Child Litigants Need to Have Counsel

By Professor Kevin Lapp

This op-ed originally appeared in the Monday, May 13, 2019 edition of the Daily Journal

For the second time in three years, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals avoided answering the urgent issue of whether child respondents in immigration removal (deportation) proceedings have a due process right to counsel at government expense. The case, C.J.L.G. v. Barr, 2019 DJDAR 3782 (May 3, 2019), involved a Honduran adolescent who appeared in immigration court accompanied only by his mother. C.J.L.G. sought asylum based on his fear of persecution for being a member of a particular social group, a legal claim so complex that it regularly confounds attorneys and judges alike. He was also apparently eligible for special immigrant juvenile status (SIJS), but neither C.J.L.G., his mother, nor the immigration judge raised that form of relief at his hearing, and he was ordered deported. On appeal, C.J.L.G. argued that his hearing was unfair and that due process required that child litigants like him be provided counsel at government expense.

C.J.L.G.’s immigration hearing was all too usual. Each year, tens of thousands of minors appear without a lawyer in immigration proceedings, some as young as two and three years old. Data show that, unsurprisingly, unrepresented minors are significantly more likely to be ordered deported than represented minors. The government nevertheless insists that adversarial proceedings against unrepresented children comport with due process.

The fully briefed right to appointed counsel claim was presumably the reason the 9th Circuit chose to hear C.J.L.G. en banc. Yet, as it did three years ago, it avoided the issue. (In J.E.F.M. v. Lynch (2016), the 9th Circuit held in the context of a class action that there was no jurisdiction over a constitutional right to counsel claim raised by minor respondents.) Instead, the court ordered a new hearing because the immigration judge failed to inform C.J.L.G. of his apparent eligibility for SIJS. It then dropped a footnote to explain that because C.J.L.G. has since secured counsel, and will be represented on remand before the Immigration Court, it need not address the constitutional right to appointed counsel claim.

The 9th Circuit’s decision is certainly a victory for C.J.L.G. and other pro se children who may be eligible for SIJS. The court found error in his proceedings, and he now has an opportunity, aided by counsel, to fully present his case for relief. But to avoid the right to appointed counsel issue (again) is, in practice, to decide it. And it is to decide it in a way that necessarily leaves thousands of child litigants, who either cannot afford a lawyer or who have not lucked into pro bono counsel, to defend themselves against trained government prosecutors in proceedings that involve a notoriously complex area of law.

Strikingly, C.J.L.G.'s case demonstrates exactly why child respondents need lawyers to ensure the fairness of their proceedings. Recall that the 9th Circuit found that the immigration judge failed to inform C.J.L.G. of a possible form of relief as he was required to do. Neither the presence of a friendly adult nor the immigration judge’s duty to develop the record were sufficient safeguards. If C.J.L.G. had not secured counsel after he was ordered deported, the error in his case would have never come to light. He would have been just another child deported after an unfair hearing. Nevertheless, because of C.J.L.G.’s fortune in securing a lawyer, thousands of children who do not share his good luck will continue to go without a lawyer in proceedings that are just as likely as his to be unfair.

A Bargaining Zone for Miranda Waivers

By Professor Kevin Lapp

This post originally appeared on Prawsblawg.

There has been a lot of action recently in the world of juvenile confessions. Some of it has garnered nation-wide attention, like Brendan Dassey, the 16 year-old from the Netflix documentary series Making a Murderer, who is currently trying to convince a judge to release him after a federal appeals court (finally) found his confession to murder to have been coerced and involuntary. Less newsworthy, but just as important, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review a decision upholding as knowing, intelligent and voluntary a Miranda waiver by an abused and developmentally-delayed 10 year-old. In California, Governor Brown vetoed legislation that would have required counsel for those under 18 before custodial interrogation could begin.

Each of these developments occurred days or weeks after I submitted a paper that explores the state of the law regarding Miranda waivers by juveniles. Where others have convincingly argued that juveniles need (and perhaps the constitution demands) counsel before they can validly waive the 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, my paper considers whether interrogation law should incorporate a rule akin to contract law’s infancy doctrine and permit individuals to retract uncounseled Miranda waivers.

This exploration of contract law's relevance to criminal procedure has me considering whether there is a bargaining zone for Miranda waivers.

Clemency and Collateral Consequences

By Professor Kevin Lapp

This post originally appeared on Prawsblawg.

Back in May, a Loyola Law School student and I submitted a clemency petition to the Office of the Pardon Attorney (OPA) as part of President Obama's Clemency Initiative. Our client had received a 30 year sentence for a non-violent cocaine offense that would, today, likely come with a 10-12 year sentence. Our client had already served 19 years of the sentence. At the end of October, I received the amazing phone call from the OPA informing me that the President was signing the petition, and that our client's sentence was to be commuted, and would expire in Feb. 2017, sparing him 6-11 additional years in prison.

That Obama should sign thousands more such petitions before he hands over the Executive Office to an individual who does not believe in the redemption of anyone other than himself is an imperative of justice. Yet, despite this tremendous victory, the challenge that awaited our client upon release was not lost on him. He was now 52 years old, he possesses few 21st-century labor market skills, and--perhaps most daunting of all--he would still carry his criminal record with him wherever he went.

U.S. Dept. of Justice Focuses on Juvenile Justice

By Professor Kevin Lapp
 
This was originally posted on Juvenile Justice

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division has recently been focusing some significant attention on the administration of juvenile justice.

In 2012, it released a report on the Shelby County, Tennessee juvenile justice system, finding that Shelby County’s juvenile justice system failed to provide constitutionally required due process for those accused of delinquency and failed to provide equal protection under law for accused African-Americans. Later that same year DoJ announced an agreement that included a series of corrective measures.

Multiple Choice Exams are (a) good assessment tools, (b) bad assessment tools, (c) all of the above.

By Associate Professor Kevin Lapp

This post originally appeared on EvidenceProf Blog.

Multiple choice testing is a popular assessment format in Evidence courses, more popular in my experience in Evidence than in other courses. Some professors use it exclusively, while others mix multiple-choice testing with essay questions on their exams. There's good reason for using multiple choice testing in Evidence courses. For one, the MBE portion of the bar exam contains multiple choice Evidence questions, so doing so as part of a final exam helps prepare students for the bar exam format. In addition, multiple choice testing has been around, and is widely accepted as a credible format to assess student knowledge. Evidence is also a heavily rule-based class that lends itself to an assessment format that requires students to identify a single correct answer. Finally, multiple choice questions allow professors to assess more topics than can be squeezed into an essay question, reducing the chances that a student performs well on an exam because he happened to know the issues covered by the essay questions.

But there can be a large gap between good multiple choice questions and bad multiple choice questions. This post is about how those of us who do use multiple choice questions can know if we are doing it in a way that makes for good assessment. The credibility of our multiple choice questions as sound assessment tools is particularly important given the high stakes testing that goes on in so many law school classrooms. When the great bulk, if not the entire portion, of a student's grade hinges on a single 3 or 4 hour exam, it is our duty to take advantage of the available tools to ensure that our exams function as credible assessment tools.

In Teaching Evidence, Making the Case for Cases

By Associate Professor Kevin Lapp

I've previously stated my enthusiasm for the problem-based approach to teaching evidence. Embracing the use of problems necessarily means that my students are not reading a lot of cases. Indeed, the textbook that I use has only a few case excerpts that are longer than a paragraph, and does not contain a single case that is reproduced in its entirety. Despite my preference for using problems, I recognize that there are drawbacks to not assigning cases for reading. In this post, therefore, I want to push back against myself a bit and make the case for using judicial opinions in Evidence class.

First, though, a few brief thoughts on what I like about problems. One distinct advantage is that problems are shorter than judicial opinions. Instead of procedural history, or factual recitations, or statements of the governing law, problems get right to work, providing students with all the information that I want them to have in order to focus their attention on the things I want them to focus on (and nothing more). It's much cleaner to have a crafted problem that is one paragraph long than it is to have a 2 page case that includes facts that aren't relevant or important to the rule that the case discusses. Another advantage is that I craft problems that allow me to change the facts very easily to illustrate the critical elements and nuances of a particular rule's application. With cases, the fact set-up is often messier, and it can be harder to offer simple factual adjustments that might change the result or bring into play a particular foundational element of hearsay exception. Finally, presenting the students with problems, instead of cases, allows me to treat the material as a puzzle to be solved (as compared to judicial opinions, which are puzzles already solved).

But there are downsides to teaching by problems. Perhaps the biggest one I've identified thus far is that my students do not get the benefit of reading a judge's organized analysis of a particular legal issue. For all their warts (which themselves can be teaching tools), judicial opinions provide models for legal analysis. They typically start with the facts, outline the relevant law (including its rationale), and then apply the specific words of the law and the underlying rationales to the facts. It's often exactly what I want my students to learn how to do. And while our class discussions about problems involve the students identifying the relevant rule and its elements, and then making arguments about the proper application of the law to the facts, the result is rarely so clean. A student may jump right to the conclusion without explaining how she got there, a student may begin with a justification (I think it should be kept out because it's not reliable) without deciding whether it was even admissible, or a student may fumble with the specifics of the applicable rule. There are, of course, teaching techniques to deal with these situations, if not reduce their occurrence. But the legal analysis we conduct in class for a problem is rarely as organized as a judicial opinion.

And that's the biggest advantage I'm discovering to using judicial opinions. Having the students state and apply the law without reading cases leaves students without models for good legal analysis. Because good legal reasoning (be it writing or oral advocacy) comes not just from practice with problems, but also from reading and hearing good examples of legal analysis, one big benefit of assigning judicial opinions is that the students are able to see an organized application of a given rule to a set of facts. That this is done as the students are first getting to know the terms of a particular rule and its rationale has me convinced that reading cases is even more valuable.

There are plenty of others benefits to using cases, such as allowing me to introduce the students to individual judges (and thus remind them that the law is applied by humans who had prior experiences before they came to the bench, and who decided other cases, etc., etc.) and giving them authority that they can reference throughout the semester.

The upshot of this is that I've found myself slowly gathering case excerpts and assigning them as supplemental reading, not because I think the factual scenarios of the cases provide particularly excellent starting points for learning the rules (I almost universally think that my problems are more finely tuned as instruments of teaching the content of the law) but because I am recognizing the benefit that my students get from the example of the judge's analysis.

One question that lingers - is it better to have the students read 3-4 short cases, or 1 case with a richer discussion/analysis? Would it be better to find cases that I can assign in their entirety, or are case excerpts acceptable? As always, your insights are welcome.

The Importance of Writing Assignments in Evidence Courses

By Associate Professor Kevin Lapp

This is one of a series of guest posts on teaching Evidence at EvidenceProf Blog.

As I said before, Evidence strikes me as an ideal second-year course to incorporate skills exercises into the curriculum, so that students don't just learn the rules, but learn how practicing lawyers prepare for and resolve Evidence law issues. Aided by the problem-based approach of many Evidence textbooks, it's quite easy in the classroom to provide students with the facts of a case and some proposed testimony and to then have one or more students argue for the admissibility of the testimony while others argue for exclusion. This gets them to do the important work of applying the rule they've just learned, has the benefit of them doing so while in role as a lawyer with a particular goal, and ensures that they hear and consider both sides of the issue.

Yet, while many evidentiary issues arise in the middle of witness testimony, and require the quick-thinking objections and oral argument skills that can be developed via classroom discussion or exercises, a lot of evidentiary issues are resolved pretrial via motions in limine. And it is quite a challenge to include legal writing exercises in the Evidence course curriculum for a host of reasons. But I think it is a challenge that deserves to be confronted and overcome. Simply put, no student should leave an Evidence course without having drafted a short motion in limine.
There are several reasons for including a motion in limine assignment (beyond the fact that they are a important component of actual practice).

With Evidence, Balancing Coverage and Class Time

By Associate Professor Kevin Lapp

This is one of a series of guest posts on teaching Evidence at EvidenceProf Blog.

A comment by Frederick Moss to a prior post raised the important question of coverage in an Evidence course. Even for those with the luxury of 4 credit hours each week, there simply isn't enough class time to cover the material and accomplish all that might be accomplished in a law school course.  I'm happy to entertain thoughts on what content gets bumped when the clock is running out - burdens of proof; trial mechanics; the best evidence rule; authentication; scientific evidence. Personally, I haven't yet found room for a one-hour lesson on the limits of eyewitness testimony, which I would love to add to my course.

But coverage is not just a content issue. As the push for more practical training continues (a push I endorse), there is no reason for doctrinal courses to ignore practice skills. Indeed, in these leaner times, doctrinal courses may be the best place to insert practical training into the curriculum. And in my mind, the Evidence course is a perfect place for law school to include lawyering skills alongside the learning of fundamental doctrine. I'm trying to incorporate some skills mini-exercises throughout my course (such as in-role oral arguments in class, and short writing assignments akin to motions in limine), but making time for those requires bumping topics that I already decided couldn't get bumped.

DNA, crime fighting and the Fourth Amendment

By Associate Professor Kevin Lapp

On Feb. 26, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Maryland v. King, a case that Justice Alito called "the most important criminal procedure case this Court had had in decades." The case involves the constitutionality of warrantless, involuntarily DNA collection from individuals who have been arrested for a felony, but not yet charged or convicted. It is uncontested that DNA collection constitutes a search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. This case asks whether compelling such searches in the absence of a warrant, and the absence of a criminal conviction, is reasonable.

Maryland, together with 27 other states and the federal government, has statutorily mandated law enforcement to collect a DNA sample from certain individuals upon arrest. The DNA extraction happens not because the state has any articulated suspicion whatsoever that the search will produce evidence of criminality. Were that so, the state could get a warrant to compel a DNA sample. Instead, the law requires arrestees to submit to DNA collection (typically by a buccal swab) based merely on the fact of the arrest. It is done so that law enforcement can analyze the DNA sample and compare it to the thousands of DNA profiles already in state and federal databases, in the hopes that the arrestee's DNA will match as-yet unidentified DNA evidence related to unsolved crimes.

Such "suspicionless" searches are generally unreasonable. Indeed, they are precisely the kinds of searches that the Fourth Amendment was intended to stamp out when the Founding Fathers made it part of the Bill of Rights. But the lure of an effective crime-fighting technology has proved irresistible to many courts asked to rule on the constitutionality of compelled, warrantless DNA collection from individuals upon arrest.

Supreme Court Weighs Immigration Consequences of Misdemeanor Conviction

By Associate Professor Kevin Lapp

Moncrieffe v. Holder, argued in mid-October before the United States Supreme Court, involves a non-citizen who pled guilty in Georgia state court to misdemeanor possession with intent to distribute 1.3 grams of marijuana (about half the weight of a penny) with no evidence that he received any money in exchange for drugs. Federal law likewise considers possession with intent to distribute such a small amount of marijuana without remuneration to be a misdemeanor offense. Knowing those two things, you'd probably puzzle at the notion that the government is seeking to classify Moncrieffe as an "aggravated felon" for purposes of deporting him. But in the Wonderland world of immigration law, that is just what is happening.

The issue in Moncrieffe v. Holder is whether Moncrieffe's state misdemeanor drug possession offense constitutes a "drug trafficking aggravated felony" under federal law. Longstanding precedent, and recent Supreme Court case law, says that courts should apply what is called the categorical approach to answer the question. That approach involves determining the minimum conduct that is necessarily established by the state conviction, and prohibits looking into anything behind the conviction, such as underlying facts or possible alternative offenses that could have been charged. If the minimum conduct of the state crime is necessarily equivalent to a felony under federal narcotics law, then even a state misdemeanor conviction becomes an "aggravated felony" for immigration purposes. If it is not necessarily a federal felony (because the state crime captures conduct that could be either a federal felony or misdemeanor), then the categorical approach says that it is not an aggravated felony.

Moncrieffe's state misdemeanor marijuana offense does not require proof of any minimum amount of marijuana, nor does it require proof of remuneration. As such, it criminalizes the social sharing of small amounts of marijuana as well as the distribution of larger amounts. Because the state crime encompasses conduct that would clearly be a federal misdemeanor, Moncrieffe argued that the categorical approach means that it is not necessarily equivalent to a federal felony and should not be considered an aggravated felony. The upshot is that he remains deportable, but has an opportunity to seek relief from deportation.