A recent study from the Vera Institute of Justice studied the effect of legal representation on detained immigrants’ likelihood of being granted a release on bond, a temporary stay relief, or a guaranteed permanent relief from deportation. The findings point to better ways, and better timing, to support individuals to strengthen due process.
The premise of right-to-counsel programs is straightforward: if tenants are at risk of losing their homes, and landlords usually have lawyers, then tenants should have lawyers too. But do lawyers actually prevent evictions? And if they do, is it because they win legal arguments in court, or because they help tenants navigate the broader system surrounding eviction? Researchers conducted a randomized controlled trial to learn more.
Eight hundred families in Illinois–and the researchers working with them–are about to find out. With monthly cash gifts of varying denominations dependent on family size and local cost of living, participants of the EmPwR Study will gain firsthand knowledge of whether a year of guaranteed income will stave off child welfare involvement. HLS J.D. candidate Julia Saltzman examines the relationship between poverty and family regulation system involvement and shares details on the randomized controlled trial taking place in urban, suburban, and rural communities in Illinois.
In a Harvard Law Review article last June, three authors wrote about their empirical research on how judicial review of warrants work in practice and whether such submission and reviews of warrants offer a meaningful check on police power or simply a system of rubber stamps. While the data analysis proved to be complex in determining best practices, it revealed some troubling patterns.
Can we do anything about failure to appear in criminal cases? According to Alissa Fishbane, we can, and for once, what we can do is cheap and easy. Her research has shown that low-cost interventions such as redesigning summons and traffic tickets have been highly effective at reducing missed dates, resulting in fewer penalties for defendants, more efficient adjudication, and savings for the justice system as a whole.
