As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, courthouses across the country have adjusted to doing at least some of their business remotely—with litigants in one place, judges and lawyers in another. This episode of In Practice explores the pros and cons of video conferencing at initial appearances in adult criminal court from the perspective of defense practitioners.
Fines and fees are capturing millions of Americans in a cycle of poverty and justice-involvement. Various states across the country charge you for use of a public defender, your monthly parole meetings, even a jury trial. And that’s in addition to the fines attached to a conviction. Fall behind on your payments and you could end up in jail. New Thinking talks to a judge who’s come up with a new approach, and to Alexes Harris, a leading researcher on how fines and fees are used across the country.
The goal of Neighbors in Action is to build safer and healthier communities for all. Through our programming in the Brooklyn, New York, neighborhoods of Crown
Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant, we work to create communities where violence is neither needed nor wanted, neighbors have increased autonomy and decision-making capabilities, and the people who want to lead have the skills to do so.
In Misdemeanorland, Issa Kohler-Hausmann argues the lower courts are no longer primarily concerned with whether people actually committed the offense they’ve been accused of. Instead, the focus is on future behavior: upholding social order through managing and assessing—often over long stretches—everyone with the misfortune of entering Misdemeanorland. It's an argument that forces us to rethink what justice should look like in low-level cases.
On the occasion of its twentieth anniversary, an introduction to the origins, programming, and community impact of Neighbors in Action, formerly known as the Crown Heights Community Mediation Center. Neighbors in Action works to make the central Brooklyn neighborhoods of Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant safer and healthier for all.
At Legal Hand, our trained community volunteers provide free legal information, assistance and referrals to help members of low-income communities resolve issues that affect their lives, in areas like housing, family, immigration, divorce, domestic violence, and benefits and try to prevent problems from turning into legal actions.
Legal Hand seeks to help people resolve civil justice issues before they need lawyers and court intervention. In our latest New Thinking episode, learn about how the program works, how civil justice issues impact different communities, and why it can be hard to get basic legal information to the people who need it.
Research has shown that checklists improve consistency and reduce the likelihood that critical steps are overlooked in technical fields such as aeronautics and medicine. The current study explores whether similar tools might promote the consistency and quality of legal representation among often overburdened and under-resourced public defense attorneys.
This webinar focuses on child support and its intersection with the work of Price of Justice grantees to address the overuse of justice fines and fees. Jacqueline Boggess, executive director of the Center for Family Policy and Practice, provides an introduction to the child support system and discuss the impact of child support debt on justice-involved individuals. Price of Justice grantee sites then explore the implications for their projects through a discussion facilitated by the Center for Court Innovation.
Hosted in partnership with the Price of Justice initiative, this webinar showcases the Center for Court Innovation’s Civil Alternatives project and a new e-learning module that was developed and launched in New York City as part of the 2017 Criminal Justice Reform Act. This law created the opportunity for individuals to resolve their low-level summonses by completing community service instead of paying a fine. This is done through the e-learning module; an hour of experiential learning.
