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Listed below is only a brief synopsis of some of the thousands of insightful articles published in Verdict magazine. To read the full articles, contact NCCLP. You can also join as a member, volunteer, become a subscriber or participate in a myriad of other ways to help advance our cause.
The Consumer Debt Crisis in the U.S.
David M. Katz, Esq.
October 2024
Consumer debt, including mortgages, credit card debt, personal loans, student loans and auto loans, increased by $184 billion in just the first quarter of 2024, to a record total of $17.69 trillion. The author discusses what drives the skyrocketing debt in this country and its impact on individuals and the broader economy; and offers some solution
Partisan Gerrymandering Thwarts Democracy
Erwin Chemerinsky
January 2025
Dean Chemerinsky argues that partisan gerrymandering — where the political party holding power draws election districts so as to create as many as possible with a majority of likely voters from that party — rigs elections and undermines democracy. He criticizes the U.S. Supreme Court for refusing to intervene by holding that cases challenging partisan gerrymandering raise “political questions that cannot be decided by the courts.”
Private Equity’s Role in the U.S. Housing Crisis
Racquel Brown, Esq.
January 2025
Private equity firms’ avaricious acquisition of housing stock in the U.S., especially after the 2008 subprime mortgage crash, has led to higher rents and decreased building maintenance; in the firms’ quest to maximize profit. As landlords, these firms are conducting wholesale evictions of the many tenants who cannot pay the increased rents. At the same time, the firms collude with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, quasi-government entities, to obtain financing to purchase properties in bulk at favorable rates. These actions are driving the U.S. housing crisis and rising homelessness.
500 Years, Give or Take
Elisa M. Tustian, Esq.
July 2024
Although persons born in Puerto Rico are U.S. citizens by law, the “Insular Cases” of 1901 defined Puerto Rico as an “unincorporated territory” to which full U.S. Constitutional guarantees do not necessarily apply, a status that continues to this day.
Justice for Traumatized Essential Workers
Geoffrey H. Schotter, Esq.
April 2024
Front-line essential workers often suffered debilitating PTSD from harsh and traumatizing workplace conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many sought, and were denied, relief under New York’s Workers’ Compensation Law. The author explains the history of legal rulings on these claims and urges courts in pending cases to award compensation for mental illnesses suffered by workers who put their lives at risk to come to work.
Fourth Amendment: Like a Bird on a Wire
By Michael Tigar, Esq.
January 2024
This excerpt from the author’s 2021 memoirs, Sensing Injustice: A Lawyer’s Life in the Battle for Change, traces the rise of illegal U.S. government wiretapping in the 1960s and 1970s. The author details the methods used (like FBI agents disguised as telephone repairmen installing bugs in targeted phones) and the various legal battles against unconstitutional practices, all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. This is the first of a two-part article.
Qualified Immunity and its Consequences
By Patrick Jaicomo, Esq.
October 2023
Qualified immunity shields government workers from suit, denying those harmed the constitutional remedies and the fundamental guarantees that most of us assume protect us from government abuse. Instead, those rights are little more than a parchment promise — words on a page with nothing to back them up.
Border Polices Under Trump and Biden
By Dennis Mulligan, Esq.
October 2023
In 2020, there were 281 million international migrants in the world or 3.6% of the global population. U.S. immigration policies to turn back asylum seekers at U.S. borders, beginning under the Trump administration and continuing under President Biden, violate U.S. obligations under refugee conventions and other post-WW II treaties which established international norms for the protection of persons fleeing harm in their own countries.
Have We Learned Anything Since The Jungle?
By Elana R. Levine, Esq.
July 2023
The COVID-19 pandemic showed the U.S. government both unable and unwilling to protect front-line workers. The article discusses working conditions for in-person workers during the pandemic, the increase in workplace injuries and deaths on the job and the government’s response.
Turnabout is Fair Play: The Power of Mass Arbitration
By Lynda J. Grant, Esq.
July 2023
“Mass arbitrations” are a recent plaintiffs’ bar pushback on mandatory arbitrations and class action waivers found in virtually every consumer agreement, which not only disfavor plaintiffs, but eliminate access to the courts. In place of class actions, corporations can face thousands of contemporaneously filed arbitrations, with corresponding steep fees. The article discusses corporate reaction and ongoing litigation in this changing area of law.
Protecting Minorities
By Erwin Chemerinsky, Esq.
January 2023
The U.S. Constitution's post-Civil War Reconstruction Amendments were designed to “create racial equality.” The Fourteenth Amendment in particular greatly expanded the power of the federal government over the states. The author argues that narrow interpretation of these amendments by the Supreme Court “overall, has done much more harm than good with regard to race.”
Civil Wrongs
By Michael E. Tigar, Esq.
January 2023
The author recounts that resisting racism has “pervaded almost every aspect” of his work and recalls how events in the Civil Rights Movement shaped his thinking. He said “You cannot count on the government to do its job, when that job involves acting on behalf of people’s rights. The initiative must come from a popular movement, which should not permit itself to be co-opted.”
Equal Protection and the Chinese Exclusion Act
Sidebar January 2023
The history of discriminatory laws in the U.S. against individuals emigrating from China goes back to the 1800s. The Chinese challenged these laws in more than 10,000 filings, including the landmark United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which established the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of U.S. citizenship by right of birth.
Death by Lethal Infection
By Salomon Zavala, Esq.
January 2023
Inadequate prison health systems have allegedly caused the deaths of thousands of prisoners during the COVID-19 pandemic. The author speaks to the events leading to his client’s death a short time before he was to be released from prison.
Anti-Boycott Laws Defy Our Constitution
By Alan Leveritt
July 2022
The author, founder of a newspaper in Little Rock, Arkansas, decries anti-boycott laws that require businesses seeking contracts with the State to sign a pledge, e.g. not to boycott Israel. He refused to sign this pledge on the grounds of Free Speech, although it cost him advertising. He points to the growing number of anti-boycott laws on such concerns as climate change, fossil fuels and firearms and observes that if this approach continues, no Constitutional right is secure.
The Day Doctrine Died: Private Arbitration and the End of Law
By Myriam Gilles, Esq.
July 2022
An increasing number of companies insert mandatory arbitration clauses into standard agreements with employees and consumers, requiring all disputes to go to private arbitration. For entire categories of cases, the development of common law doctrine through litigation ― where a judge makes a ruling that is applied to similar cases ― will cease. This, quite literally, represents the end of law as we know it.
I Can’t Breathe: Why the Courts Can’t Stop Police from Using Chokeholds
By Erwin Chemerinsky, Esq.
January 2022
Dozens of Americans, disproportionately men of color, have died from police use of chokeholds. The Supreme Court’s ruling in City of Los Angeles v. Lyons has blocked challenges to the use of the chokehold, thus enabling continuation of this lethal practice.
Lessons from Environmental Cooperation
Daniel J. Whittle, Esq.,
Jan 2022
For decades, scientists from the U.S. and Cuba have been collaborating to advance their collective interest in environmental protection and sustainability, on the premise that shared environmental problems require shared solutions.
Trial Monitoring, A Tool for Legal Recourse
By Zoë Bourne
October 2021
In 2011 an Ecuadorian Court awarded 30,000 indigenous plaintiffs $9.5 billion against Chevron Oil Company for decades of massive oil contamination of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Chevron’s response was to move its assets out of Ecuador and attack Steven Donziger, the lead Plaintiffs’ attorney, claiming that he had obtained the judgment through fraud. The case against Steven Donziger has sparked global outrage among attorneys, legal organizations, Nobel Prize winners, NGOs and members of the U.S. Congress, among others. This article discusses the Donziger case in the context of trial monitoring: a method to provide transparency and facilitate due process for those at risk of receiving an unfair trial
Freedom Riders in Montgomery
By Bob Zellner
October 2021
The author, a native Alabamian whose father and grandfather had been members of the Ku Klux Klan, became a charter member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and was personally recruited by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as an organizer in the Civil Rights Movement. In this article, Mr. Zellner recounts witnessing the brutal reaction of racist mobs the day that “Freedom Riders” rode interstate buses into Montgomery, Alabama to challenge segregation in public transportation. For a young Bob Zellner, it was a life-changing event which helped cement his enduring commitment to the fight for civil rights.