Court Happenings

 

Record number of attorneys step up during the pandemic to provide hours of free legal help

The DC Court of Appeals today ordered the temporary emergency amendments to D.C. App. Rule 46, which applied to the October 2020 and February 2021 bar examinations, extended so that they will also apply to the July 2021 DC bar examination. On February ...

The DC Court of Appeals is considering putting case documents online to further access to justice for the community, not only during the pandemic, but also to make it easier to access public court documents in the future. The Court has published a notice requesting public comment on a proposal, with comments due by March 12.

The DC Court of Appeals' Committee on Admissions announced that it will be upgrading its application system in late April, which will require a two-week pause in acceptance of applications. The new system will have several advantages.

It has been a year since D.C. Superior Court’s misdemeanor courtrooms closed. With the exception of domestic violence charges, almost no one is confined at the D.C. Jail for a misdemeanor today. This experiment in “decarceration” is the result of police, prosecutors and judges seeking to not prosecute or cage petty offenders during a deadly pandemic. Although this effort began in response to covid-19, the lessons learned reach well beyond today’s crisis. It turns out these prosecutions are unnecessary and do more harm than good. When the pandemic threat ends, this policy should not. The U.S. attorney’s office should stop criminally prosecuting nonviolent misdemeanors.