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State supreme courts were once dominated by Democrats. A concerted effort by right-wing groups has changed that — with massive implications for abortion, LGBTQ+ rights and elections.
How does adding more minority and women judges affect theadministration of justice? Using a Tobit regression model andcontrolling for such factors as the sentence recommended by thePennsylvania sentencing guidelines showed that black judges handeddown longer incarceration sentences than white judges and that,although white judges did not tend to sentence black offenders anymore severely than they did white offenders, black judges did tendto sentence black offenders to longer prison terms than whitejudges gave to white offenders.
Only five challengers have defeated incumbents for seats in Minnesota's district courts in the past 13 elections, but one Scott County attorney believes he can become the sixth.
The Southern District of New York, which recently heard arguments in Upsolve and John Udo-Okon v. New York, has the opportunity to increase access to justice by allowing nonlawyers to provide legal help, shifting the focus from credentials to substantive outcomes, says Rebecca Sandefur at Arizona State University.