WJI's daily reads for Dec. 21, 2021

WDJT: Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul joins amicus brief in support of DACA.

“DACA has created opportunities for hundreds of thousands of people,” said Attorney General Josh Kaul. “I’m proud to stand in support of this enormously successful program that has benefited communities across the country.”

According to a release from the AG Kaul's office, the policy has enabled hundreds of thousands of grantees to enroll in colleges and universities, complete their education, start businesses that help improve our economy, and give back to our communities as teachers, medical professionals, and entrepreneurs.

Jacobin: How dark money bought Amy Coney Barrett's seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

The New York Times: This bill could save the lives of formerly incarcerated people.

The Medicaid Re-entry Act, one of the many policy proposals thrown into limbo with the collapse of the Build Back Better Act this weekend, seeks to smooth this transition. The legislation would clear the way for states to use Medicaid to provide coverage for inmates up to 30 days before the inmates’ scheduled release. Currently, a provision of the Social Security Act known as the Medicaid inmate exclusion prohibits any federal health coverage for inmates of jails, prisons and detention centers. (There is a narrow exception for those requiring an outside hospital stay of more than 24 hours.)

Brennan Center for Justice: The right to an attorney: Theory v. practice.

Few people realize, however, that their constitutional right to a lawyer is limited in a number of significant ways. When the Supreme Court first recognized a constitutional right to counsel in 1963 in its landmark ruling in Gideon v. Wainwright, the justices did not require states to provide any particular remedy or procedure to guarantee that indigent defendants could fully exercise that right. They left the details to the states and, predictably, some states took the guidance more seriously than others.

Many criminal defendants are accused of relatively minor crimes that don’t trigger a right to counsel. Other suspects are accused of serious crimes in jurisdictions that have such poor indigent defense systems that the legal representation afforded them is ineffective or even worthless due to underfunding and lack of support from legislators.

Courthouse News Service: Minor league teams challenge baseball's anti-trust exemption.

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