- New funding has been found to support a project that will provide representation to indigent persons facing deportation in New York City as detailed in this article . The Robin Hood Foundation has provided the support for the project, spearheaded by Judge Katzmann, which will recruit 25 recent law school graduates. The program follows this report published by the Cardozo Law Review which showed most detained immigrants in New York had no counsel at the time of the completion of their case.
- Ontario County has approved creation of a conflict defender office according to this report in the Finger Lake Times
- Public defenders should beware the unconscious effect of racism as they triage their cases warns this article in the Yale Law Journal. The authors caution that scientific evidence suggests it is likely that unconscious racial biases will lead to unfair assessments of evidence, defendant culpability, and willingness to accept punishment in cases involving minority clients when overloaded defenders are obliged to make rapid decisions about which cases to prioritize.
- There is new advice available for those interested in increasing their in-house research capacity in the form of a new publication from the NLADA. Called the Building In-House Research Capacity Toolkit, it reviews the skills, data and resources researchers need, considers possible advantages and pitfalls in collaborating with external researchers, gives examples of successful uses of research in the indigent defense field, and even provides examples of researcher job postings and websites. This report from the Justice Management Institute in 2012 documented the desire among defenders to be able to have access to data useful both for the management of their offices, and to advocate for improved funding.
- The first annual report of the The Sixth Amendment Center, an initiative of noted indigent defense experts David Carroll and John Mosher, was published recently. The report details the many activities of this Boston-based organization to assist in states contemplating reforms to indigent legal services provision, and bring attention to the issue nationally.
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