Very Law’s weekly news article

There are many legal news stories happening all over the country, and it’s our job to keep you in the know about these cases. Here are some of the biggest news stories of the week.

Law professor under fire after branding late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia as a ‘Klansman’ in a controversial tweet

Law professor Darren Hutchinson has come under fire after making a controversial tweet about the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, where the former stated that the latter was “basically a Klansman”. This comment was connected to a memo by Scalia to other justices when they were considering the 1987 McCleskey v. Kemp case. 

The McCleskey ruling refused to strike down the death penalty in the state of Georgia, even though defendants who had murdered White victims were more likely to receive the death penalty than those who had killed Black victims. These statistics were from a study called the Baldus study.

However, Scalia made a comment regarding this study, which Hutchinson interpreted as sounding racist. And in response to the backlash he received for his tweet, Hutchinson stated: “Calling Scalia out is worse than his view that executing people whose sentences were impacted by race is fine. It’s a form of inversion. Make the guilty party innocent and the victim guilty.”

You can read more about this story here.

ChatGPT and what it could mean for lawyers

The chatbot made by OpenAi, ChatGPT, has been making waves recently for its ability to create great content. In fact, Andrew Perlman, the Dean of the Suffolk University Law School, was able to produce a scholarly piece of work much faster than it would have taken had he followed the usual process of research, writing, and review.

In his paper, titled “The Implications of OpenAI’s Assistant for Legal Services and Society,” Perlman stated that all he had to do was ask ChatGPT some questions, and it produced the responses. He also mentioned that the technology, though useful, wasn’t perfect.

Despite its limitations, ChatGPT has demonstrated the potential for artificial intelligence to help with legal tasks. The chatbot could potentially assist lawyers with creating legal documents, answering questions, and conducting legal research.

To learn more, read about the story here.

The fight against human trafficking in Pennsylvania

There have been a staggering 1,096 human trafficking offenses in the state of Pennsylvania. 

Human trafficking is a kind of human rights violation that involves making a profit from exploiting people, and is usually done through the use of coercion and fraud to force vulnerable people into labor or even sex acts to gain something that’s valuable to them.

January is also National Human Trafficking Prevention Month, so the PA Courts Infoshare has created an infographic that brings court data related to human trafficking to light. 

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