National

Rep. Sanchez: Factory Shows Immigration Success

November 2, 2015 By CCM Staff

As originally posted in the Huffington Post.

With immigration emerging as a pivotal issue in the 2016 presidential election, everyone from Donald Trump to Pope Francis is embracing rhetoric that advances their positions. So, whether you are a brick in the wall or a wrecking ball, it seems you either want to build a wall to keep people out, or build policies to let people in.

Bi-Partisan Trials Allege Corruption In New York

October 28, 2015 By CCM Staff

You have to admit that two looming corruption trials in New York are at least bi-partsan. One will be of a Democrat, New York’s former Assembly Speaker, Sheldon Silver (slated to begin Nov. 2) and another is of a Republican, former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, two weeks later. The Wall Street Journal says the trials are “.. set to expose the inner workings of a cast of characters that stretches from the state capital to Nassau County to Columbia University, and to some of the country’s biggest law and real-estate firms.”

Both men, charged in totally separate cases, are both charged with schemes in which they are alleged to have used their public offices for personal gain. Silver is accused of raking in millions in civil court-related referrals as part of a process where he pushed state money to a clinic in return for that clinic sending asbestos-cancer victims to his law firm, which has not been accused of doing anything wrong.

It will be the stuff of New York litigation legend. See the WSJ coverage here: Albany Braces for Corruption Trials

Filed Under: Cases, Community, National Tagged With: Albany, asbestos, New York Assembly Speaker, Sheldon Silver

First Product Liability Lawsuit May Challenge Marijuana Industry Growth

October 21, 2015 By CCM Staff

The LA Times Reports, “The list of ingredients on a LivWell container includes pesticides. The company says they are safe. (Aaron Ontiveroz / Denver Post)” in its 10/8/15 “A first for the marijuana industry: A product liability lawsuit” article.

You knew this was just a matter of time. A legal-marijuana user has filed a product liability lawsuit against a cannabis company alleging use of harmful substances in their production process.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the attorney representing the 24-year-old medical marijuana user is seeking “class action” status for the litigation and expects more clients to join the lawsuit.

Read about the milestone here: A first for the marijuana industry: A product liability lawsuit

Filed Under: Cannabis in the Courts, National Tagged With: cannabis, Civil Courts, marijuana, medical cannabis, medical marijuana, pot, product liability, recreational marijuana

NY Times Opinion Piece Makes ‘Civil Gideon’ Argument

October 19, 2015 By CCM Staff

Image published as part of a New York Times OpEd, “How to Fight Homelessness” published 10/19.

A New York Times op-ed piece by a NY City Council member and a homeless advocate is making the case for legal representation for some civil cases. It is an argument about reducing the homeless population. They note that something like 80 percent of people facing eviction remain in their home if they have an attorney. They say that the advantage of legal representation is such that some landlords just don’t bother following through if the tenant has an attorney.

Council Member Mark D. Levine, representing the city’s Seventh District and Mary Brosnahan, who is president and chief executive of the Coalition for the Homeless, continue making a financial argument: “It costs about $2,500 to provide a tenant with an attorney for an eviction proceeding, while we spend on average over $45,000 to shelter a homeless family.”

Read their argument here: How to Fight Homelessness

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: access to justice, Civil gideon, civil law, eviction, homelessness, landlord tenant law, tenant

Google Wins Appeal Decision On Scanning Copyrighted Books

October 16, 2015 By CCM Staff

Google has won an appeals decision on its controversial book-scanning practice. New York based U.S. Circuit Court Judge Denny Chin ruled that the practice is “transformative” and does not violate copyright. The Google case hinges on not making the books totally available online. Rather, it allows the material to be searched and provides “snippets.” Thus, the argument goes, the practice is protected by the same “fair use” provisions that allow a book reviewer to use snippets in their reports.

NPR’s report on the decision notes that “… Google began scanning books back in 2004. Many of the works were by living authors. The Authors Guild took legal action against Google, demanding $750 for each book it scanned. Google estimated that it would have cost the company $3 billion.” Google also predicts the service could make older and out-of-print books more relevant.

An appeal to the U.S. Supreme court is promised by the authors and others seeking to protect their work. They argue that, because Google sells ads next to those “snippets” of books, it profits from their work without compensating the copyright holders. See the NPR report here: Judge: Google’s Book Copying Doesn’t Violate Copyright Law

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: copyright, Google, NPR, US Circuit Court

Texas To Rule On Civil Fees Issue

October 13, 2015 By CCM Staff

The Texas Supreme Court is expected to hear a case this week that might clarify when local courts can force poor plaintiffs to pay fees. The Texas Tribune news website explains that”… in 2012, six plaintiffs from Tarrant County sued the local district court clerk for charging them court fees even after they filed affidavits of their indigent status — also known as ‘pauper petitions’ — when they filed for divorce. But the clerk says final divorce decrees require that each party pay its share of the court costs.”

The Tribune report also placed the issue in some context: “… court costs and fines surfaced as one of the more pressing criminal justice issues in the aftermath of the police shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. While a grand jury cleared the officer, Darren Wilson, of criminal wrongdoing, a subsequent U.S. Department of Justice report revealed how the police department in Ferguson wrote more tickets for mostly poor African Americans than any other ethnic group. Following the shooting of Brown, federal investigators found that Ferguson relied on municipal ticketing and fines as a revenue generator for the city’s budget.”

Read the Tribune’s fine report here: Indigent Court Fee Case Goes Before Supreme Court, by Terri Langford

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: access to justice, Civil gideon, court budget, court costs, court fees, Ferguson, indigent legal services, Michael Brown, minority rights, municipal fees, Texas Supreme Court

NY Mayor Predicts Legal Right To Civil Lawyers

October 8, 2015 By CCM Staff

The Wall Street Journal reported (9/29/15) that New York Mayor Bill de Blasio sees “a day not too far away when indigent defendants have a legal right to a lawyer in civil cases.”

He admits that local jurisdictions will need federal help to make it happen, but New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is predicting that he can “see the day” when indigent defendants have a legal right to a lawyer in civil cases. The mayor was speaking at one of a series of hearings led by New York’s chief appeals judge on the topic of civil legal services. His comments illustrate that New York continues to lead the nation in providing civil attorneys for life-changing cases like eviction and child custody disputes.

The Wall Street Journal is among those reporting on the civil Gideon effort, backgrounding that “… in the landmark 1963 case Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court recognized an indigent defendant’s right to an attorney in a criminal trial. But the high court has never extended the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of counsel to civil cases. The story quotes New York State Court of Appeals Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, who has led the conversation: “We are talking about the necessities, or essentials, of life… we mean the roof over someone’s head, we mean their physical safety, their livelihoods, the well-being of their families, entitlement issues.”

Check out the effort here: New York Mayor Says Right to Counsel in Civil Cases is a Good Idea but Requires Federal Help

Filed Under: Border Kids, National, Profiles, Refugee Children Tagged With: Bill de Blasio, Border Kids, GIDEON V. WAINWRIGHT, immigration, INDIGENT DEFENSE, New York City

Most Immigration Judges Can Retire Now If They Want

October 5, 2015 By CCM Staff

With a Sept. 30 deadline passed, more than half of the United States 247 immigration judges, staffing 58 courts nationwide, are eligible to retire. This as the nation faces an immigration courts backlog of more than 450,000 cases. The Los Angeles Times offers a truly alarming look at the situation, starting with outlining that some judges – who are not actually federal judges but employees of the Justice Department – preside over thousands of cases.

The LAT also notes that “… the U.S. attorney general appoints immigration judges. Officials have already started ‘an aggressive hiring process,’ said Kathryn Mattingly, an immigration court spokeswoman. They have hired 18 judges, five more will start this fiscal year, and they plan to hire an additional 67, she said. Last fiscal year, about 100 judges were eligible to retire, but only 13 did, she said.” But the paper quotes current judges lamenting how much more difficult working conditions have become.

Read the story here: As immigration judges’ working conditions worsen, more may choose retirement

Filed Under: Border Kids, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: access to justice, Border Kids, court rationing, immigration, immigration reform, Judges, judicial retirement

Huffington Post Documents How Bad Civil Courts Rationing Is

October 1, 2015 By CCM Staff

Rationing justice, civil and criminal, begins with overburdened courts. And Huffington Post just released well-researched report on just how bad it’s become on a federal level, with more than 60 judgeships going unfilled and pleas for more help being ignored by the U.S. Congress. In some cases, judges are handling hundreds more cases than “normal” while pushing cases further and further away, threatening anyone’s hopes of achieving justice.

The report explains: “The Huffington Post talked to half a dozen federal judges about how court vacancies and the lack of new judgeships affect their workloads. All of them said they feel like they’re underwater and desperately need more judges, but at the same time, they aren’t comfortable calling out Congress for failing to do its job. Many didn’t feel it appropriate for a judge to weigh in on legislative or political matters. So their situations don’t change.”

It includes: “For the most part, we’ve just resigned ourselves that this is our fate and there’s nothing we can do about it,” said Judge Morrison England Jr., the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, which includes O’Neill’s Fresno division. “We’ve complained. We’ve begged. We’ve cajoled. We’ve done everything you can humanly do to try to get additional judgeships.” Yahoo adds that the Fresno division is among the hardest hit in the country, and even getting the allotted judges would not meet caseload demand.

Brace yourself and read the story.

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: Article III Judges, Federal Judges, Judicial Nominations, Judicial Vacancies, Must Reads, Obama Judges, Obama Judicial Nominations, Senate Confirmations, Senate Judicial Nominations, Senate Nominations

VICE News Looking Hard At Migrant Family Lockups

September 30, 2015 By CCM Staff

The VICE media network has made a living off covering stories under-reported by mainstream (or, more accurately, “more mainstream”) media, and it is focusing on American jails this week. Mostly that is going to involve criminal lockups, but the VICE News is reporting on the family lockups facing a federal judge’s order to release families – and how the government is likely to work around that order.

The report notes what other have missed: “With tens of thousands of migrants flooding into Europe in recent months, it’s easy to forget that the US faced its own refugee crisis last summer when scores of children and mothers bolted from Central America amid heightened gang and drug violence. Desperate for a safe haven, the families mounted buses and trains through Mexico and then poured across the Texas border, seeking political asylum.” To that we would add: Last summer? How about now?

VICE gives some context: “… to combat the influx, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched an “aggressive deterrence” strategy last July designed to discourage more people from coming. The solution, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson announced, was to lock up Central American moms and kids as they fought their asylum cases in court. Previously, DHS did not detain such families, but rather allowed them to pay a small bond as an assurance they would show up to their court dates.

The new DHS strategy spawned a massive, long-term family detention system for Central American people seeking asylum in the US. The agency contracted the nation’s two biggest private prison companies to open facilities in southern Texas that hold about 3,000 people combined and cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to operate. Many families have spent seven or eight months in detention while awaiting their day in court.”

Check out what very likely is going to happen next here.

Filed Under: Border Kids, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: asylum, asylum seeker, family detention center, immigration, immigration reform, refugee, Refugee Crisis