The National Pulse

Student interest in immigration law rises with recent political developments

The legal and political furor set off by the travel ban and related orders has had a profound impact on U.S. law schools. Interest in immigration law is surging, and schools are ramping up programs and staffing to meet soaring demand from students and immigrants.

Nov 1, 2017 1:35 AM CDT

Facial recognition technology helps nab criminals—and raises privacy concerns

The growing deployment of facial recognition technology is raising alarms among civil libertarians, who worry that the capability to identify people based solely on their appearance will erode privacy. And just how accurate is it?

Oct 1, 2017 3:20 AM CDT

Attorney hopes to import the best practices of European prisons to the United States

Lawyer Donald Specter, executive director of the Berkeley-based Prison Law Office, was blown away by prisons in Germany and the Netherlands. For starters, they were physically different—built to resemble life on the outside. Inmates had their own rooms and, in some cases, were allowed to cook in communal kitchens.

Oct 1, 2017 3:10 AM CDT

National Pulse: Prison Pays

Edward Kenzakoski was 17 when he was caught in possession of drug paraphernalia. Unfortunately for Kenzakoski, he lived in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, and landed before Judge Mark Ciavarella. While a typical outcome for a juvenile in this situation was probation, Ciavarella sentenced Kenzakoski to a month at the privately operated…

Sep 1, 2017 2:20 AM CDT

National Pulse: Stifling Speech

Government officials removed a high school student’s painting from the U.S. Capitol building earlier this year, contending that its message was anti-police and inappropriate. The student and his congressional representative objected, arguing that the government engaged in impermissible viewpoint discrimination by censoring the artwork. The government countered that removing the…

Sep 1, 2017 1:55 AM CDT

Ringling Bros. closure hasn’t stopped advocates from trying to ban other performing circus animals

For the animals that performed for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, the show won’t go on. But the operators of dozens of circuses around the country still featuring animals can expect advocates to continue pushing for new laws to prevent abuse or ban such acts altogether.

Aug 1, 2017 1:30 AM CDT

Lawyers volunteered for what may have been the largest pro bono project ever

Over Clemency Project 2014’s lifespan of less than three years, Obama commuted the sentences of 1,705 prisoners, 894 of whom were represented by CP14 volunteer attorneys. Those attorneys—almost 4,000 of them—had about 2½ years to process 36,000 applications. Despite its relatively short timeline, it might be the largest pro bono project in American history.

Aug 1, 2017 1:25 AM CDT

Nonprofits’ legal and tech support help resolve housing disputes

A new cadre of tech nonprofits, law school programs and government agencies around the country rethinking how people interact with housing court. In New York, nonprofits are experimenting with new hardware and software to help pro se litigants collect admissible evidence. In Massachusetts, a coalition is proposing to redesign housing court from the ground up.

Jul 1, 2017 1:45 AM CDT

Who’s to blame when self-driving cars crash?

The law, as it stands now, is simple. Human beings cannot delegate driving responsibility to their cars. In self-driving cars, a human must be ready to override the system and take control. But this rule has to be updated, according to the NHTSA’s September 2016 report on autonomous vehicles.

Jul 1, 2017 1:40 AM CDT

Changes in criminal procedure rule could expand the government’s investigative net

Leslie Caldwell, then the head of the DOJ’s Criminal Division, argued last November that anonymizing technologies such as Tor make it nearly impossible to know where a computer is located for the sake of a warrant application, which “makes it unclear which court—if any—an investigator is supposed to go to with a search warrant application when investigating anonymized crime.”

Jun 1, 2017 3:30 AM CDT

Paying for Free Speech: Proposed laws would regulate public protests

“We are certainly seeing an upsurge in social activism, from protesting in the streets and at airports to a huge increase in people contacting government representatives, attending town hall meetings and using social media to organize,” says Traci Yoder, director of education and research for the National Lawyers Guild in New York City. As a result, legislators in nearly 20 states have responded with a flurry of bills that increase penalties for protesters, ban the wearing of masks, charge for police protection and even immunize drivers who hit protesters with their cars.

Jun 1, 2017 2:50 AM CDT

Sharing isn’t caring when small businesses skirt civil rights laws

If courts agree that businesses in the “sharing economy” are technology companies rather than sellers of services—and can invoke arbitration clauses in their terms of service—users of those businesses may have no recourse against civil rights violations.

May 1, 2017 2:20 AM CDT

Inaccurate leads from IP addresses prompt police to serve warrants on innocent people

The advent of proxy servers and mobile access to the internet has made IP addresses less reliable for law enforcement investigating online crimes.

May 1, 2017 2:10 AM CDT

Supreme Court considers 3 First Amendment cases this term

The First Amendment takes a leading role before the U.S. Supreme Court this term. A case decided Wednesday, along with two others, could impact a slew of important free speech principles, including commercial speech, the government speech doctrine, online privacy, the right to receive information and ideas, speech vs. conduct and the viewpoint discrimination principle.

Apr 1, 2017 3:20 AM CDT

When is someone too stoned to drive? The question is trickier than you’d think for courts to answer

There is no clear scientific consensus when it comes to smoking pot and driving. And few of the tools police officers have long relied on to determine whether a driver is too drunk to drive, such as the Breathalyzer, exist for marijuana.

Apr 1, 2017 3:10 AM CDT