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Cartoon depicting a child welfare agent entering a home, without a judge's order, in the name of children's safety

Family Miranda: Expanding Due Process Rights to Child Welfare Investigations

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Texas’s 2023 “Family Miranda” law requires child welfare investigators to inform parents of their due process rights at the beginning of an investigation. The intent is to reduce unnecessary state intervention, trauma, and coercion. The law passed with bipartisan support and ultimately clarifies existing law, rather than creates new law. In this “Student Voices” blog, HLS student Julia Saltzman calls for a randomized controlled trial to determine the efficacy of the law in improving fairness and reducing unnecessary interventions.

Does Pretrial Detention Prevent Failure to Appear and New Criminal Activity?

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The U.S. has embraced a ‘tough on crime’ narrative since the 1980s, and it’s reflected in the tripling of the nation’s jail population since that time. Most of the increase in jail population growth, however, is due to those detained pretrial. The courts explain this as a necessity to deterring failure to appear and new criminal activity by the individual. The data offers a different argument.

Cartoon depicting cycle of pretrial detention and the social and economic costs on communities

The Cost of Waiting: Economic and Social Impacts of Pretrial Detention

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In 1987, the Supreme Court held that pretrial detention did not violate due process and is therefore constitutional. However, pretrial detention continues to raise humanitarian and justice concerns while also imposing serious and quantifiable costs on detained individuals, which, in turn, imposes economic and social costs on communities.

Cartoon depicting a soccer player being told by a ref to start using hands in the game.

Navigating Informed Consent: Challenges in Legal Research

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In the United States, federal regulations protect the autonomy of individuals participating in research. That protection often takes the form of insisting that a potential participant provides informed consent before they can be randomized to one or another treatment. Sometimes, however, it is possible to proceed without eliciting informed consent from study participants. This fourth “Ethics of RCTs in the Law” series blog posts discusses the complexities of the informed consent process and the ethical considerations associated with research in a legal setting.

Cartoon depicting an outdated mandate requiring a typewriter in order to file for divorce

Unveiling the Complexity: Divorce and Access to Justice

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Marriage in the U.S. typically requires a marriage license, payment of a nominal fee, and often a short waiting period from the license signing to marriage. Divorce, on the other hand, typically involves lawyers; courthouse visits; comparatively higher fees; and, in some cases, antiquated roadblocks just to implement this federal constitutional right. The result is that divorce can be an access-to-justice issue for low-income individuals who are faced with trying to pay for a lawyer they cannot afford or navigate unnecessarily complex divorce filing procedures on their own.  

Cartoon depicting an individual looking for specialized mental health court support but finding it closed to civil defendants

The Case for a Specialized Civil Mental Health Court

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While specialized “problem-solving” courts have become common, there is still no equivalent civil mental health court in Massachusetts to handle complex issues like civil commitment and involuntary psychiatric treatment. The gap exposes the potential for the Commonwealth to learn from other states leading reform of the civil judicial system in this area and to pilot such a court and evaluate its impact through a randomized controlled trial.

Cartoon depicting legal delays for involuntarily committed psychiatric patients with schizophrenia seeking treatment in Massachusetts

Involuntarily Committed Patients Face Legal Obstacles, Treatment Delays

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In Massachusetts, involuntarily committed psychiatric patients with schizophrenia often face systemic barriers to timely treatment from procedural inefficiencies that prioritize legal formalities over patient well-being.  To address this access to justice challenge, the Commonwealth could implement reforms to streamline the legal process while preserving patient rights.

graphic of hands with symbols of necessities

Mother Up Study Links Child Neglect, Poverty, and Guaranteed Income

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The Access to Justice Lab published a newly released study of Washington, D.C. mothers involved in Child Protective Services demonstrating that government-funded child welfare programs are effective in reducing child neglect cases by prioritizing economic support to overcome conditions caused by poverty.

Cartoon depicting a defendant getting lower bail because of the presence of a lawyer

When Defendants get Counsel at First Appearance…

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An individual’s First Appearance before a court in a criminal case has significant impacts on the defendant’s freedom and the costs that a criminal trial can bear on the defendant’s life, before it even begins. However, many states still begin the trial process without an offer of counsel. But what happens if defendants DO have counsel at First Appearances? 

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