News

The State Bar of Michigan recommended that judges rarely dig into a lawyer's reasons for withdrawal from a case and that lawyers concerned about mental incapacity of a client should ask the client to submit to an evaluation, in the bar's first pair of ethics opinions of the year (…

The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to examine the constitutionality of a criminal contempt conviction for disbarred human rights lawyer Steven Donziger that was obtained by court-appointed prosecutors, prompting a dissent from Justice Neil Gorsuch, who decried the broken "constitutional…

Gov. Josh Shapiro urged members of the Philadelphia Bar Association on Wednesday to support dedicating $10 million of his $44 billion budget proposal to end Pennsylvania's distinction as being the only state to not provide state-level funding to public defenders (…

Man calls 911 to report that a store clerk pulled a gun on him, threatened him, and taunted him with racial slurs. When Saginaw, Mich. police arrive, they arrest the man(!) him for filing a false police report. He spends 18 days in jail before being released and all charges against him are…

Former federal inmate, a devout Muslim, sues under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, alleging that when he would try to perform his required daily prayers during shift breaks at the prison commissary where he worked, prison guards—who also said "There is no good Muslim but a dead Muslim"…

Fourth Circuit (2021): This petitioner's South Carolina state court death sentence was defective because his trial counsel failed to present mitigating evidence during sentencing. We relied on evidence introduced in his federal habeas proceedings.…

President Joe Biden presented the National Humanities Medal to Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson at the White House on Tuesday, March 21, 2023.

Mr. Stevenson is a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated, and…

President Joe Biden presented the National Humanities Medal to Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson at the White House on Tuesday, March 21, 2023.

Mr. Stevenson is a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated, and…

Under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), a court is authorized to grant a reduction in sentence, commonly referred to as “compassionate release,” if three requirements are met. First, the offender must exhaust administrative remedies in BOP. Second, the offender must demonstrate “extraordinary and…

Clarence Earl Gideon, a Florida drifter who spent time in and out of prisons for nonviolent crimes, was an unlikely individual to help redefine a criminal defendant’s right to counsel 60 years ago in the Supreme Court case Gideon v. Wainwright (…