According to a survey conducted by the American Bar Association, 90 percent of early-career lawyers have student loans, averaging $130,000. The same survey found that Black borrowers accumulated more debt to obtain their law degree compared to other borrowers of other racial/ethnic backgrounds, and that most young lawyers who borrowed for their education reported that their debt caused them to delay or forego pursuing traditional life milestones, such as purchasing a home, marriage, and starting a family. According to the survey, an overwhelming majority of borrowers – roughly 80 percent – indicated their debt influenced their choice of job or career in some way. Most borrowers reported that salary factored more heavily into their job selection than anticipated. Nearly a third of the sample indicated their position was less focused on public service or doing good than intended when they started law school. In Delaware, the Office of Defense Services, and the Department of Justice, the primary employers of attorneys working for the state, found that student loan debt was an enormous burden. Attorneys reported monthly payments between $500 and $1,000 and debts exceeding $100,000. The student loan crisis, coupled with sizable salary pay gaps between the state and private sector, has created recruitment and retention issues in the legal sector of state government and has made it difficult to provide improved access to justice. This Act establishes a Student Loan Repayment Program for attorneys employed with the State of Delaware working as attorneys. The program allows qualified applicants to apply for a payment from the State to the applicant’s lending agency to pay a portion of the applicant’s student loan debt. The purpose of the program is to improve recruitment and retention for legal service providers at a time when the state is having difficulty attracting attorneys passionate about public service. The amount of the award shall be no less than $2,500 and no more than $5,000 annually for 10 years. There is a salary cap of $110,000. The program will be administered by the Criminal Justice Council and overseen by a committee of stakeholders in the state’s legal system.
Sponsored bills
Delaware’s Motor Vehicle Statutes contemplate for vehicle obstructing traffic enforcement by law enforcement agencies. It is not always possible for law enforcement officers to enforce the right-of-way regulations in areas effectively due to a number of considerations, including officer availability and safety. This bill would enable the state and municipal authorities to enforce right-of-way regulations in identified areas more effectively. This bill only imposes civil penalties for violations and does not impose points on an individual’s driver’s license.
This bill makes needed changes to the Lyme Disease Oversight Board by adding 2 members including an infectious disease epidemiologist and a licensed veterinarian or entomology specialist.
This Act reflects the Administrative Office of the Courts’ current managerial authority and budgetary control over the Judicial Information Center, the Office of State Court Collections Enforcement, and the law libraries. Title 10 § 1941 is repealed in its entirety as the use of the law libraries is no longer limited solely to judges. Spaces have been modernized to accommodate use by lawyers, self-represented litigants, and members of the public to conduct legal research and access other legal resources.
This Act abrogates current Delaware law as it presently stands regarding available recovery for damages related to injured or deceased pets that are tortiously injured by a third party or a third party’s animal. Under current Delaware law, including cases such as Naples v. Miller, 2009 WL 1163504, (Del. Super. Ct. Apr. 30, 2009), there are substantial limitations on a pet owner’s ability to recover amounts related to the cost of veterinary bills because animals that are pets in Delaware are treated as property. This Act does not change the status of pets as property but does provide new causes of action to address tortious injury to a pet. Under current law, an owner would only be permitted to recover the fair market value of a pet, regardless of the amount of veterinary bills or expenses related to care stemming from a tortious injury that is inflicted. This Act provides that limitations on such actions apply as they would otherwise apply to actions under Delaware’s common law as it relates to negligence, gross negligence, recklessness, wanton behavior, or intentionally tortious behavior where punitive damages could presently be awarded. This Act would permit an action to be brought by a legal entity that owns an animal that suffers tortious injury, although any limitations presently existing that would apply to a legal entity bringing such a claim would apply. Finally, this Act limits the ability to bring a cause of action under this Act to persons who are lawfully in possession of their pet, pursuant to relevant state, county, or municipal limitations, thus barring actions involving unlawfully possessed animals. This substitute act differs from the original through removal of the cap on recoverable veterinary bills incurred due to a tortious injury inflicted upon a pet. This act also differs from the original through removal of the ability to recover damages related to emotional trauma suffered by a pet owner in the face of negligent, reckless, wanton, or intentional tortious injury. The other sources of relief outlined in the original act remain unaltered. This Act shall be referred to as the Izzy the Cat Act, in honor of a cat that was severely injured due to the tortious acts of a third party. Izzy’s injuries were found to be compensable during an insurance arbitration, but were limited to the “fair market value” of Izzy, which does not capture either the expense of caring for significant injuries to a pet or the emotional impact to the pet’s owner. Izzy’s story is like so many other pets who suffer tortious injury with little recourse for the humans that care for them to be truly made whole. This Act will correct these imbalances in Delaware’s laws, and serve as a deterrent to the sort of behavior that leads to the injury or death of the pets of Delaware’s residents and visitors
This bill creates a special license plate for Combat Veterans.
This Act provides that the Department of Correction must provide a copy of all policies relating to the accrual and forfeiture of good time to inmates, as well as a quarterly written accounting of good time credit earned and/or forfeited. The requirement that all accrued time must be forfeited upon conviction of any crime within custody, the complete forfeiture will apply only to commission of felonies. Forfeiture of good times for rule violations is changed to apply only to Class I disciplinary violations. The Act also updates § 4322 of Title 11 to allow dissemination of Department of Correction policies and procedures to inmates and the public where such dissemination would not endanger safety or security of a correctional facility, corrections staff, inmates, or the public.
This Act renames the Claymont Regional Transportation at First State Crossing in Claymont, Delaware as the "Harris B. McDowell, III Transportation Center" after Senator Harris B. McDowell, III, the longest serving member of the Delaware General Assembly.
Citing the increasing number of false confessions recorded by the National Registry of Exonerations and recent science around adolescent brain development, several states across the nation have passed legislation to ban the use of deceptive interrogation techniques on juveniles. Deceptive tactics is limited to the knowing use of misleading statements about evidence or communications of false promises of leniency to extract a confession or other incriminating evidence from a youth suspected of breaking the law. To date, Delaware has yet to have a wrongful conviction case involving a false confession but according to groups such as the Innocence Project, wrongful convictions can often take decades to be revealed. Three other states, Illinois, Utah and Oregon, have passed similar legislation. Additional states, including Colorado and California, are currently considering similar legislation. This Act mirrors efforts in other states by prohibiting the knowing use of false statements about evidence, or false or misleading promises of leniency during custodial interrogations of persons under the age of 18. Any statement elicited from a person in violation of this section is inadmissible in any subsequent juvenile delinquency or criminal court proceeding.
Recognizing the negative impact of criminal justice imposed financial obligations on defendants has led to reforms across the country to reduce the financial burdens that disproportionally impact the poor. This type of debt and the collateral consequences of suspending a driver’s license negatively impacts the rehabilitation of those in the criminal justice system and pushes those without an ability to pay further into the system unnecessarily. This Act does all of the following: (1) Prohibits a court from imposing a fine, fee, cost, or assessment on children without the means to pay them. (2) Provides the courts with the discretion to waive, modify, or suspend any fine, fee, cost, or assessment. (3) Prohibits a court or the Department of Transportation from suspending a driver’s license for nonpayment of a fine, fee cost, assessment, or restitution and from charging a penalty, assessment, or fee to a defendant for the cancellation of a warrant issued due to the defendant’s nonpayment of a fine, fee, cost, assessment, or restitution. (4) Prohibits a court from imposing an additional fee on a defendant for payments that are made at designated periodic intervals or late, or when probation is ordered to supervise a defendant’s payment. Nothing in this Act precludes the court from filing contempt charges against defendants who willfully fail to pay their fines. (5) Requires the Judiciary and the Delaware Criminal Justice Information System to report on the sum collected from fines, fees, costs, assessments, and restitution and make a public report of these totals. (6) Eliminates the Public Defender fee and the Probation Supervision fee. The collections from these fees currently go to the General Fund. (7) Creates the Criminal Legal System Imposed Debt Study Group to review the impact that court imposed financial obligations have on defendants and victims and make recommendations to promote access, fairness, and transparency in the imposition and collection of court imposed financial obligations. (8) Makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.