This is not your usual “eyewitness identification” piece. The authors’ idea – using an ophthalmologist as an expert — is different. Before the witness viewed the lineup or other identification process, did the police officers inquire whether the witness had a prescription for corrective lenses? This is an area lawyers may not be exploring.

The notion of liberatory love, which is rooted in empathy, understanding, and a commitment to social justice, holds the power to transform the way attorneys approach their work.

For incarcerated people, the conclusion of court-based litigation usually signals the end of all relationships with attorneys. However, people sentenced to a term of imprisonment continue to need lawyers. For example, they need assistance when corrections officials miscalculate their sentencing credit, and they need help seeking release when physical or cognitive decline leaves them disabled or on the brink of death.

How Depression Can Be a Ruthless Saboteur for the Criminal Defense Practitioner

Why are criminal defense lawyers especially prone to depression? What should lawyers do when their sixth sense tells them someone around them may be dangerously depressed?

Prosecutors hold the power to destroy reputations and revoke the personal liberties of any citizen, whether or not that citizen is guilty of anything. Such power should be used judiciously.

While she was growing up, Paige Medinger always knew that she wanted to help people. She decided during her junior year of college that becoming a criminal defense attorney was the right fit for her. Now she is a third-year law student, and her lifetime of fighting for clients’ rights is about to begin.

Prisons and jails in the United States are in crisis. Staff shortages and other chronic problems have resulted in institutions that are unsafe to live and work in for prisoners and correctional officers alike.

The trial of Elizabeth Holmes showed our criminal legal system at its best.

With a new administration taking office and congressional calls for abolition, society will again ask itself whether there is a place for the death penalty consistent with our values. There is not.

Defending a client is less a job than a siren call. Any defense lawyer who aspires to excellence is by necessity a zealot – despite that word’s negative connotations.

Facing Imprisonment in Tribal Courts

An indigent Native American who is charged in tribal court, facing a year in jail, with all the consequences of confinement — loss of employment, etc. — is not entitled to appointed counsel, only counsel at his or her own expense if the possible punishment is a year or less. Tova Indritz argues that there should be a right to appointed counsel for any indigent person facing imprisonment anywhere in the United States, including in tribal courts.