A program is looking for Montanans to represent people in courts on tribal reservations, who often lack access to legal assistance when they need it.

The Tribal Advocate Incubator Project wants to train lay advocates - that is, people who are not lawyers by profession - to represent folks in tribal courts across the state.

"Tribal lay advocates will represent tribal members in tribal court regarding civil legal matters," said Valerie Falls Down, tribal advocacy coordinator for the Montana Legal Services Association, "including divorce and custody, landlord-tenant disputes, wills and probate, real estate and land issues."

Montana's seven reservations are mostly rural, and a 2017 study found the poverty rate was 30% on the state's reservations. The Montana Legal Services Association is teaming up with the University of Montana law school and the Indian Law Section of the State Bar on this training program.

The Montana Legal Services Association provides free legal advice and services to low-income Montanans. Falls Down said cost often is a major barrier to representation in court.

"Someone who is low income would not otherwise be able to afford paying a lawyer, which is high priced," she said.

Because each tribal court system is different, she said lay advocates would have to be licensed in that system in order to represent clients.

"What we want to do with this program is, we want to train local people in each tribe," she said, "so that they can represent [clients] in their own community."

Falls Down said her organization is identifying candidates, and the program's first training will start in May.

The issue of transgender rights is back in the news after a recent Supreme Court hearing and Donald Trump's reelection as president returns legal and cultural issues to the national conversation.

One Georgia-based transgender activist said she fears a new generation of Americans will have to join many of the same battles fought to gain LGBTQ rights.

Monica Helms transitioned to live as a woman in the 1990s and emphasized despite many victories over the years, she fears people who are "different" may always have to fight for acceptance.

"It's always going to be a battle," Helms acknowledged. "They figure out one thing or another. Trans people have targets on their back. They want to eliminate us from existence and we've been around since Roman times."

Helms recalled she knew as young as age six she was a girl but did not act on making a change in her life until after eight years in the U.S. Navy. Soon after, she formed the Transgender American Veterans Association. She has also been an author and activist in the civil rights movement.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week in a case which would uphold a ban on gender-affirming care in as many as 25 states. She pointed out a lot of the cultural bias against trans people stems from fear and inaccurate information.

"They have a feeling, oh, well, you know, we're predators. We're gonna go into bathrooms to look at kids," Helms explained. "And, oh, it's like, what the heck? You know, if I need to go to the restroom, I go in there to go to the restroom."

Helms may be best remembered as the creator of the first transgender pride flag and being the first openly transgender delegate to the Democratic National Convention. She added the biggest misconception about transgender people is they elect to be who they are.

"That we chose to be who we are, and we didn't choose this," Helms stressed. "We were born with it. And the fact that we were born with it, many of the scientific organizations, medical organizations have come to that conclusion."


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On Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump called on the U.S. Senate to stop confirming President Joe Biden's nominees to federal judgeships, even as civil rights groups are pressing for the opposite.

Some 26 of Biden's nominees still need Senate approval; five of them from California.

Lena Zwarensteyn, senior director of the fair courts program for the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, is part of a coalition that recently wrote to senators, urging them to prioritize Biden's nominees.

"There are about 900 lifetime judges," Zwarensteyn explained. "The first Trump administration had 234 confirmations. We could be facing that again, which would mean more than half of the judiciary may end up being judges who have been appointed by the incoming president."

The Biden administration has confirmed 218 judges over the past four years, and the Senate has scheduled multiple votes this week. Republicans have taken votes to slow the process down but Democrats are motivated to get it done before they lose the majority in January.

Zwarensteyn noted federal judgeships are lifetime appointments.

"Every single one of the seats that we can fill now hopefully will be with somebody who is fair-minded, ethical, and does have a commitment to everybody's rights," Zwarensteyn stressed. "I think this is an important guardrail for our democracy, especially knowing the threats ahead."

Federal judges often make highly consequential decisions on topics including educational equity, immigration, fair pay, access to health care and the constitutionality of book bans.


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A North Carolina group is launching a new campaign to emphasize the importance of investing in people behind bars, so they'll have a better chance for normal lives when they're released.

The "Incarcerated Lives Matter" campaign is from Recidivism Reduction Education Programs Services, which advocates for programs like work release, vocational training and cognitive behavioral therapy as key tools for rehabilitation.

Kerwin Pittman, executive director of the group, said the goal is to challenge the belief harsher penalties create safer communities.

"It just won't work," Pittman asserted. "Dispelling that narrative that 'locking them up and throwing away the key' is the way to combat or the way to have public safety, it's not. It's investing in incarcerated people."

A study by The Sentencing Project confirms "tough-on-crime" laws like mandatory minimum sentences often cause more harm than good, and offer no significant benefit to reducing crime. To spread its message, the campaign has placed a billboard near Johnston Correctional Institution, which reads, "Incarcerated Lives Matter. We see you. We care."

The campaign also highlighted two major obstacles faced by people when they are released from prison: economic instability and the lack of housing. Pittman explained helping them get training and find meaningful work is crucial for their successful reintegration into society. He noted one priority is to revitalize work-release programs that have suffered since the pandemic.

"Since COVID happened, everybody had to stay home," Pittman recounted. "A lot of jobs that individuals were able to have while incarcerated, they lost. And those jobs, frankly, just never bounced back. And so, what we have to do now is go out and identify 'second chance' employers across the state, and match them with individuals who are incarcerated but who are eligible for work-release."

Pittman stressed work-release programs, coupled with vocational training, are keys to empowering people to earn a livable wage and stay employed after release. The campaign also plans to help people gain certifications to open doors to stable careers, making reintegration smoother and reducing the likelihood of reoffending.