ACSBlog

by Reuben Guttman, Founding member, Guttman,Buschner & Brooks PLLC

*This piece was originally posted on Huffington Post.

There is a scene in the movie Private Parts – the life and career of Howard Stern – where NBC officials, committed to dumping the shock jock, check out the latest ratings and learn, to their dismay, that the DJ’s popularity has rocketed. Pouring through the data, they find that the “number one reason” people tune into Stern is because they are waiting to hear what he will say next.

For all the time that Donald Trump spent on the Stern show, this may be the one lesson he learned. From North Korea’s “rocket man” to “crooked Hillary,” and a dash of Ryan and McConnell bashing, people tune in to this President to hear what he will say or tweet next. For their part, the members of the news media seem to fixate on Trumpian commotion.

by Emily Olson-Gault, director, American Bar Association Death Penalty Representation Project and Misty C. Thomas, director, American Bar Association Death Penalty Due Process Review Project

*Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only, as the opinions expressed in this post are the authors’ personal views.

In one week, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Texas death row prisoner Carlos Ayestas to decide whether his federal appeals attorneys should be afforded basic resources to investigate their client’s background and mental health. This should seem obvious, as we know that these investigations are often the only way to uncover new evidence of wrongful convictions or other constitutional violations. However, the courts below have denied Mr. Ayestas investigative resources critical to developing his defense because he could not prove in advance the very claims he sought to investigate. If the lower court’s decision sounds confusing and circular, that’s because it is. It is also an outlier practice that effectively denies poor people access to justice in the most serious and complex cases.