Immigrant Rights Attorneys Set For Battle As Trump Returns

By Marco Poggio

In the face of the sweeping anti-immigration measures proposed by President Donald Trump, legal aid organizations across the country are responding by bolstering their resources and increasing outreach efforts to prepare for an expected surge in deportation cases. Many are training more staff, expanding their pro bono networks, and collaborating with community organizations to ensure that noncitizens, especially those in vulnerable populations, receive timely legal advice and representation.

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Judge Puts 'Unconstitutional' Trump Citizenship Order On Ice

By Rachel Riley

A Washington federal judge paused nationwide enforcement of President Donald Trump's executive order limiting birthright citizenship on Thursday, calling the order "blatantly unconstitutional" and expressing disdain for attorneys backing the presidential decision while hearing four states' emergency bid for a temporary restraining order.

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Immigrant Orgs Sue Trump Over Birthright Citizenship Order

By Chris Villani

An expectant mother and two immigrant advocacy organizations hit the Donald Trump administration with a midnight lawsuit in Massachusetts federal court in a bid to halt the president's executive order ending birthright citizenship in the United States.

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Dem States Challenge Trump's Birthright Citizenship Order

By Britain Eakin

Eighteen Democratic-led states, the District of Columbia and the city of San Francisco filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts federal court on Tuesday challenging the constitutionality of President Donald Trump's executive order limiting birthright citizenship.

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Trump Installs New Prisons Chief, Revives Private Facilities

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump made sweeping changes to the criminal justice system in his first hours in office, including replacing the Federal Bureau of Prisons director brought in under the Biden administration and ending former President Joe Biden's plan to phase out privately run federal prisons.

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Biden Leaves Mixed Legacy On Criminal Justice Issues

By Marco Poggio

When he stepped into the White House in January 2021, former President Joe Biden brought with him an ambitious criminal justice agenda that aimed to satisfy both reformers and law enforcement advocates, but he never cleared that high bar, with a record of underappreciated successes and missed opportunities.

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'Waverly Two' Will Walk Free After Biden Commutation

By Rachel Rippetoe

Among the nearly 2,500 people for whom former President Joe Biden commuted sentences before he left office were Terence Richardson and Ferrone Claiborne, who were sentenced to life in prison in 2001 even though a federal jury found them not guilty of murder.

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Dentons' Ben Weinberg On Making An Impact With Pro Bono

By Marco Poggio

For over 16 years, Ben Weinberg has been shaping Dentons' pro bono program, looking for ways to connect the needs of local communities with the resources of a global legal powerhouse to make an impact.

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Many Attorneys Not Meeting ABA's 50-Hour Pro Bono Goal

By Sarah Martinson

While most attorneys have volunteered pro bono services at some point in their career, many lawyers are not meeting the American Bar Association's goal for every lawyer to provide 50 hours of pro bono work every year, and lack of time was the biggest discouraging factor, according to a recent report.

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New Joint Bar Task Force To Tackle Indigent Defense In NYC

By Andrea Keckley

The New York City Bar Association announced Monday that it has teamed up with the city's county bar associations to form a task force assessing the NYC Assigned Counsel Plan, which assigns lawyers to indigent people in criminal and family courts who can't be served by institutional legal service providers.

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Justices Mull Grammar In First Step Act Resentencing Case

By Phillip Bantz

The U.S. Supreme Court grappled with grammar-heavy arguments Monday over whether lighter sentences under the First Step Act should apply to defendants who were sentenced before the 2018 law was enacted but later resentenced after their original sentences were thrown out.

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High Court To Weigh Repeat Federal Prisoner Appeals

By Rachel Scharf

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear a Florida man's challenge to his 24-year bank robbery sentence, a case that aims to resolve a circuit split over whether federal prisoners can file multiple motions to vacate their convictions.

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Inmate's Case Over Tardy Appeal Notice Granted Certiorari

By Elliot Weld

The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear a case regarding the proper procedure for appealing a suit after the initial window for filing a notice closes and then is reopened, an issue largely affecting pro se litigants.

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Sex-Shaming Murder Conviction To Be Reviewed

By Katie Buehler and Ali Sullivan

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday revived claims from a woman on death row in Oklahoma that prosecutors unfairly sex-shamed her and relied on gender-based stereotypes to convince a jury that she had killed her estranged husband for insurance money.

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Justices Skeptical Of 'Moment Of Threat' Rule In Use Of Force

By Marco Poggio

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared inclined to reject a legal doctrine under which courts looking at a police officer's use of deadly force only need to consider the officer's perception of danger at the precise moment force was used.

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NY Coalition Fights For Kalief Browder Discovery Law

By Andrea Keckley

New York Legal Aid announced the formation of a statewide coalition Monday to defend the discovery reform law named for the late Kalief Browder, a young man whose three-year detention at Rikers Island without a trial made national headlines before he took his life in 2015.

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Fed. Court, Judges Beat Atty's Challenge To 'Gag Order' Rule

By Jack Karp

Sovereign immunity bars a Nashville civil rights lawyer from challenging a U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee rule barring attorneys from making "any extrajudicial statements" about cases pending in the district, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

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Perspectives

Felon Juror Exclusion Rationales Don't Hold Up To Scrutiny

After his felony conviction, President Donald Trump became one of 20 million-plus Americans who are banished from serving in our federal jury system, but the proffered justifications for excluding those with convictions from jury service are not supported by research, says James Binnall at California State University, Long Beach.

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