Free Republic

DETROIT - President Joe Biden plans to take executive action Tuesday to ensure minorities, low-income Americans and others have better access to quality legal representation after services dwindled during the Trump administration. Biden will sign a memorandum directing the Department of Justice to restore key functions of the shuttered Access to Justice Office and to reestablish the White House Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable. The plans are laid out in a presidential memo first shared with The Associated Press. The pandemic “has further exposed and exacerbated inequities in our justice system” as legal services were curtailed, Biden wrote. He added that...

Poor New York City immigrants who otherwise would have faced the complicated immigration system with its threat of deportation on their own will now get legal representation to help them in a program advocates say is the first of its kind in the country and one they hope the federal government will ultimately take on. The New York Immigrant Family Unity Project will cover all eligible immigrant city residents detained in the system and appearing in immigration courts in New York City or the New Jersey cities of Elizabeth and Newark. Lawmakers approved $4.9 million for the initiative as part...

Needs more lawyers First the taxpayers pay for the public defenders who will keep the illegal aliens from being deported. Then they’ll pay for the illegal aliens. Then they’ll pay for their public defenders on their next appearance in court on drunk driving, rape or burglary charges.What’s not to like about that? Every year, tens of thousands of people appear in immigration court to fight deportation orders without a lawyer to assist them. Many are poor and adrift, unable to speak English or understand the laws determining their fate.Were indigent immigrants to face prosecution in the nation’s federal criminal...

Saddam Hussein’s trial for crimes against humanity began before the Iraqi Special Tribunal on October 19, 2005. On November 5, 2006, the former Iraqi dictator was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. Hussein’s appeal was rejected on December 26, 2006 and he was ordered executed within 30 days. On December 30, 2006, Hussein was hanged. The Iraqis bungled the hanging, but justice was carried out in less than 15 months.Compare Hussein’s trial – and remember, he had the blood of tens of thousands of people on his hands – with the trial of GA rape suspect, Brian Nichols,...

MORELIA, Mexico — A public defender died of his injuries today after being shot by inmates who took a group of lawyers hostage near the central Mexican city of Morelia, bringing the death toll in the incident to five, authorities said. Ulises Montanez, 28, was shot in Saturday's standoff. Three other lawyers and an inmate also died in the hostage-taking and subsequent police raid. Prison Director Rogelio Garcia said officials were investigating Sunday how the inmates obtained .357-caliber Magnum handguns at the Mil Cumbres prison, which holds 2,000 prisoners. On Friday, four inmates took a total of 14 public defenders...