MSU study: Low-income earners 30 percent less likely to have cases heard by U.S. Supreme Court

Source: MLive.com

EAST LANSING - New Michigan State University undergraduate research on the U.S. Supreme Court agenda setting suggests bad news for prisoners hoping to appeal their cases.

MSU political science/pre-law senior Sydney Hawthorne found paupers -- defined as low-income individuals, who often can't afford legal services such as filing petitions --are 30 percent less likely to have their cases heard.

“My research question was, ‘what influences the Supreme Court’s decision to grant or deny review of a case?’” said Hawthorne, of Grand Blanc. “There are thousands of cases each year that want to get reviewed before the Supreme Court, so how do they beat the odds?”

Last week, Hawthorne was named the grand prize winner of the Spring Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum’s social science/humanities division. In 2010, she received the College of Social Science’s Dean Apprenticeship, which provided the research funds.

Research on Supreme Court agenda setting is quite rare, Hawthorne's faculty adviser and assistant professor of political science Ryan Black said. And there’s no published research that appropriately tests what makes cases less likely to be granted review, he said.

Read more: http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/index.ssf/2011/08/msu_study_low-income_earners_3.html

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Of course, this is the same Supreme Court that ruled that corporations = people.

n/t

Wake up people. If you don't have money you can't afford legal representation, period. And if you can't afford to find and pay for a good lawyer, in this country, you don't exist.

I've been working for free since October of last year for a client whose five children were removed by Child Protection. She left her abusive husband who wasn't working to begin with. She only has a minimum wage part-time position at McDonalds after not working for more than a decade. She would have no shot at getting her kids back if she didn't receive pro bono representation from us or the public defenders' office. A lot of children are lost to foster care and later adoption simply because the parents can't fight in the court system. (Not only to pay for the attorney, but the transcripts and the experts to testify)

Locally, poor people have nearly no access to courts. Example: a tenant of ours was convicted of a misdemeanor public disturbance offense - fine of around $200, nothing else, basically a ticket.

This man has been attending the local junior college every chance he gets, and after five years, he has an associate's degree, which means he can substitute teach for the local school district, which pays $120 per day, as compared to the $200 per week he makes as a waiter at a local 24 hour restaurant. Hours and pay are better, plus networking opportunities as he continues his education.

Local clerk's office showed his ticket as a felony conviction, their admitted error. But they told him he would have to get an attorney to clear it up. Legal aid won't touch it - too many other priority cases, and the least any attorney will do it for is $2500. He can't be a sub with a felony, and he can't get $2500 together on his current salary.

To me, this is typical for around here.