area of Washington, D.C. after the pandemic.”

  • Editor’s note: As recently as December 30, the CDC was recommending pandemic precautions including masking “in area[s] w/high community transmission”; As of 1/6/23, 75% of US counties record high community transmission levels.

• In New York, “recently enacted New York State law amends previous rules governing nonprofits. Under the newly-enacted changes, nonprofit leaders may conduct votes without holding meetings with the consent of their members. The new law additionally modifies the terms served by directors appointed to fill vacancies and clarifies quorum requirements.”

• In Maryland, “[a] new collective bargaining agreement will provide legal employees with better resources as a vote passed the measure at a rate of 92%…With this new agreement in place, legal workers will have better benefits. ‘We improved wages, we helped expand parental leave, we are contributing to retirement from the minute they walk in the door, we want to make sure they are set up for their lives, if they want to stay with us, we want to make sure they’re well taken care of,’ [said Maryland Legal Aid’s ED].”

• In California, “[a] new law [] went into effect [that] requires every company with more than 15 employees looking to fill a job that could be performed from the state of California [to disclose salaries on job listings].”

• In San Diego CA, “[a] San Diego county jury…awarded a former deputy public defender $2.6 million in his wrongful termination lawsuit. The Superior Court jury concluded the San Diego County Public Defender Office fired Zach Davina, who is gay, in 2020 because of his gender expression and for complaining about what he believed were racist comments made by a supervisor toward a Black and Latino colleague.”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In Connecticut, “[a] program offering free legal representation to low-income tenants facing eviction likely saved the state millions it would have otherwise spent providing emergency shelter services, child welfare, health care and education services, a new report shows.”

• In San Francisco CA, “U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu issued [an] emergency order [banning SFPD and the city from clearing encampments of unhoused people]…citing a 2018 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision Martin v. Boise (which the Supreme Court refused to strike down) which said that cities can not prosecute people for staying on the street unless they can provide adequate shelter bed options[.]”

• In California, “[the policy providing an] additional 80 hours of paid leave related to COVID-19…end[ed] Dec. 31 even as coronavirus infections and deaths in L.A. County hit their highest rates since the summer. This winter has also seen a surge in other respiratory illnesses.”

• In Washington DC, “[the] Legal Services Corp., which supports legal aid organizations around the country…has received a $560 million appropriation from Congress — a 14.5% increase over last year’s $489 million and the largest percentage boost in funding since 1979…In addition to its appropriation, LSC will receive another $20 million from the emergency supplement funding for natural disasters which was attached to the omnibus bill.”

• In Colorado, “the East County Housing Opportunity Coalition, or ECHO…produced a report last month outlining the issues, and now, ECHO leaders are sounding the alarm to encourage the state legislature to examine Colorado housing laws and consider policy changes that will help renters the next time there’s a disaster.” [report available here]

• In Kansas, “[t]he Kansas Supreme Court has adopted a new plan to expand access to justice for court users with limited English proficiency.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Portland OR, “[a] lack of public defenders…has caused Multnomah County judges to dismiss hundreds of felony cases including cases involving robbery, assault, and harassment.”

• In Georgia, “Atlanta News First uncovered most state public defender offices, including in Georgia [sic], are chronically understaffed, leaving defendants waiting months without legal representation, some languishing behind bars waiting for their day in court.”

Criminal Justice Reform and Counter-Reform

• In Philadelphia PA, “[a] Pennsylvania court agreed with at least one major point made by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner in his lawsuit challenging the state Legislature’s attempt to impeach him. In an order filed on Friday, Democratic Judge Ellen Ceisler wrote that none of the seven articles of impeachment against Krasner satisfied the requirement imposed by Article VI, Section 6 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. That article states that impeachment charges against a public official must allege conduct that constitutes what would amount to the common law crime of ‘misbehavior in office.’”

• In Denver CO, “[the] City Council approved Lisabeth Pérez Castle for the role [of Independent Monitor] after the Citizen Oversight Board announced its unanimous decision to select her in December. In the role, Pérez will be Denver’s top law enforcement watchdog. Her background is in criminal defense. She previously worked at the Colorado State Public Defender’s Office and has had a private practice in Denver since 2000.”

• In Cleveland OH, “[n]early two years have passed without a confirmed federal prosecutor in northern Ohio, the longest the district has gone without one in some 70 years.”

• In Illinois, “the Illinois Supreme Court halted the abolition of the cash bail system in the state…just a day before that landmark criminal justice reform was poised to take effect.”

• In Los Angeles CA, “[a] veteran Los Angeles County prosecutor scolded his boss Thursday, saying his progressive reforms and management style have alienated his colleagues and turned the nation’s largest district attorney’s office into a ‘managerial dumpster fire.’”

• In Washington DC, “[w]hen Rep.-elect Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) is sworn into Congress…she will become one of the few members to have worked as a public defender.Many members of Congress are lawyers, and most of those who worked in the criminal justice system were prosecutors[.]”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello, interested public! It’s been an uneven few months, but I’m going to do my best to bring the Digest back as a regular feature each week–either on Friday or (as now) the following Monday. Over the past week, news related to student loan forgiveness and the public service loan forgiveness and reform continued to fall thick and fast, while in New York New York, Mayor Eric Adams unveiled a new city program he hopes will allow the city to harness junior attorneys from law firms as city employees without city salaries.

In other news, the PSJD Public Interest Mini-Conference is just a few weeks away! If you’re a public interest employer or a school counselor involved in public interest job search issues, consider joining our conversation!

Take care of one another,

Sam

Editor’s Choice

• In New York NY, “Mayor Eric Adams [] announced the launch of the New York City Legal Fellows Program, a new citywide initiative designed to enable junior attorneys at law firms across New York City to serve their fellow New Yorkers through a one-year appointment in the legal department of a city agency. The fellows will continue to be employed by and paid by their firms, but in all other respects, will be full-time city employees and fully integrated into agency legal departments.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In the United States, “[c]lose to 26 million Americans have applied for student loan forgiveness, and the Biden administration has already approved 16 million of the requests…[y]et its entire loan cancellation plan could be in jeopardy due to the legal challenges brought by Republicans, it warned.”

  • Meanwhile, “[t]he Education Department [announced it] will publish a second set of regulations aimed at reforming a series of government student loan programs, including another round of rule changes aimed at making the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program more accessible to applicants.”

• In Washington DC, “U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett [] again declined to block President Joe Biden's plan to cancel billions of dollars in student debt, this time in a challenge brought by two Indiana borrowers, even as a lower court considers whether to lift a freeze it imposed on the program in a different case.”

• Also in Washington DC, “the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a blog post, exploring the potential impact of student loan payment reinstatement. The CFPB found that student loan borrowers are increasingly likely to struggle once their monthly student loan payments are reinstated. However, the CFPB also found that student debt cancellation may substantially reduce the number of borrowers at risk when the payment suspension ends.”

• In California, “Gov. Gavin Newsom [] called on the California Legislature to act quickly to prevent student loan borrowers from having to pay state income taxes on up to $20,000 in federal debt forgiveness.”

• In Albuquerque NM, “President Joe Biden’s appearance at Central New Mexico Community College focused on student debt relief and gave the state’s Democratic leaders a chance to boast about new education opportunities offered to students from preschool up to college.”

• In Albany NY, “[p]rivate student loan borrowers won a nationwide injunction barring Navient Corp. from trying to collect on certain loans that they believe should have been discharged in bankruptcy, but their quest for financial relief from the debt servicer is just heating up.”

Rule of Law; Free and Fair Elections

• In Washington DC, “Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said [] that if the U.S. Supreme Court sides with Arizona in a capital case over whether a death row inmate was properly denied post-conviction relief, the ruling could give states a roadmap for defying the high court's criminal law decisions.”

• In Palo Alto CA, “Stanford Law School has announced the launch of a new rule of law center, thanks to a ‘significant gift’ from former ABA President William ‘Bill’ Neukom and his wife, Sally Neukom. The Sally B. and William H. Neukom Center for the Rule of Law will support faculty and student work on issues such as impartial justice, fair and open government, and laws that protect fundamental rights.”

• In San Francisco, “[d]evastating cuts to Twitter’s workforce [] four days before the midterm elections[] are fueling anxieties among political campaigns and election offices that have counted on the social network’s staff to help them combat violent threats and viral lies.”

• In Washington DC, “[a] warning about the threat of political violence heading into the 2022 midterm elections was issued to state and local law enforcement officials by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on…the same day that Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s husband was hospitalized after a home invasion by a lone right-wing extremist seeking to harm her. This incident is the latest in an increasing stream of extremist confrontations taking place across the United States in recent years.”

• In New York NY, “[t]he Legal Aid Society, a legal advocacy group in New York City, rallied outside of the state’s Board of Elections (BOE) building demanding a more accessible voting process for incarcerated people.”

• In Chicago IL, “[t]wo ABA groups have launched initiatives with the aim of strengthening election protection and the public’s trust in the electoral process. Perfecting Democracy is seeking volunteers, while Defending Democracy seeks to educate the public.” (emphasis added)

Environmental Concerns

• In Annapolis MD, “Earthjustice submitted a brief on behalf of Sierra Club responding to the Maryland Public Service Commission, Washington Gas Light Company, and WGL Energy Services arguing that WGL provided false information to customers about the environmental impacts of fossil gas.”

• Meanwhile, in Washington DC, Earthjustice Senior Legislative Representative Terry McGuire praised the Biden administration’s new funding for air quality monitoring and its focus on community-level air monitoring projects, stating that “[s]ending air monitoring funds directly to communities impacted by toxic air pollution is a positive step toward ensuring that communities are better informed on the quality of the air they breathe. We thank the Biden administration for prioritizing air monitoring and quickly distributing funds to communities that need it the most.”

Reproductive Rights

• In Bismark ND, “[a] judge ruled [] that he will keep the state's ban on abortion from taking effect, saying there's a ‘substantial probability’ that a constitutional challenge to the law will succeed.”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• In the United States, “[s]everal agencies are ignoring or putting tight restrictions on the Biden administration’s directive to provide extra time off for employees to vote or work at the polls, according to dozens of workers, the union representing them and internal policies reviewed by Government Executive.”

• Also in the United States, “[n]ew data presented at a meeting of the Federal Salary Council last week indicates that the gap between the wages of federal employees and their private sector counterparts is once again widening.”

• In Washington DC, “Senator Tim Kaine said that he is ‘optimistic’ he'll get a floor vote on the Preventing a Patronage System Act, a law that would codify bedrock merit-based civil service protections and prevent a future Schedule F-type executive action from future presidential administrations.”

• In Los Angeles County CA, “[the county] will explore ways to fast-track the hiring of veterans for county jobs, while finding ways to connect more veterans with social services, under a motion approved unanimously [] by the Board of Supervisors.”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In the United States, “[e]viction filings have been on the rise and were above their historical averages in half of the 1,059 counties tracked by Legal Services Corp., a federally-funded legal aid group, during either August or September. The problem is expected to get worse in the coming months as federal rental assistance money runs out and people are unable to keep pace with rising rents and decades-high inflation, according to interviews with more than a dozen housing advocates, government officials and industry experts.”

• Meanwhile, in Nebraska “Legal Aid of Nebraska [is] argu[ing] that [a Nebraska law empowering judges to determine if residents should be removed from their home] goes against the constitutional right to a jury trial. And they’re taking the issue all the way to the Nebraska Supreme Court.”

• Meanwhile, in South Carolina, “[a] new referral program offers legal aid in 10 counties for individuals facing eviction.”

• Meanwhile, in Detroit MI, “Detroiters facing eviction aren't getting the help they need because the city has failed to set up its new eviction prevention office, housing advocates say.”

• In Santa Fe NM, “[l]ibraries are helping to connect New Mexicans with resources on civil legal matters through a partnership between the State Library and the Commission on Access to Justice.”

• In New York NY, Gothamist.com profiled the “tech hub” that Family Legal Care opened “to provide people navigating the court system with computers, private internet access, in-person tech support, and a telephone helpline with bilingual legal advice.”

• In Washington DC, “Attorney General Karl A. Racine today announced that his office succeeded in stopping the Janet Keenan Housing Corporation, which provides affordable housing to low-income DC residents, from attempting to sell their property for private purposes in violation of District non-profit law.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Washington DC, “[t]he Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs today announced awards totaling more than $136 million to reform state and local juvenile justice systems, provide youth violence prevention and intervention services, support mentoring programs and reentry services for young people and their families, meet the needs of vulnerable youth and study outcomes for justice-involved youth.”

• In Michigan, “[a] new state rule will set minimum rates for attorneys who represent indigent defendants. It complies with recommendations made by the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission. Public defenders would make a minimum of $100 an hour under the rules approved by the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs. The rate will go as high as $120 an hour depending on the seriousness of the charges. Also, costs for experts and investigators will be reimbursed under the rules.”

• In Benton County AR, “[l]awyers who sued a [county] judge over whether criminal defendants should be provided a lawyer at first appearance and bond hearings want to add more defendants. The defense claims the request is a futile attempt to avoid the case being dismissed.”

• In Louisville KY, “representatives of the public defenders union…[will bring] their employer, the Louisville-Jefferson County Public Defender Corporation…to court, accusing [them] of violating the National Labor Relations Act, the longstanding federal law that guarantees private sector employees the right to organize, strike and engage in collective bargaining.”

• In Mississippi, Mississippi Today observed that “Mississippi spends significantly less money on the public defender system than its counterpart, the district attorney’s offices,” arguing that “[t]his funding discrepancy results in a decentralized indigent defense system that fails to provide state oversight and ensure independence from the judiciary. Since the system allows judges in counties without a funded public defender’s office to have control over how attorneys are chosen and compensated, indigent defense attorneys might fear that when they push too hard, they will lose their job.”

Criminal Justice Reform and Counter-Reform

• In Hennepin County MN, “[a] lifelong public defender and a retired judge vying to become the next Hennepin County attorney both call for criminal justice reform, but disagree about how much power the office has over police accountability.”

• In Dallas County TX, “Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot ran for the office in 2018 with plans to make the criminal justice system more fair. He aimed to address disparities in arrests and prosecutions for people of color, who live in poverty or struggle with mental illness…Faith Johnson, a Republican who preceded him in the office, is running to undo his policies. She says she can reduce disproportionate outcomes without ignoring parts of state law.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello, interested public! Hope you’re all hanging in there. It’s been another week and the implications of President Biden’s student loan relief policy are still starting to sink in. In particular, policy analysis of the way loan relief restructures income-based payments going forward is starting to happen, and individual states are weighing in on whether loan relief will be treated as taxable income in their jurisdictions. In other news, a lawsuit filed in Texas alleges that new abortion restrictions infringe on individuals Constitutional freedom of travel, a bipartisan group of criminal justice leaders condemned Gov. DeSantis’ decision to remove a locally-elected district attorney, and the New Republic reported that “in 2019, the IRS’s watchdog evaluated a representative sample of organizations using the EZ form and found that nearly 50 percent did not qualify for their tax-exempt status.” All these stories and more are in the links below.

Take care of one another,

Sam

Editor’s Choice

• In last week’s digest, I referenced an article arguing that “perhaps even more significant is the Biden administration’s proposal to restructure how loans are repaid, giving future borrowers a lot more leeway when it comes to paying back debt.” This week, a policy paper elaborates on this point, arguing that “going forward, these new rules could quite radically alter the incentives of colleges and students when it comes to college prices, institutional financial aid, how much debt to take on, and how to approach repayment.”
• In St. Paul MN, “Maureen Onyelobi and Jeffery Young began classes with St. Paul’s Mitchell Hamline School of Law in pursuit of law degrees. Unlike most remote students, who might Zoom into their classes from home or a co-working space, they’re dialing in from two of Minnesota’s correctional facilities – Onyelobi from a women’s prison in Shakopee, Young from a men’s prison in Bayport. Thanks to a five-year variance from the American Bar Association that allows the school to admit up to two fully-remote incarcerated students annually, Onyelobi and Young last month became the first students in the nation to attend an American Bar Association-approved law school from prison.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• Across the United States, “President Joe Biden’s announcement of up to $20,000 in student debt cancellation for millions of borrowers is expected to bring legal challenges to the executive branch’s authority to act on this issue…The president himself had questioned his ability to act unilaterally in the past, but top lawyers at the Justice and Education departments released legal opinions Wednesday saying the 2003 HEROES Act gives the administration “sweeping authority” to reduce or eliminate student debt during war or a national emergency.”
• Also across the United States, borrowers are learning on a state-by-state basis whether their student loan forgiveness will be taxable or not: As CNBC put it, “[w]hile the preliminary analysis shows some states may tax student loan forgiveness, there’s still time for policy changes.” A few state-specific stories addressing this question:
  • In Maine and Mississippi, “Mainers who see their student debt forgiven under President Joe Biden’s plan won’t get hit by a surprise tax bill. The same can’t be said for the people of Mississippi, where the state plans to count that forgiven debt as income.”
  • In New York, “[t]he NYS Department of Taxation and Finance told the Gothamist …that New Yorkers can rest easy because the forgiven loans will not be considered income.”
  • In Virginia, “representatives of two state agencies [announced that] Virginia will not tax as income student loans forgiven under a new plan announced by President Joe Biden[.]”
  • In Wisconsin, “this loan forgiveness counts as taxable income, meaning borrowers will have to pay hundreds of dollars more in taxes. Wisconsin is one of six states in which forgiven student loan debt is likely to be taxed, according to the Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.”
• Meanwhile, in Washington DC, “[n]early 100 House Republicans signed onto a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., calling on her to hold President Biden accountable for his $500 billion student debt handout.”
• Also meanwhile in Washington DC, “Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) told CNN…that President Biden prioritized the wrong people in his student loan relief announcement this week—despite previously calling for that relief just years prior ‘There are a lot of people hurting in our society right now,’ he said. ‘People are getting crushed with inflation, crushed with gas prices, food prices, and all the rest. And I think a targeted approach right now really does send the wrong message.’ But Ryan’s objection flew in the face of an October 2018 tweet in which he pleaded for student debt relief. He followed that tweet with House votes in 2020 that supported $10,000 in student debt relief.”
• Again also meanwhile in Washington DC, “Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is renewing the call to restore bankruptcy protections for student-loan borrowers…Warren wants Attorney General Merrick Garland to ensure bankruptcy becomes a viable route to providing relief.”
• Also again also meanwhile in Washington DC, “[Senator] Sanders aid, ‘I know it is shocking to some Republicans that the government actually on occasion does something to benefit working families and low-income people. I don’t hear any of these Republicans squawking when we give massive tax breaks to billionaires.’”

Rule of Law

• In Tallahassee FL, “a bipartisan group of 61 criminal justice leaders – including former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justices, U.S. Attorneys, judges and elected prosecutors – requested that the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida accept an amicus brief urging the court to protect prosecutorial discretion and order the Florida governor to rescind his unlawful order removing Andrew Warren as the duly elected State Attorney of Hillsborough County, Fla.”
• In West Palm Beach FL, “[a] federal judge…appeared sympathetic to former President Donald Trump's request to appoint a special master to review the documents the FBI seized from his home in August, though she declined to issue a ruling immediately on the matter…’Ultimately, what is the harm of appointing a special master to review these materials?’ asked Cannon, a Trump appointee. ‘What I'm wondering from the government – what is the harm beyond delaying the investigation?’”
  • Meanwhile, Above the Law noted that “this [question] conveniently elides the question of whether there are grounds to appoint a special master at all, which, as a terrific amicus brief on behalf of multiple former government officials points out, there are not.”
• In Philadelphia PA, “President Joe Biden…issued a warning against what he described as “MAGA Republicans” and extremist threats to the nation, reminding Americans that democracy is not guaranteed…The speech [] comes amid an ongoing investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and after the F.B.I. served a search warrant at Trump’s Florida residence for classified documents last month.”
  • Meanwhile, “[f]ormer president Donald Trump said he would issue full pardons and a government apology to rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and violently attacked law enforcement to stop the democratic transfer of power…Such a move would be contingent on Trump running and winning the 2024 presidential election.”

Free and Fair Elections

• In Wisconsin, “a federal judge blocked the Wisconsin Elections Commission from enforcing a ruling that would have required voters living with disabilities to cast their ballots without assistance. Last month, a conservative majority in the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled voters cannot allow a third party to deliver their ballot for them.”
• In California, “election workers would be able to block their addresses from public view under a proposed expansion of a program set up to protect abortion providers from harassment and intimidation.”

Reproductive Rights

• In Texas, “a lawsuit…filed [] in the US District court for the Western District of Texas by a group of nonprofit funds…alleges that Texas’s threats to enforce its abortion laws against supporters or facilitators of out-of-state abortions violates individuals’rights to travel across state lines for the procedure, among other allegations.”
• In Tennessee, “[w]ith Tennessee's new abortion trigger law now enacted, a nonprofit legal resource center says a decades-old paperwork requirement may force Tennessee doctors to incriminate themselves after performing an abortion.”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• The New Republic published an article asserting that “[t]he IRS has lost its ability to investigate tax-exempt organizations,” questioning “[w]hat [that] will mean for our political system[.]”
  • Relatedly, in California, “[a] bill calling for revocation of the tax-exempt status of any California nonprofit whose members engage in or incite acts of government insurrection has passed both houses of the state legislature and is being sent to Gov. Gavin Newson for his signature.”
• In Washington DC, “[t]he federal government wants input on the standards that baseline government data on race and ethnicity as it works on the first refresh to the policy directive since 1997.”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In Edmonton and Calgary AB, “lawyers who handle legal aid work are rallying…to push for more funding…They are frustrated that Justice Minister Tyler Shandro has not approved more money for the legal aid program, which lawyers say is already $80 million short of the government’s commitment.”
• Across the United States, since “the Supreme Court struck down the down the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) eviction moratorium one year ago…eviction filings have returned to pre-pandemic levels and, in some places, even exceeded them. Although the job market has mostly rebounded from the early days of the pandemic, inflation and skyrocketing rent prices have pushed many renters deeper into a financial hole.”
• In Washington DC, “a Democratic senator urged in a letter to the US labor secretary [that t]he Biden Administration should investigate and regulate how companies use technology to surveil and punish workers[.]”
• In Nebraska, “Native Americans shared their experiences in the judicial system as judges from state, tribal and federal courts listened during a meeting earlier this month. Judges and other representatives of the Nebraska Consortium of Tribal, State and Federal Courts traveled to the Panhandle on Aug. 15 and Aug. 16 to hear from Native American community members. The two sessions were the last of public engagement sessions held by the consortium as it sought to hear from the community about their experiences and perceptions of the tribal, state and federal courts.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Alberta, “[c]riminal defence lawyers escalated job action [] in an ongoing dispute with the provincial government over the amount of compensation paid by Legal Aid Alberta…’We will also begin refusing certificates for new cases for the most serious criminal charges, including sexual offences, most firearms-related crimes and homicides,” said the statement on behalf of the groups.’”
• In El Paso TX, “El Paso County Courthouse continued with the dismissal of criminal cases…The cases dismissed were a total of 75 out of the 616 motions to dismiss that was filed by Chief Public Defender Kelli Childress last Wednesday. Childress added there are another 1,100 criminal cases that could also be eligible for dismissal due to them surpassing the 180 days to be indicted. ‘I’ve visited a number of counties' arrest and pre-indictment processes and I’m not aware of any county that has a situation like this,’ [Childress] said.”
• In Colorado, “public defenders launched a unionization drive…hoping to organize attorneys, paralegals, investigators, social workers, and administrative staff even though Colorado law blocks them from collective bargaining.”

Criminal Justice Reform and Counter-Reform

• In Baltimore, “the Maryland Court of Appeals vacated the conviction of Office of the Public Defender (OPD) client Everett Smith, holding that his Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial was violated when court bailiffs wore facemasks with the thin blue line insignia during his trial.”
• In Glynn County GA, “Jackie Johnson, former district attorney[], has been arrested and charged with alleged mishandling of the case of Ahmaud Arbery[.]”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello, interested public! Hope you’re all hanging in there. The major news this week has been anticipated for quite some time, but now that it’s here it will likely take a while for us all to unpack. (I speak, of course, of the Biden Administration’s new student loan forgiveness and reform policies.) In other major news, many states continue to see a shortage of criminal defenders–and some states have allocated or are considering allocating millions of dollars in funding to attempt to do something about their crises. In Canada, British Columbia is weighing whether to allow a class action lawsuit to proceed which would challenge the province’s approach to legal aid for single mothers and Montreal is piloting a new legal services model that relies on law students.

Take care of one another,

Sam

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, “President Joe Biden announced the cancellation of up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for borrowers making less than $125,000 a year or $250,000 for married couples. The plan is expected to help many of the over 40 million Americans with student loans and completely wipe out the balances of as many as 15 million borrowers. Among the over 40 million receiving relief, Pell Grant recipients, public servants, millennials, Black borrowers, and even future students could stand to benefit most from the administration's announcement and accompanying proposals.”
  • Relatedly, “[t]he White House caused a stir on Twitter Thursday afternoon by calling out several Republican lawmakers who criticized President Joe Biden's move to forgive up to $20,000 in student loan debt for many borrowers, pointing out that some of the critics’ businesses had more than $1 million in federal loans forgiven as part of the pandemic-era Paycheck Protection Program.”
  • Yahoo observed that “perhaps even more significant is the Biden administration’s proposal to restructure how loans are repaid, giving future borrowers a lot more leeway when it comes to paying back debt.”
  • In the Atlantic, Professor Joseph Stiglitz argued that “[w]hatever your view of student-debt cancellation, the inflation argument is a red herring and should not influence policy. Taking that logic to the extreme, canceling food stamps would dofar more to reduce inflation–but that would be cruel and inhumane, and fortunately no one has suggested doing so. A closer look at the student-debt-cancellation program suggests that the new student-loan policy may even reduce inflation; at most, its inflationary impact will be minuscule, and the long-term benefits to the economy are likely to be significant.”
  • Slate observed that “[i]t’s easy to imagine the Supreme Court ruling that the secretary [of Education] must identify a more specific class of borrowers whose ability to pay off loans was demonstrably harmed by the pandemic. If the court chooses this route, though, there’s a straightforward fix: Biden can simply announce that any borrower affected by the pandemic can apply for relief; if they can prove hardship, their debts get canceled. The Heroes Act, of course, says such “case-by-case” adjudication is unnecessary. And this method would increase administrative burdens while shrinking the pool of beneficiaries, since some eligible borrowers will fail to apply.”
  • The American Prospect argued that “the way for the Biden administration to…manage the transition [back to student loan payments] with the least amount of harm…lies in one of the other announcements the administration made on Wednesday[:] …The next step is to auto-enroll everyone in IDR. If this were the only path for borrowers to pay back federal loans, it would make the cost of those loans somewhat irrelevant. For most people who borrow more than $12,000, they would make this 5 or 10 percent payment relative to their annual income for 20 years and be done.”

Reproductive Rights

• In Boise ID, “Idaho's near-total abortion ban appears to have a serious conflict with a federal law governing emergency health care treatment, a federal judge,” ruling “the potential conflict is because Idaho's law doesn't appear to account for cases when a pregnant person might face serious medical consequences if the pregnancy is continued.”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In Springfield MO, “[a] nonprofit organization that helps provide people with housing has sued the state over a new law that upends current approaches to addressing homelessness in Missouri…The legislation prioritizes providing shortterm shelter for homeless people, reversing a popular ‘housing-first’ strategy to get people into permanent homes.”
• In British Columbia, “[a] group representing single mothers is waiting for a B.C. Supreme Court judge to decide if they can sue the province for better access to legal aid. The Single Mothers' Alliance (SMA) filed a court application in February alleging an agreement between the province and the Legal Service Society (now Legal Aid BC) impedes access to justice in family law proceedings.”
• In Montreal QC, “[s]tudents from the École du Barreau will offer free legal advice as part of a pilot project in Montreal, announced the President of Quebec and the Minister of Justice.”
• In Charlottesville VA, “[s]ince pandemic rent protections expired, the Charlottesville Legal Aid Justice Center says it has seen a significant increase in eviction lawsuit filings.”
• In Washington DC, “an eviction prevention hotline and the attorneys who staff it stopped 70% of evictions sought by landlords from September 2021 to March 2022.”
• In Kansas, “[t]he Kansas Supreme Court appointed three new members and reappointed four existing ones to the Access to Justice Committee.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Wisconsin, “[a] group of inmates, some whom have been waiting weeks or months to be assigned attorneys, filed a lawsuit against Gov. Tony Evers and members of the state public defender board. Legal action groups, including the National and Wisconsin Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, are representing a handful of the plaintiffs.”
• In Maine, “[t]he Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services voted to recommend a $62.1 million budget next year. The proposal would open four public defender offices in the state and raise the hourly fee from $80 to $150 for court-appointed lawyers…The American Civil Liberties Union of Maine is suing the state, contending there’s a failure to train, supervise and adequately fund a system to ensure the constitutional right to effective counsel.”
  • Relatedly, the Editorial Board of the Bangor Daily News weighed in on the state’s indigent defense crisis (covered in prior editions of this digest): “the current system is clearly inadequate, harming defendants and taxpayers. So state lawmakers, the commission and advocates need to look for innovative solutions – not all of which require more money – with a heightened sense of urgency. Maine is the only state that has not had some version of a public defender system, where lawyers are state employees.”
• In Quebec, “[t]he Barreau du Québec has announced that a first agreement was reached with the Minister of Justice, Simon Jolin-Barrette, to increase the fees of lawyers in private practice who accept legal aid mandates.”
• In Rochester NY, “[s]taff attorneys in the Monroe County Public Defender’s office have announced plans to form a union. The union drive comes amid ongoing questions over who will lead the office.”
• In Kentucky, “public defenders [are] looking ahead after years of low pay [and] high caseloads [after t]he budget passed in the 2022 session of the Kentucky General Assembly used a historic surplus to make investments in state government, including more than $7 million to boost the Department of Public Advocacy’s budget. [Kentucky Public Advocate Damon] Preston said the $7 million is a helpful starting point to stop the hemorrhaging of attorneys, but he hopes more state dollars will come in the future to expand DPA services and hire additional lawyers. But, for now, the pay boost is life changing to public defenders[.]”
• In Raleigh County WV, “[t]he Public Defender’s Office is starting to transition from traditional defense strategies to more concentration on holistic defense. With the new program, the office will no longer focus solely on legal issues. They will now focus on housing, jobs, parenting issues, and more. This shift is aimed at helping them get out into the community to offer services for the personal issues that effected their clients’ court issues.”
• In New Hampshire, “[a]mid a statewide shortage of criminal defense lawyers to represent those who can’t afford an attorney, changes to the New Hampshire court system could provide some short-term relief. Among those changes, a recent order by the New Hampshire Supreme Court opens a new avenue for private attorneys to take on these cases, lessening the caseload falling to already-strained public defenders.”
• In El Paso TX, “[after] a judge dismissed about 370 criminal cases in El Paso because of prosecutorial delays[, t]he El Paso Public Defender’s Office, which sought the dismissals, says this is just the beginning: It has more than 1,000 additional cases eligible to be dismissed and plans to file new motions soon.”

Criminal Justice Reform and Counter-Reform

• In New York, “[t]he New York State Bar Association launched a task force [] to suggest new laws and policies to improve the criminal justice system and tackle a variety of issues that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
• In San Francisco, the city’s elected Public Defender criticized recently-appointed District Attorney Jenkins’ new bail policies in an op-ed: “I urge District Attorney Jenkins to reconsider her policy on expanding use of money bail to incarcerate indigent community members. Nationally and throughout California, we are moving away from punishing people for being poor and toward ending the use of money bail. Let’s not regress on the progress we have made as a city and county that values equality and fairness.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello, interested public!

Hope you’re all hanging in there. High drama in the news this week for public defenders in both the United States (where the chief public defender of Minnesota is facing a vote of no confidence from union public defenders and the Chief Justice of Oregon fired the entire Public Defense Services Commission) and Canada (where criminal defense attorneys in Alberta further escalated their ongoing job action). Major reports concerning non-profit funding and government remote workplace efficiency came out, legal aid services in Indiana reported a staffing crisis, and the Florida prosecutor recently replaced by Gov. DeSantis for his stated position on abortion-related prosecutions is suing in response to his removal.

Take care of one another,

Sam

Editor’s Choices

• In Illinois, “[d]ata broker LexisNexis Risk Solutions allegedly violated Illinois law by collecting and combining extensive personal information and selling it to third parties including federal immigration authorities, according to a lawsuit filed [] by immigration advocates.”
  • Relatedly, “[a]n independent, two-year investigation has now revealed that ICE collected data on hundreds of millions of Americans under a legally — and ethically — questionable surveillance system largely outside of public oversight…ICE has carried out this surveillance by turning to third parties like state Departments of Motor Vehicles, large utility companies, and private data brokers like LexisNexis Risk Solutions.”
  • Moreover, “Congressional leadership is asking federal law enforcement agencies for detailed information on how they purchase Americans’ personal data through various mediums and broker services, to determine the legal legitimacy of government data collection.”
• In the United States, “a chorus of public health experts [are] voicing concerns over the federal response to monkeypox in prisons and jails…Experts say that is also likely to be the case behind bars, where thousands are crowded into tight facilities and sex is often traded for safety, and in many cases prisoners in laundry facilities must wash each other’s bedding and clothing. But the Biden administration has no plans to administer or require vaccines to prevent the spread of monkeypox behind bars, officials confirmed[.]”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In the United States, “[a] survey of consumers with federal student loans on pause…reveals that only 14% of respondents say they can afford the payments with no issues when the forbearance period ends, according to a consumer survey by ScoreSense®, a credit score monitoring product.”
• Also in the United States, “[t]he nation’s 40 million student loan borrowers are still waiting on the Biden administration to announce whether they’ll have to resume monthly payments in September. And whether they’ll have any of their debt canceled outright…[T]his time, the administration is cutting it closer to the restart of payments than any other point in the past two and a half years.”

Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring

• In the United States, “[p]retty much the entire U.S. nonprofit sector is witnessing a move from individually-determined charitable donations to institutionally- determined philanthropic strategies. A new report from the Institute for Policy Studies shows megaphilanthropy crowding out individual donations” (report available here)
• Also in the United States, “a survey released this week that examined workforce trends during the pandemic [found that n]early half of remote and hybrid government employees report team performance has improved over the past two years.”
• Again also in the United States, “[n]onprofits across the country are still struggling to find workers and consistent funding, according to a new survey. About 40 percent of charities say that employment remains their highest priority as service demands remain elevated because of inflation and the lingering pandemic.”
• In Iowa, “[t]he state added employees for the fourth consecutive month in July, according to an Iowa Workforce Development report released Thursday. During the recent upswing, local governments have added 2,800 jobs while state government agencies have added 600 jobs. Combined, the two public sectors account for one in four new jobs added since this spring.”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In Indiana, “legal aid agencies across the state are struggling to find and hire attorneys to fill full-time staff positions. Providers speculate that lower bar passage rates and high demand for lawyers across the legal profession have created a supply issue…Ironically for civil legal aid in Indiana, the shortage of lawyers is coinciding with an influx of money from a $13.1 million grant from the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority. Legal aid groups are using the funds, in part, to hire new attorneys who will help clients with housing needs.”
  • Relatedly, in Indianapolis IN, “leaders from the the prosecutor's office, public defender's office and community corrections outlined their budget proposals to members of the Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee. They're voicing concerns for programs in need of funding to help crack down on crime and ensure justice in Indianapolis.”
• In Chicago IL, the “North Suburban Legal Aid Clinic has been awarded a $125,000 state grant from the Illinois Equal Justice Foundation to provide free legal assistance to local residents facing eviction.”
• In Oregon, “state lawmakers allocated $6 million to community groups this year to help with what they’ve called a humanitarian crisis for workers in the state’s cannabis industry[:] recover[ing] stolen wages for cannabis farm workers[.]”
• In Wisconsin, “Legal Action of Wisconsin received a $360,000 Pro Bono Innovation Fund grant to expand its Lawyer-For-A-Day program. The program, which already exists to defend low-income residents in eviction court, will now also be offered to low-income clients facing debt collectors and debt buyers in small claims court.”
• In Alaska, “a new department in the Alaska Court System…is providing resources to the public in an effort to help the public better navigate legal matters.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Alberta, “defence lawyers will not take on legal aid files pertaining to very serious criminal offences starting Sept. 1. The Criminal Defence Lawyers Association (Calgary), the Criminal Trial Lawyers Association (Edmonton), the Southern Alberta Defence Lawyers Association and the Red Deer Criminal Lawyers Association issued a release Thursday saying members will ‘begin refusing new certificates for all criminal appeals,’ and ‘refuse new legal aid files involving the most serious criminal offences – those classified as level 2.5 or level 3 offences by Legal Aid Alberta.’ Offences deemed to be level 2.5 and level 3 by Legal Aid Alberta include ‘most sexual offences, firearms- related offences, all homicides and dangerous offender proceedings.’ The groups stopped taking cases in response to what they believe is underfunding by the province.”
• In Minnesota, “State Public Defender Bill Ward faces a vote of no confidence from union public defenders, who say he has failed to advocate for the office and allowed morale to reach its lowest point in decades.”
• In Oregon, “Oregon’s chief justice fired all the members of the Public Defense Services Commission[], frustrated that hundreds of defendants charged with crimes and who cannot afford an attorney have been unable to obtain public defenders to represent them. The unprecedented action comes as Oregon’s unique public defender system has come under such strain that it is at the breaking point. Criminal defendants in Oregon who have gone without legal representation due to a shortage of public defenders filed a lawsuit in May that alleges the state is violating their constitutional right to legal counsel and a speedy trial.”
  • Relatedly, “[t]he day after the Oregon Supreme Court Chief Justice fired all nine members of the state commission that oversees public defense, she said she was appointing four new commissioners and reappointing five commissioners from the previous group.”
• In Indiana, the State “Supreme Court has approved a proposed schedule of minimum fees for the state’s public defenders appointed in trial and appellate cases.”
• In New York State, “Chenango County and all of upstate may have to follow New York City’s lead when it comes to a significant rate increase for public defenders. The county’s budget office has warned local officials of a possible 110 percent rate hike that would require the county to pay indigent defense fees of $158 per hour, up from the $75 per hour currently paid. If enacted, it would be the first pay raise that public defenders have seen in two decades.”

Criminal Justice Reform and Counter-Reform

• In Hillsborough County FL, “[a] Florida prosecutor is suing Gov. Ron DeSantis for suspending him from office over his pledges to not prosecute cases related to abortion and gender-transition treatments.”
• In Los Angeles County CA, “[t]he bid to recall progressive Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon failed to qualify for the ballot because the campaign lacked enough valid signatures.”
• In New York State, “[t]he surprise resignation of Chief Judge Janet DiFiore has set up a tense nomination battle to select her successor. Although the actual nomination will not happen until this fall, a coalition of left-wing groups has begun mobilizing to pressure Gov. Kathy Hochul to nominate a progressive pick who will reverse the Court of Appeal’s drift to the right under DiFiore.”
• In Savannah GA, “The City [] is planning to recruit a special prosecutor to handle federal offenses stemming from Savannah, a surely unprecedented move the city is making to try and address its out of control crime problem.”
• In Virginia, “Commonwealth's attorneys offices statewide are experiencing staffing shortages, but the Shenandoah County Commonwealth's Attorney Office is having a particularly hard time. The office has just two employees.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello, interested public!

Hope you’re all hanging in there. It’s another blockbuster of a week, beginning with (in the US) newly-unearthed historical evidence that the basis for law enforcement’s doctrine of “qualified immunity” rests on a copying error from 1874. Florida is still digesting the consequences of Gov. DeSantis’ decision to remove a locally-elected state prosecutor who stated he would refuse to bring abortion-related cases, while journalists in San Francisco reported that newly-appointed DA Brooke Jenkins drew a six-figure salary from a group working to recall her predecessor that claimed she was an unpaid volunteer. Meanwhile, all eyes remain on the Biden Administration’s self-imposed deadline of August 31 as it continues to weigh its options for student loan reform.

In Canada, Crown prosecutors spoke in support of their criminal defender colleagues’ ongoing labor action against the Alberta government as they work to achieve better wages and working conditions and the Department of Justice released a report on the lack of access to legal aid in family law disputes.

Take care of one another,

Sam

Editor’s Choices

• In the Chronicle of Philanthropy, a letter to the editor responded to a recent article on how to “Humanize Your Hiring Process” by arguing that “[the article] left out a major dimension of the human experience: disability… One in four adults in the United States is disabled, and yet people with disabilities are significantly underrepresented in nonprofit and philanthropic organizations.”
• In the California Law Review, Professor Alex Reinert of Cardozo Law revealed that the basis for the “Qualified Immunity” doctrine apparently rests on a scrivener’s error: “Congress that passed Section 1983 meant to explicitly displace common-law protections. Most critically, scholars and courts have overlooked the originally-enacted version of Section 1983, which contained a provision that specifically disapproved of any state law limitations on the new cause of action. For unknown reasons, that provision was not included by the Reviser of the Federal Statutes in the first compilation of federal law in 1874. This Article is the first to unearth the lost text of Section 1983 and demonstrate its implications.”

Reproductive Justice

• In Tampa Bay FL, “the chief state prosecutor in the Tampa area says he will vigorously fight his removal from office by Governor Ron DeSantis. DeSantis says Hillsborough County state attorney Andrew Warren was neglecting his duty by failing to enforce Florida's laws that restrict abortion or prohibit gender-affirming care for minors.”
  • Relatedly, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor tweeted in response to the governor’s order that “[r]emoving a duly elected official should be based on egregious actions—not political statements. In a free state, voters should choose their elected officials.”
• In Iowa, “Republican Governor Kim Reynolds [] asked a state trial court [] to lift its injunction that bars enforcement of a 2018 state law that makes abortions illegal after a fetal heartbeat has been detected.”
• In Delaware, “[a]ttorneys from almost a dozen Delaware law firms have agreed to offer pro bono legal advice on abortion-related issues to those who contact a free and anonymous helpline set up by the attorney general’s office.”
• In Minnesota, “[a] jury found that a pharmacy did not discriminate against a woman when it refused to give her the morning-after pill. The pharmacist gave ‘belief’ as the reason for refusing to fill the prescription for emergency contraception. Although the jury decided that the woman’s rights had not been violated, it did say that the emotional damage caused by the decision amounted to $25,000.”

Immigration

• In New York NY, “migrants continued arriving in New York City [] a day after city officials took aim at Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for busing migrants detained at the border to the city as part of his campaign to draw attention to the influx of migrant crossing from Mexico.”
• In Tennessee, “[a] judge [] shot down a bid by the federal government to force each of the 104 Grainger County slaughterhouse workers rounded up in a legally suspect raid to file suit against agents accused of targeting them solely based on their race or ethnicity…[Judge] McDonough ruled there is ample evidence showing federal agents targeted all Hispanic workers at the plant under a single plan to turn what was supposed to be a search for proof of tax evasion by the slaughterhouse owner into the largest immigration raid in recent Tennessee history.”
• In Washington DC, “[t]he Pentagon rejected a request from the District of Columbia seeking National Guard assistance in what the mayor has called a ‘growing humanitarian crisis’ prompted by thousands of migrants being bused to the city from two southern states.”

Rule of Law

• In Hamilton County TN, “[a] newly elected district attorney in Tennessee said during her campaign she would consider prosecuting teachers and librarians who stock LGBTQ books in libraries, but ultimately called on school boards to ban books from schools.”
• The Editorial Advisory Board of Maryland’s Daily Record condemned US Supreme Court Justice Alito’s recent remarks at Notre Dame Law School’s religious liberty initiative in Rome, writing that “[h]is flippant comments further damage a court already damaged in the eyes of many by what appear to be decisions motivated by politics or religion. And more to the point, there are numerous abortion decisions pending, and no doubt yet to be brought, in the federal courts. Some think the Supreme Court is in a legitimacy crisis. Alito’s sometimes sarcastic remarks at this Rome event certainly did not help, and in the eyes of many hurt the court.”

Free & Fair Elections

• In Michigan, “Attorney General Dana Nessel is seeking an outside prosecutor to consider charges against a group of prominent individuals for having allegedly engaged in a ’conspiracy’ to unlawfully gain access to voting machines used in the 2020 presidential election.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, “[w]ith just three weeks remaining until the federal pause on student loan payments ends, borrowers have been left in limbo while President Joe Biden stays mum on whether he will forgive student debt for millions of Americans, and whether payments will resume after the moratorium expires on Aug. 31. The White House has said Biden will make a decision by the end of August, after the president initially said in April he’d announce a decision within a ‘couple of weeks.’”
• Also in Washington DC, “White House officials [met] with student debt activists and advocacy groups ahead of President Joe Biden’s self-imposed deadline of Aug. 31 for deciding whether to approve broad-based debt relief for millions of Americans.”
• Forbes published a comparison of two major proposals on student loan forgiveness.
• In Boston MA, the Hildreth Institute published a report calling for “remov[ing] the interest obligation on students,” arguing that “[t]he government can offset the cost of waiving interest payments by investing the principal payments to generate revenue.”

Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring

• In Washington DC, “[a] group of federal watchdogs is working to make the oversight community more diverse, inclusive, equitable and accessible through personnel practices as well as the work they do, which aligns with the Biden administration’s goals for the federal workforce at-large.”
• Also in Washington DC, the Federal News Network argued that “[a] new bill introduced in the House of Representatives, titled the Public Service Reform Act, is not about public service and is certainly not reform. Rather than addressing accountability or hiring and pay challenges, the bill would make all federal workers at-will employees. The result would be a civil service that is little more than two million political appointees.”
• In New York, “[t]he New York State Bar Association announced the creation of a 20-member task force [] designed to review legal ethics questions for attorneys who represent government entities.”
• In Augusta GA, “[a] public defender’s office argued to the Georgia Court of Appeals [] that it has governmental immunity from a former staffer’s claim she was wrongly fired for seeking accommodations for her breast cancer treatment.”
• In Delaware County PA, a recently-filed lawsuit alleged “[a] pattern of gender-based discrimination was uncovered last year following the unionization of the [county] public defender’s office[.]”
• In Chicago IL, “[a] U.S. appeals court in Chicago [] called for an end to federal court oversight of state hiring, freeing Gov. J.B. Pritzker and future governors from scrutiny that has endured through eight administrations over a half-century.”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In Canada, the Department of Justice “has recently released a commission report discussing the impact of the lack of access to legal aid in family law disputes in Canada.” (full report available here)
• In Akron OH, “[f]our months after an Eviction Summit— which was attended by hundreds— was held in Akron, a new report is listing several suggestions to prevent evictions.” (full report available here)
• In Chicago IL, Block Club Chicago reported on “legal deserts”: areas “where it’s not easy to access legal aid and representation [that] often disproportionately affect low-income Chicagoans, as well as Black and Latino residents, women, older people, immigrants, people with disabilities and members of the LGBTQ+ community[.]”–and on the organizations working to address these shortages.

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Alberta, “[t]hree days after a meeting with [Justice Minister] Shandro and Legal Aid Alberta CEO John Panusa, [criminal defense lawyers’] associations said they would expand their partial work stoppage an additional two weeks. Members of the voluntary associations will no longer provide certain bail and duty counsel services through Sept. 2[:] ‘If minister Shandro and CEO Panusa continue to bury their heads in the sand, our members will continue to withdraw legal services[.]’”
  • Relatedly, “Crown prosecutors are coming to the defence of their courtroom opponents, the same day as dozens of criminal defence lawyers across the province walked off the job in support of calls for improved legal aid funding.”
• In Quebec’s northern Nunavik region, a new report argues that “[t]he justice system…should be better adapted to local culture and have a more permanent presence in the area[.]” (full report available here)
• In Pennsylvania, “[a] nonprofit law firm and youth basketball league have filed a lawsuit alleging Pennsylvania’s ChildLine Registry, which determines who ends up on its list of child abusers, is unconstitutional. The lawsuit [] claims parents and caregivers are placed on the child abuse registry without first having a chance to meaningfully challenge the evidence against them and with only a cursory investigation.”
• In Colorado, “[a] federal judge vented his frustration [] at Colorado's public defender office, repeatedly raising his voice and insisting the office violated a legal directive when it determined an indigent Larimer County couple did not qualify for appointed counsel in their pending criminal case.”
• In Montgomery County TX, “[i]n a continued effort to control costs associated with Montgomery County’s criminal and civil courts, commissioners were supportive of a new position they believe could save money in the long run. [The new position] would verify eligibility of defendants applying for court-appointed attorneys.”
• In Spokane County WA, the director of the Public Defender’s Office “is proposing to move two of the attorneys from his staff into a separate office to handle cases that would otherwise have to be sent outside the system.” He claims the county “could save $250,000 a year, or possibly more, by not sending ‘conflict cases’ out to private attorneys[.]”
• In Indiana, the state’s “Supreme Court has approved a proposed schedule of minimum fees for the state’s public defenders appointed in trial and appellate cases.”
• In Maine and New Hampshire, “courts are struggling to find enough lawyers to represent the state’s poor against criminal charges.”

Criminal Justice Reform and Counter-Reform

• In San Francisco CA, “District Attorney Brooke Jenkins doesn’t appear to have broken any laws by netting more than $100,000 from a nonprofit closely tied to the recall effort against her former boss Chesa Boudin. But her previously undisclosed six-figure salary, accrued while the recall campaign touted Jenkins as an unpaid volunteer, could raise issues of public perception for the district attorney as her political viability is put to the test in November when Jenkins will run for election for the first time.”
• In Cook County IL, the county “public defender office raised important concerns about gun control laws. They’ve identified a pattern of racism in the enforcement of such laws in Chicago, but can’t determine how bad the problem is or how to solve it without more information.”
• In Hennepin County MN, “Mary Moriarty, former chief public defender in Hennepin County, [received] more than 36% of the votes [in the County Attorney primary race]. She will proceed to a run-off in November, when she will take on Martha Holton Dimick, who finished second[.]”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello, interested public!

Hope you’re all hanging in there as we round out the summer with a new federal public health emergency. Dramatic news continues this week, as a national prosecutor association condemns Florida Governor DeSantis’ move to suspend an elected state attorney for pledging not to prosecute people under the state’s new anti-abortion law. Relatedly, a local prosecutor in Minnesota clashed with the MN attorney general over whether to appeal a recent court ruling there finding a state constitutional protection for abortion rights. Meanwhile, pressure is mounting on the Biden administration from state Attorney Generals, Democratic members of Congress, and Republican opposition as they continue to defer their promised decision about student loan reform. In Canada, criminal defense attorneys in Alberta voted in favor of “escalating work stoppages” this week.

Take care of one another,

Sam

Editor’s Choices

• In the LA Times, Partners for Justice’s Regional Program Director for California argued that “[t]he appointment of Brooke Jenkins as San Francisco’s new district attorney culminates months of evidence that the criminal justice reform movement needs a new playbook…the route to safer communities cannot run solely through progressive prosecutors…A more sustainable tool for criminal justice reform — maybe our most powerful yet — is to invest in public defenders.”
• ProPublica has put out a call for public defenders and criminal defense attorneys to join their network of volunteer sources: “We may contact you with questions about your expertise and the intricacies of the criminal justice system. We will also share occasional updates about stories in the works [and] also welcome your suggestions for stories.”

Reproductive Justice

• In Tallahassee FL, “Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision [] to suspend elected Tampa-area state attorney Andrew Warren for pledging not to prosecute people under the state’s new anti-abortion law was called a ‘unprecedented and dangerous intrusion’ to prosecutor independence, according to a national prosecutor group.”
• In Washington DC, “[i]n a virtual meeting…with a team of lawyers, Mr. Garland said the effect of the high court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which sent the issue of abortion back to state legislatures, was ‘immediate, wide-ranging and devastating.’”
• Also in Washington DC, “President Joe Biden…signed another executive order aimed at protecting access to abortions, this time with the goal of helping patients travel to other states to access reproductive health care services.”
• In Boston MA, “President Joe Biden said…he is nominating Julie Rikelman, an attorney who represented the Mississippi abortion clinic at the center of the recent [SCOTUS] ruling overturning the constitutional right to abortion, to a vacancy on the First Circuit.”
• In Michigan, “[a] judge blocked enforcement of a 1931 Michigan ban on abortion…just hours after the state Court of Appeals said county prosecutors were not covered by a May order and could enforce the prohibition following the fall of Roe v. Wade.”
  • Meanwhile, “[MI] Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is again pressing the Michigan Supreme Court to consider whether the state constitution protects an individual’s right to abortion services.”
• In Wyoming, “[t]he abortion advocates suing Wyoming over its abortion ban asked a state court [] to block the ban throughout the court proceedings.”
• In Idaho, “[t]he [US] Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Idaho over the state’s law banning abortion after six weeks, saying that federal law requires doctors and hospitals to perform medically required abortions to preserve the pregnant person’s health.”
• In Traverse County MN, “County Attorney Matthew Franzese filed a motion [] to intervene to appeal a Ramsey County judge’s ruling that threw out many of Minnesota’s restrictions on abortion. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said last week he would not appeal the ruling by Ramsey County Judge Thomas Gilligan which said restrictions — including a mandatory 24-hour waiting period, a requirement that both parents be notified before a minor can get an abortion and the law dictating that only physicians can perform abortions — were not allowed given the Minnesota Constitution’s protection of the right to abortion.”

Immigration

• In Providence RI, “[a] new city program will provide immigration-focused legal services to foreign-born residents seeking U.S. citizenship or those who want renew [sic] their lawful immigration status.”

Rule of Law

• On the internet, LexisNexis’ Rule of Law Foundation launched its U.S. Voting Laws & Legislation Center–”[a] tool…to provide citizens with free access to the most comprehensive collection of US voting laws, legislative developments, and news.”
• In Washington DC, “Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks ordered the Defense Department to save data from mobile devices after reports information was deleted from former top officials’ phones, including text messages from Jan. 6, 2021. Hicks in an Aug. 3 memo calls records retention a “solemn responsibility and legal obligation for all federal employees, civilian and military” and states text messages that conduct public business qualify as records.”
• Also in Washington DC, “[a]mid ongoing issues with investigations into the attack on the U.S. Capitol, a Senate Democrat wants to shore up records access for watchdogs and information sharing with lawmakers. The Homeland Security inspector general has been under fire for his handling of investigations into missing text messages from Secret Service agents and top Trump Homeland Security officials in the lead up to the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. Now, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee's panel on Homeland Security, has introduced legislation aimed at fixing issues raised going forward with all IGs.”

Free & Fair Elections

• In Fulton County GA, “Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has added former President Donald Trump's first White House counsel, Donald McGahn, to his legal team [as] Graham continues to fight a subpoena ordering him to appear before a grand jury in Fulton County's criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state.”
• In Austin TX, “a federal judge [] ordered the Texas Secretary of State to release records about a state program that claims to identify non-U.S. citizens on the voter rolls.”

Human Rights

• In Los Angeles CA, “The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law has launched a database that will track and analyze efforts against critical race theory (CRT) that seek to limit the teaching of race and racism in U.S. schools.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• Across the United States, “20 state attorneys general — led by Illinois' Kwame Raoul and Massachusetts' Maura Healey — wrote a letter to President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona urging them to extend a temporary waiver for borrowers enrolled in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, which is intended to forgive student debt for government and nonprofit workers after ten years of qualifying payments.”
• In Chicago IL, “[t]he Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) announced today the Department has issued a letter to all federal student loan servicers encouraging them to immediately implement best practices to help alert and educate eligible student loan holders about the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. As the primary contact for many student loan borrowers, servicers are in the best position to increase awareness about PSLF and help borrowers take advantage of the program.”
• In Washington DC, “[m]ore than 100 congressional Democrats are urging the White House to extend the pause on student loan repayment beyond the Aug. 31 deadline.”
• Also in Washington DC, “members of the NAACP are demanding that the president eliminate a large portion of debt for Black borrowers.”
• Again also in Washington DC, “[a] new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office finds the U.S. Department of Education miscalculated the cost of the federal student loan program. From 1997 to 2021, the Education Department estimated that payments from federal direct student loans would generate $114 billion for the government. But the GAO found that, as of 2021, the program has actually cost the government an estimated $197 billion.”
  • Importantly, US Senators (led by Sen. Warren) have noted for years that “Congress did not create federal student loans to generate revenue for the federal government…Federal student loan programs were created by Congress to provide an opportunity for every young person who works hard and plays by the rules to pursue higher education.”
• Meanwhile, also again also in Washington DC, “Reps. Virginia Foxx, Elise Stefanik, and Jim Banks introduced the Responsible Education Assistance Through Loan, or REAL, Reforms Act, which is intended to act as an ’alternative’ to proposals the Education Department has put forth to reform student-loan programs.”

Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring

• In Washington DC, “[a] group of five conservative Republicans has introduced legislation to make the federal government an at-will employer, eviscerating civil service protections, chilling whistleblower activity and abolishing the Merit Systems Protection Board.”
• Also in Washington DC, “Senate Democrats last week introduced the chamber's full slate of 12 bills to set line-by-line fiscal 2023 spending at every federal agency, though they remain significantly divided with Republicans over how to avoid a shutdown in just two months.”
• In Los Angeles CA, “[the] County Board of Supervisors approved a motion [] that will allow the county to hire non-U.S. citizens.”
• In New York NY, “Mayor Eric Adams and Comptroller Brad Lander joined other city officials in the Bronx to announce that since May 9 the city had advanced 2,600 contract actions worth more than $4.2 billion helping 451 non-profit organizations in the city.”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In California, the “chief justice of the California Supreme Court[] said that the state legislature is responsible for stalling efforts to bring about regulatory reforms to address the state’s gap in access to justice[.]”
• Also in California, legal ethics professors from Stanford and UCLA argued that “[t]he justice gap has grown so large that we cannot just lawyer our way out of it. Creative solutions are also needed[, such as]…licens[ing] the legal equivalent of nurse practitioners to help people with routine legal problems [and] let[ting] lawyers partner with other professionals, such as business experts, technologists, and social service workers.”
• In Tampa FL, the city “announced plans to work with Bay Area Legal Services (BALS), which could potentially help renters looking for legal services.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Alberta, “100 criminal defence lawyers from Calgary’s Criminal Defence Lawyers Association, Edmonton’s Criminal Trial Lawyers Association and the Southern Alberta Defence Lawyers’ Association voted in favour of job action. ‘Through escalating work stoppages, our members will make clear to the government that Legal Aid Alberta’s budget needs to be increased now,’ a joint statement read[.]”
  • Relatedly, “[c]riminal lawyers in Alberta say the legal aid system is at a breaking point, and they are threatening legal action if the province ignores requests for detailed updates to the program.”
• In Chenango County NY, “officials reported they may no longer be able to hold court or provide defense lawyers outside of regular, weekday work hours.”
• In Boston MA, “[i]nmates with local ties who are being held in solitary confinement at MCI-Cedar Junction, in South Walpole, have filed a class action lawsuit against the state prison system, alleging inhumane treatment during their extended time in isolation. Boston College Law School Civil Rights Clinic and the law firm of Holland & Knight announced in a press release that they had filed the lawsuit recently against the Department of Correction.”
• In Oregon, the state’s “federal public defender has asked a judge to appoint a special investigator to look into allegations that guards at the federal prison in Sheridan are retaliating against inmates for speaking out about their conditions behind bars.”
• Also in Oregon, the state’s “Public Defense Services Commission approved a plan to pay a rate of $158 per hour for in-custody felony cases to lawyers who are not currently under contract through the end of this year. The current rate is $105.”
• In New York NY, “[a] judge has ordered the New York Police Department to release documents pertaining to its monitoring of Black Lives Matters protests during the summer of 2020, requiring it to release 2,700 emails and other documents to the public or state why it fall [sic] ‘and/or allege with specificity that each document falls within one of the enumerated exemptions of Public Officers Law.’ ”
• In San Francisco CA, “[t]he process Arizona has in place for defendants challenging convictions in non-capital cases as of right was upheld by the Ninth Circuit against a challenge by an indigent defendant who said it violated his constitutional right to appellate counsel.”

Criminal Justice Reform and Counter-Reform

• In San Francisco CA, “District Attorney Brooke Jenkins on Wednesday announced tougher new policies to hold drug dealers accountable, but her new crackdown brought swift criticism from the Public Defender, who called her philosophy ‘regressive,’ and [argued it] will disproportionately harm communities of color.”
  • Relatedly, former San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin “announced [] that he would not run to wrest back the seat he lost in a June recall election, averting a second bruising clash over criminal justice.”
• In New Jersey, “[a]ccording to a lawsuit filed by the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender (OPD), [because a]ll babies born in the state of New Jersey are required to have a blood sample drawn within 48 hours as part of a mandatory testing program that screens them for 60 different disorders. [If] police are able to reliably obtain the samples through subpoena, then effectively, the disease screening process is entering all babies born in the state into a DNA database with no ability to opt out. According to the lawsuit, parents and the public at large are unaware that blood samples taken from their children could be used in this way.”
• In Bexar County TX, the district attorney’s office celebrated that “in three years police have issued more than 6,200 citations rather than arresting and jailing people for a variety of nonviolent, low-level crimes.”
• In Travis County TX, “[t]he Texas Department of Public Safety refused to publicly release official records related to the Robb Elementary School shooting at the request of the Uvalde County district attorney’s office[.]”
• In Kenly NC, “[t]he mass exodus of an entire police department after the hiring of a Black town manager…has opened a conversation about public safety and race relations in a small town of just over 1,500 residents.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello, interested public!

Life continues to be interesting. In Washington, the Biden Administration is strategizing with civil society lawyers on how to protect people seeking abortions post-Dobbs, while also delaying a promised decision on student loan forgiveness until the end of August. Meanwhile, new reporting suggests that Trump allies are planning changes to the federal civil service (if Trump is re-elected) that commenters are characterizing as a “purge”. Public defenders in New York State are on track for a pay increase that will see their spending power rise relative to inflation, while federal employees’ pay increase may not be sufficient to keep up with the times. And the nationwide struggle over the future of progressive prosecution continues. All these stories and more are in the links below.

Take care of one another,

Sam

Editor’s Choices

• In Washington DC, “more than two dozen advocacy groups said in a letter sent to President Joe Biden” that “[p]an-coronavirus vaccine technology currently in development by the U.S. military must remain public and should be shared with the world[:] ‘Current production and distribution agreements have empowered corporations while limiting the promise of life-saving coronavirus vaccines,” said Timi Iwayemi, senior researcher for the Revolving Door Project. “Continuing down a path that restricts widespread manufacturing and distribution of COVID vaccines would lead to unnecessary deaths and easier opportunities for the virus to mutate.’”
• Also in Washington DC, “[f]ormer aides close to President Trump are working to revive and expand his signature proposal to upend the federal civil service, according to a new report, and are working in conjunction with the former commander in chief to quickly purge thousands of federal employees if he were to return to office.”

Reproductive Justice

• In Washington DC, “[t]he White House and Justice Department [] will host their first meeting with outside lawyers to discuss how to protect those who seek abortions from legal repercussions [thirteen weeks after receiving advance warning and five weeks after] after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.”
  • Relatedly, The Marshall Project explored how “[i]n rescinding the 49-year-old constitutional right to abortion care, the [Supreme C]ourt ‘suddenly dumped the abortion question back into the realm of criminal law.’”
• Also in Washington DC, “Democratic Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri plans to introduce legislation that would establish a new reproductive health office in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and provide grant money to reproductive care services.”
• Again also in Washington DC, “Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has backed out of teaching a seminar at George Washington University’s law school in the nation’s capital, following student protests and the university’s statement of support for the conservative justice’s role on campus.”
• In Cheyenne WY, “[a] lawsuit filed [] by a Casper women's health clinic and others seeks to block Wyoming's new abortion ban just before it's scheduled to take effect. The lawsuit claims the new law violates the state constitution with restrictions that will discourage potentially lifesaving pregnancy healthcare in Wyoming, forcing pregnant women to go to other states for necessary procedures.”

Climate Crisis

• In St. Paul MN, “Republican-endorsed attorney general candidate Jim Schultz is calling on Democratic incumbent Keith Ellison to reject activist requests to review criminal cases tied to oil pipeline protests as a special prosecutor.”
• In Austin TX, “Environmentalist groups and their allies held a press conference…to pressure Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton into litigating polluters.”
• In Massachusetts, “Biden announced millions of dollars in funding for climate change measures, including upgrading infrastructure, weatherizing buildings and installing cooling in homes[, but] did not declare a national climate emergency – a step that some Democratic officials and activists have urged after Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin seemingly blocked legislative action and the Supreme Court limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.”

Rule of Law

• Also in Washington DC, “U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan warned Thursday that it would be dangerous if the Supreme Court loses touch with public sentiment or appears to be implementing political preferences.”
  • Meanwhile, in Rome Italy, Justice Alito, “[d]uring a surprise appearance as a keynote speaker at a religious freedom conference in Rome last week, sponsored by the University of Notre Dame,…made clear that he considered religious faith to be a natural yearning of all human beings. ‘Our hearts are restless until we rest in God,’ he said. “Justice Samuel Alito gave a talk [] sponsored by the University of Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative. The conference that hosted Alito was organized by the Religious Liberty Institute at Notre Dame, which was founded in 2020. While the conference was announced and promoted to journalists in advance, Alito’s role was kept under wraps. The institute or its faculty members have filed amicus briefs in at least five Supreme Court cases on religious freedom issues.”
• In Uvalde TX, “[d]espite having in-house counsel, the city of Uvalde and its police department are working with a private firm to seal records of the horrific shooting at Robb Elementary School, records obtained by VICE show.”

Free & Fair Elections

• In Washington DC, “[l]egal experts [] warned lawmakers on the U.S. House Administration Committee that if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds a North Carolina case that embraces a fringe election theory, it would undermine future elections across the country.”
• In Topeka KS, the state Court of Appeals ruled that “Kansas' top elections official violated the state's open records law when he had office computer software altered so that it could no longer produce data sought by a voting-rights advocate[.]”
• In Atlanta GA, Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled that “[t]he prosecutor who’s investigating whether former President Trump and his allies illegally tried to interfere in the 2020 election in Georgia cannot question a lawmaker who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump won the state[.]”
• In Pennsylvania, “[m]ore than a dozen Pennsylvania Republicans are trying, for a second time, to throw out a mail voting law that many of them helped pass in the first place.”

Human Rights

• In Tampa, “a private school [] is taking on the Biden administration and Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried in federal court, arguing it's being punished because its religious beliefs clash with new federal guidelines extending sex discrimination protections to LGBTQ individuals…An attorney for Grant Park Christian Academy said the school's failure to comply with the feds will force it to forfeit tens of thousands of dollars under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National School Lunch Program, which provides reduced-price or free meals to children from low-income families.”
• In New Haven CT, “a listserv used to organize several recent protests at Yale Law has been shut down. ‘If students want to “debate important questions,” the dean of Yale Law School Heather Gerken announced in an email on Wednesday, they can post on a physical bulletin board in the law school’s hallway.’”
• In Houston TX, “[t]he Justice Department opened an investigation against the city of Houston [] to determine whether complaints of illegal dumping — including dead bodies and animals — in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods amount to civil rights violations.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, “Sens. Chuck Schumer, Bob Menendez, Cory Booker, and Elizabeth Warren, along with Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Lauren Underwood, and Tony Crdenas, led 100 of their Democratic colleagues in sending a letter to Biden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona pushing for an extension of the federal pause on student-loan payments. The pause, currently set to expire after August 31, is just over a month away, and millions of borrowers are still waiting for news on whether it might be extended again, along with Biden's decision on broad student-loan forgiveness.” (open letter available via Sen. Menendez’ office)
• Also in Washington DC, “[f]ederal student loan servicers have been told to hold off on sending out payment reminders to borrowers, according to two sources familiar with the matter.”
• Again also in Washington DC, “[t]the Supreme Court’s June ruling in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, which curbed the agency’s authority to set certain climate change regulations, could now add another factor to the Biden administration’s decision-making process.”

Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring

• In the United States, “public pension funds are on pace for their deepest financial setback since the Great Recession as turmoil in global markets this year threaten to leave taxpayers and government workers on the hook.”
• In Washington DC, “[t]he odds that Congress would increase the average 4.6% pay raise planned for federal employees in 2023 got a little longer Thursday, after Senate appropriators revealed that they would effectively endorse President Biden’s pay increase proposal.”
  • Editor’s Note: According to the Department of Labor’s Inflation Calculator, the inflation rate between June 2021 and June 2022 was 9%. By my math, this means that the spending power of federal wages will decline by 4.4% if this pay raise is approved.
• Also in Washington DC, “[t]he official in charge of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility efforts at the State Department told lawmakers on Tuesday that ‘this time is different,’ while recapping their process and acknowledging the work ahead of them.”
• In Macomb County MI, “[t]he Michigan Supreme Court has sided with Macomb County Prosecutor in a spat [between the prosecutor’s office and the county executive] over four jobs that [Prosecutor] Pete Lucido wants posted.”
• In Canada, “the federal government released its proposed Regulations Amending Certain Regulations Made Under the Canada Labour Code (Medical Leave with Pay) (the "Proposed Regulations"), with respect to paid sick leave for federally regulated employees.”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In New York NY, “[t]he number of evictions in New York City has increased every month from January to June, according to new city data. The state’s eviction moratorium expired on January 15 after officials extended it several times after it first took effect in March 2020, at the start of the pandemic. The data comes as more bad news for renters, who are facing record-high rents after prices fell early on in the pandemic.”
• Also in New York, “[a] judge overturned a law that allowed the state government to place even healthy citizens in quarantine camps for an indefinite time without review.”
• Again also in New York, “Attorney General Letitia James[] filed a lawsuit against the pharmacy conglomerate [CVS],” alleging they “diverted millions of dollars from underserved communities as part of an anticompetitive scheme involving Medicare 340B drug programs[.]”
• In Palo Alto CA, “Stanford Law School’s Deborah L. Rhode Center on the Legal Profession and Legal Design Lab announced today a collaboration with court systems in six states – Alaska, Colorado, Kansas, Michigan, Texas, and Virginia – to simplify filings in civil cases affecting millions of Americans.”
• In the United States, Truthout surveyed the nationwide “right-to-counsel in evictions” movement.
  • Relatedly, “[t]he North New Jersey Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) launched their right-to-counsel campaign to aid Jersey City tenants at [a] City Hall presser[.]”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In New York, “attorneys assigned to represent defendants who cannot afford to hire their own counsel are getting a raise for the first time in two decades. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Lisa Headley’s decision and order directed New York state and New York City to pay assigned counsel a rate of $158 per hour, up from $90 per hour. The 75% pay increase is retroactive from February. Assigned counsel last received a pay increase in 2004.”
  • Editor’s Note: According to the Department of Labor’s Inflation Calculator, the inflation rate between June 2004 and June 2022 was 56%. By my math, this means that the spending power of New York defenders’ wages will rise by 19%.
• Also in New York, “[t]he controversial circumstances surrounding the case of New York bodega worker Jose Alba exposes a fundamental flaw in how the New York state criminal legal system operates. In the state system, unless you happen to work for the New York Police Department, prosecutors often charge first and investigate later.”
• In Eaton County MI, “officials say, because of some policy changes at the state level, they are able to help more people who can't afford to hire a lawyer of their own…[after] the American Bar Association took a look at how these cases were being handled and coordinated some changes at the state level to bring the quality of legal care up to the same standard as the prosecutor's offices.”
• In Portland OR, Governor Kate Brown has asked the court to dismiss “[a] lawsuit filed in May [] asking the court to dismiss charges against five individuals who continuously had their case rescheduled because the state of Oregon does not have enough public defenders.”
  • Meanwhile, “[a]ccording to a report filed[] by Oregon's Fiscal Legislative Staff, the state's Office of Public Defense only ‘minimally met’ reporting requirements that lawmakers had laid out for it to receive $100million in taxpayer dollars to address a public defender shortage.”

Criminal Justice Reform and Counter-Reform

• In Baltimore MD, “Marilyn Mosby, a high-profile prosecutor who aligned herself with criminal justice reformers but ended up with legal problems of her own, has lost the Democratic primary for Baltimore state’s attorney to Ivan Bates, a defense attorney…Mosby, who was a two-term incumbent, rose to national prominence in 2015 when she pursued criminal charges against six police officers in the death of Freddie Gray, a Black man who suffered a spinal injury after police handcuffed, shackled and placed him headfirst into a van. His death triggered riots and protests. None of the officers was convicted.”
• In Chapel Hill NC, “[t]he Institute for Innovation in Protection launched a new project named “Protecting Workers: Wage Theft Enforcement for the Local Prosecutor,” designed to help prosecutors take on wage theft prosecutions.”
• In New York NY, “defense attorneys are asking judges to drop gun possession cases following this June’s Supreme Court decision striking down the state’s restrictive gun licensing regulations for violating a newly found Second Amendment right ‘to keep and bear arms in public for self-defense.’”
• Also in New York NY, “[t]he Bronx Defenders and The Bronx Community Foundation, along with U.S. senate majority leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer, State Sen. Gustavo Rivera (S.D. 33), and Bronx Borough President Vanessa L. Gibson, joined Bronx community leaders…to announce the launch of The Bronx Cannabis Hub…The Bronx Cannabis Hub is a new resource designed to give Bronx residents, who advocates say have been harmed by decades of cannabis prohibition, the means to participate in the new, legal cannabis industry.”
• In New York, gubernatorial candidate Rep. Lee Zeldin (Republican) stated that “the governor of the state of New York has the authority and I would argue the obligation to remove a district attorney who refuses to enforce the law. And Alvin Bragg, across the board since the first day he's been there, has refused to do his job. The first act will be notifying Alvin Bragg that he is being removed as a district attorney in Manhattan. We need to start securing our streets from day one, repealing cashless bail.”
  • Relatedly, “Rep. Lee Zeldin has been trying to make his scuffle with an attacker last week part of his case for undoing state bail reform laws…But the Republican nominee for governor is left clarifying some details in the incident’s aftermath. Why didn’t the prosecutor who once served as his gubernatorial campaign co-chair level a bail-eligible charge?” [emphasis added]
• In Cook County IL, “high turnover has left State’s Attorney Kim Foxx with a significant backlog. A former state prosecutor says it's her own fault.”
• In Maricopa County AZ, “[t]he office has dozens of unfilled prosecutor jobs, which has slowed the pursuit of justice and frustrated police.”
• In Hennepin County MN, district attorney candidate Martha Holton Dimick argued that “our more lenient approach to prosecution is good as long as we fulfill our core responsibilities as prosecutors and law enforcement. Over the last two years, we have not. Car thieves know they will be released on the same day without bail; juvenile carjackers have nowhere to be placed for short-term detention or treatment, and dozens of homicides in Minneapolis from 2021 remain unsolved. And our leaders stood on a stage and told the world that we would end policing in Minneapolis. Since the murder of George Floyd, many criminals have heard the message that we don't care about their actions, and they have acted accordingly. My first priority right now is to restore the effectiveness of the office by emphasizing our core responsibility: swift, effective and fair prosecution.”
• In Tennessee, “[n]ewly proposed rules covering juvenile detention centers in Tennessee are supposed to ban solitary confinement. But critics say they were written with the exclusive help of juvenile detention operators and would allow facilities to continue locking children in solitary confinement.”
• In Pennsylvania, “[a] former public defender turned Philadelphia County judge has been nominated by President Joe Biden to serve on the federal bench in Pennsylvania.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello, interested public!

Interesting times. Major stories centered around criminal justice this week. The ongoing effort to recall, impeach, or force the resignation of reformist prosecutors continues across the US (stories in California, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania this week), while Democrats, led by the President, join Republicans in bipartisan concern for “law & order” issues. Meanwhile, multiple states report caseload crises for public defenders–and the ACLU won class certification in Maine for a lawsuit alleging officials failed to create an effective public defender system.” The Biden administration promises a decision on student loan forgiveness will be forthcoming, and polls indicate public confidence in the Supreme Court has fallen precipitously since its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. All this and more are in the stories below.

Take care of one another,

Sam

Reproductive Justice

• In Washington DC, “[t]he Veterans Affairs Department is ‘closely watching’ how access to abortions shakes out after the fall of Roe v. Wade, suggesting on Wednesday it could unilaterally decide to offer the service if its availability drops precipitously for veterans across the country.”
• In the United States, “pro-choice groups and abortion providers have seen a surge in membership, volunteers, and donations in recent weeks as advocates seek to protect and shore up abortion access.”

Rule of Law

• In Johnson County KS, “[t]he Johnson County Sheriff is now accusing the county attorney of breaking the law and providing a public document to reporters. The letter provided under the Kansas Open Records Act, or KORA, revealed the county attorney had concerns about the sheriff’s request to play a greater role in the upcoming election.”
• In Washington DC, public revelation of a memo in which “the [current] attorney general extended his predecessor’s requirement that investigations into presidential or vice-presidential candidates, as well as their senior staff and advisors, can’t begin without written notification to the department and his written approval [has sparked] debate since then as to whether [this deference] was justified.”
• In Milwaukee WI, “a new poll released [by Marquette Law School shows] just 38% of the country saying it approves of the nation’s highest court after it overturned Roe v. Wade–a dramatic shift in public opinion from one year ago.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, “President Biden confirmed he will decide wide-scale student loan cancellation by August.”
• Also in Washington DC, “[a] pair of New Jersey lawmakers have introduced a new bill that would make it easier for some previously ineligible public workers to qualify for loan relief under a federal program. This is the latest attempt to make changes to the 15-year-old program as Americans await a decision on widespread student loan forgiveness by the Biden administration.”
• Again also in Washington DC, “[c]ongressional Republicans slammed President Biden‘s consideration of student loan forgiveness as a “giveaway” to highly educated Americans that ignores the underlying costs of college and inflation pressures for struggling Americans.”
• Latino USA noted that “[t]he call for abolition of all student debt has never been louder,” and “div[ed] into the history of the student loan system in the U.S., as well as the stories of Black and Latino organizers that have been at the forefront of the movement for student debt cancellation.”

Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring

• In Washington DC, “Equal Justice Works, which helps law students and graduates pursue careers in public interest law, has chosen University of Cincinnati law Dean Verna Williams to replace outgoing executive director David Stern in September and to assume the new title of chief executive officer[.]”
• Also in Washington DC, “[o]fficials from the Biden administration on Thursday defended federal agencies’ approach to workplace flexibilities like telework and remote work from skeptical Republicans, who have grown more stridently against the concept of hybrid work environments in recent months.”
• In the United States, “Americans head into the 2022 midterm election season with record-setting doubts about the federal government’s faithful execution of the laws. Public demand for comprehensive government reform is at a 20-year high, while confidence in government has dropped to a historic low.”
• In California, “state employee unions representing scientists and attorneys are making the biggest demands for raises in contract negotiations this year. The attorneys want 30%.”
• In Nashville TN, “Vanderbilt Law School’s Social Justice Reporter, a new student-edited legal journal, will publish this fall and focus on social justice, civil rights and public interest lawyering by leading researchers, practitioners, policymakers and law students.”
• In New York NY, “[c]laiming that a vote in support for the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel by faculty at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law “makes clear that Israeli students and faculty members are not welcome to work with, attend or work for” the school, a complaint has been filed with the city and state.”

Access to Justice – Civil & Economic

• In California, “[a] group of tenant advocates and attorneys today launched a tool they hope will change [outcomes in eviction proceedings.] More than 50 tenant advocates and attorneys from The Debt Collective, The LA Tenants Union, The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality & Democracy and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment worked on the “Tenant Power Toolkit” over the last two years — a mostly volunteer effort, explains Hannah Appel, an anthropology professor at UCLA who came up with the idea based on her work as a co-founder of the Debt Collective.”
• In Dallas County TX, “when lawyers from the [] Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center show up, [tenants] win 97% of the time. The pro bono team possesses no superpowers, but it’s [sic] susses out what juices the eviction process. The landlords’ longtime gamble — knowing that fewer than 3% of tenants show up with legal representation — is that the odds are in their favor to cut corners, fudge facts and pull off unlawful maneuvers.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Maine, “Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy granted the ACLU of Maine’s request for class certification [in] a lawsuit filed against Maine officials that alleges they failed to create an effective public defense system.”
• In New Hampshire, “[t]he state Supreme Court, New Hampshire Judicial Council, and New Hampshire Public Defender program say it’s critical the state increase the hourly rates and caps on payments and make permanent the temporary pay raises public defenders received.”
• In Wisconsin, “thousands of men and women across Wisconsin [wait months for representation] due to overworked and understaffed public defenders [in a] growing caseload crisis.”
• In Boundary County ID, “[p]ublic officials from both Bonner and Boundary counties met to discuss the first draft of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for a potential joint public defenders office for the two counties.”
• In Helena MT, “[t]he Montana Supreme Court has vacated a District Court contempt order against the Office of State Public Defender and ruled that OPD met the standards of Montana law when assigning public defenders. In September, Billings Judge Donald Harris held OPD Director Rhonda Lindquist and her office in contempt after learning more than 600 defendants were without assigned legal representation in Yellowstone County.”
• In Santa Cruz CA, “New Santa Cruz County Public Defender Heather Rogers is aiming to offer a legal experience to the county’s least wealthy that allows them to experience the same “boutique” legal experience as those with ample financial means.”
• In New Orleans LA, “[a]fter almost 14 years of defending the poor in the state’s busiest courthouse…the city’s chief public defender, Derwyn Bunton, is stepping down.”

Criminal Justice Reform and Counter-Reform

• In San Francisco CA, “[j]ust two weeks after replacing San Francisco’s progressive district attorney Chesa Boudin, DA Brooke Jenkins is taking heat for a mass firing which many attorneys say is throwing the office into chaos.”
  • Meanwhile, “[a]mid a hiring and firing spree, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins announced the appointment of several key leaders on Tuesday, including a new head of the bureau that investigates police shootings…replac[ing] Lateef Gray, who was fired by Jenkins. Gray was a longtime public defender and civil rights attorney known for suing police before [recalled DA] Boudin appointed him to the position.”
  • The San Francisco Chronicle evaluated DA Jenkins’ approach to her new role: “[a] week into her new job, Jenkins’ public engagements, political stance, and early personnel decisions offer a glimpse of that vision and the kind of district attorney she envisions being: Someone a loan to bring back cash bail, charge minors as adults, revoke plea deals that could prevent immigrants from being deported, and support the expansion of police surveillance, all to ensure that the San Franciscans feel sure. Jenkins likes to say she’s progressive, but is she?”
• In Los Angeles CA, Politico examined the effort to recall District Attorney Gascón: “Gascón moved quickly after he was sworn in. He ended cash bail for misdemeanors and non-violent felonies. He told his deputy district attorneys not to seek the death penalty anymore, to never try juveniles as adults, to stop prosecuting people for first-time non-violent misdemeanors, and to stop using so-called sentencing enhancements, which allow prosecutors to pile on jail time. And he did all of that on his first day in office. Then came the backlash.”
  • In Los Angeles CA, the “District Attorney is terminating a unit that notifies crime victims and their families when their assailant is up for parole hearings. This decision comes after the Los Angeles County clerk stated that it will need to fully verify signatures for the district attorney’s recall.”
• In Harrisburg PA, “Republicans and Democrats in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives announced a new committee this week devoted to examining rising crime rates in Philadelphia, hinting toward the recommended impeachment of District Attorney Larry Krasner (D-PA).”
• In Passaic County NJ, “[County P]rosecutor Camelia M. Valdes has run afoul of rank-and-file police officers, who are calling for her resignation after a new policy that requires cops to notify their departments anytime they’re involved in a motor vehicle accident in the county that causes injuries.”
• In Columbus OH, “[o]ne of the special prosecutors who had pursued criminal charges against three members of the Columbus Division of Police for their conduct in the 2020 racial justice protests has resigned, according to the Columbus City Attorney’s Office.”
• In New York, “the day that the Supreme Court struck down New York state’s strict gun control laws, a coalition of public defender organizations released a joint statement calling on the Legislature to craft new gun laws that would avoid the mistakes of the old…The Legislature and Gov. Kathy Hochul did respond with sweeping new gun control legislation that was signed into law. However, it wasn’t what some public defenders and others were hoping for, prompting private complaints that the new laws did not respond to old concerns and would fuel mass incarceration.”
• In Spokane County WA, “County Prosecutor Larry Haskell…is facing three challengers, including current and former employees who object to his leadership.”
• In Washington DC, “[p]resident Joe Biden plans to propose a steep funding increase for police, hoping to show that Democrats are serious about combating violent crime, despite the move potentially causing backlash from top members of his party’s left flank. But a scheduled trip to Pennsylvania to ask Congress to spend roughly $37 billion for fighting and preventing crime was canceled Thursday when Biden tested positive for COVID-19.”