WJI's daily reads for Oct. 27, 2021

WPR: Assembly puts off vote on criminalizing homelessness.

Under the legislation, temporary living on public property would become a Class C misdemeanor, with penalties of up to a $500 fine or 30 days in jail. It would also prevent homeless support organizations from receiving certain grants in full unless those groups can prove their efforts have helped people get permanent housing, a job or reduced the number of people experiencing homelessness multiple times.

Republican supporters have said the homelessness bill is a matter of public safety, but city officials, Democratic state representatives and workers for shelter and homelessness programs have condemned some of the bill's many provisions. Though many of those officials acknowledged the harsh realities of the state's housing market, some said the proposals would exacerbate ongoing housing problems rather than addressing them.

Governing: Racial impact statements can help combat disparity in criminal justice.

Business Insider: Federal judge says being president didn't exempt Trump from following Twitter's terms of service.

The Washington Post: The ugly origins of qualified immunity.

To fully grasp the court’s abdication of its responsibility here, it’s helpful to delve into the history of qualified immunity. Qualified immunity isn’t in the Constitution. It isn’t in the U.S. Code. It is judge-made law. It is judicial activism, by any definition of the term.

The Crime Report: How "bail advocates" helped reduce pre-trial racial disparities in Philadelphia.

In a paper published in the Indiana Law Journal, (Paul) Heaton, (director of the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School,) said the results of a Philadelphia pilot study that assigned “bail advocates” to work with public defenders in presenting the case for releasing defendants before trial showed that improving the quality of defense counsel could correct some of the flaws in the pretrial process that have made it a major contributing factor to high incarceration rates.

Research has shown that decisions on whether to grant bail have disproportionately impacted the poorest defendants, and result in unequal racial outcomes―launching many defendants on a path to recidivism.

“A growing body of high-quality research links pretrial detention to later adverse outcomes, including unemployment and recidivism,” Heaton wrote, noting that individuals in pretrial custody represent 65 percent of the nationwide jail population.

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