The Defenders Online | A Civil Rights Blog » Criminal Justice

Black Police Officers Association Endorses California Ballot Measure to Legalize Marijuana

The Editors — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:10:59 +0000

By The Editors A prominent association of black police officers last week endorsed the California ballot measure that would legalize marijuana in the state.

If Time Is Money, What Is Justice Worth?

The Editors — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:23:05 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels What is the meaning and the scale of justice for this special group of Americans – the guilty until proven innocent?

Legal Defense Fund Applauds Legislation Ending Prison-Based Gerrymandering in New York

The Editors — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 04:34:30 +0000

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) congratulates the New York State Senate for passing legislation to end prison-based gerrymandering in New York.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent: The Shame of America’s Criminal Justice System

The Editors — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 16:42:07 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels Michael Anthony Green was released from the custody of the state of Texas last Friday – 27 years after being wrongly convicted for the rape of a woman that brought him a sentence of 75 years in prison.

Old Wounds and New Pain: The Oscar Grant Tragedy

The Editors — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 02:33:06 +0000

By Khalil Gibran Muhammad In the wake of Oakland transit cop Johannes Mesherle’s recent involuntary manslaughter conviction for the on-duty shooting death of unarmed, 22 year-old Oscar Grant, the injury of his death and so many black men before him is as raw and bloody now as it was the day they were killed.

Six New Orleans Officers Indicted In Connection With The Shooting; Four Could Face The Death Penalty

The Editors — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 05:00:39 +0000

By The Editors Six New Orleans police officers were indicted on federal charges for having participated in a police shooting at the city’s Danziger Bridge days after Hurricane Katrina struck which left two unarmed civilians dead and four wounded.

New York City’s Wrong Stop-and-Frisk Policy

The Editors — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:01:34 +0000

By Johanna Steinberg Thousands of law-abiding New Yorkers are unfairly and unlawfully subjected to stops-and-frisks because New York City Police Department officers routinely make unfounded assumptions of criminality based on race or ethnicity

Supreme Court Bars Restrictive Gun-Control Laws

The Editors — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 03:07:04 +0000

By The Editors For the second time in two years, the Supreme Court narrowly ruled that gun-control laws cannot abridge the right to bear arms the Second Amendment grants individuals. The decision came in a case challenging the gun-control laws of Chicago and a nearby suburb, Oak Park, Illinois, McDonald v. Chicago, No. 08-1521.

Made Ya Look! ‘Shooting’ The Police in the Digital Age

The Editors — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:39:46 +0000

By TaRessa Stovall Thanks to changing laws, there may soon be fewer videos of police actions to post online or contribute to television news stories. The blog Gizmodo.com, reports that, “in at least three states, it is now illegal to record any on-duty police officer … even if the encounter involves you and may be necessary to your defense, and even if the recording is on a public street where no expectation of privacy exists.”

Rare Events That Reverberate Widely: Police-on-Police Shootings

The Editors — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:38:26 +0000

By The Editors Although few in number, they are stunning incidents –“rare events that reverberate widely.” They are the shooting deaths of police officers, killed by mistake by a fellow police officer or officers. And, predominantly, the officers shot to death in these tragic circumstances are black or Latino.

Five New Orleans Police Officers Indicted in Katrina Killing

The Editors — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:20:30 +0000

By The Editors The investigation into incidents of murderous violence by the New Orleans police department in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina received another jolt late last week when a federal grand jury there indicted five city current and former officers in connection with the gruesome death of Henry Glover.

Captive Constituents: Prison-Based Gerrymandering And the Distortion of Our Democracy

The Editors — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 03:04:00 +0000

According to a new publication issued this week by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), the increased concern about the mass incarceration of African Americans in the nation’s state and federal prisons has exposed a concomitant insidious practice: prison-based gerrymandering.

LDF Applauds Supreme Court Decision Declaring Life Without Parole Sentences for Children in Non-Homicide Cases Unconstitutional

The Editors — Mon, 17 May 2010 23:11:51 +0000

The United States Supreme Court declared that children convicted of non-homicide offenses cannot be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The Court concluded that because adolescents are, by nature, less culpable than adults and because life without parole is an extreme sentence which is rarely imposed on teenagers, it is cruel and unusual punishment to sentence a child who has not killed to life without possibility of parole

Challenge to New York State Legal Aid System Advances

The Editors — Fri, 07 May 2010 20:28:49 +0000

By The Editors A ruling this week by New York’s highest court has opened the way for a legal challenge to the state’s widely-criticized public-defender system on the grounds that it has failed to provide adequate assistance to poor people charged with crimes.

Dim and Dimmer Chances of an Immigration Reform Bill

The Editors — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 19:10:01 +0000

By Seth Freed Wessler Washington’s game of immigration-reform dodgeball got particularly intense this week after Arizona passed its racial police state bill.

Arizona’s Disgrace: Are ‘Pass Laws’ Next?

The Editors — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 20:58:48 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels Friday Republican Governor Jan Brewer signed legislation passed by the Grand Canyon State’s legislature declaring every Latino resident there a second-class citizen who can be stopped by any law officer for no reason other than that they “look” Latino and made to produce proof of their American citizenship or be arrested for “trespass.”

NAACP LDF Report Highlights Impact of Felon Disfranchisement Laws

The Editors — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:18:53 +0000

By The Editors This week, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) released Free the Vote: Unlocking Democracy in the Cells and on the Streets, a report detailing the impact felon disfranchisement laws have on communities of color nationwide.

LDF Statement Regarding Senate Passage of Legislation Concerning Crack/Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity.

The Editors — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:38:36 +0000

By John Payton Last night the Senate passed S. 1789, The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, concerning the, racially discriminatory disparity in the treatment of the crack and powder forms of cocaine. Although the Senate passed legislation concerning the crack/powder sentencing disparity, it refused to completely eliminate that unjustified disparity.

Juvenile Detention Facilities in New York State: The Ghetto Dynamic at Work

The Editors — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 23:11:16 +0000

By The Editors In the past six months two separate bodies investigating New York State’s juvenile prisons – one a federal agency; the other, a state-appointed commission -- have produced scathing reports of a system beset by longstanding calamitous problems.

Freddie Peacock’s Long Journey to Exoneration

The Editors — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:34:13 +0000

By Maggie Taylor Freddie Peacock was arrested in July 1976 and later convicted of attacking and raping a woman. Twenty-eight years after his parole in 1982, Peacock became the 250th person nationwide to be exonerated by DNA evidence.

New York City Sued Over Discriminatory Policing Policy in Public Housing

The Editors — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:18:00 +0000

By The Editors The lawsuit claims that the city’s policing practices in its public housing developments – most notably, its “vertical sweeps” of buildings -- “routinely” subject residents and those who visit them to illegal stops and false arrests that serve no lawful purpose.

Critical Census Mistake: Mis-Counting Prisoners

The Editors — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 21:46:53 +0000

By Ryan P. Haygood The 2010 Census affords a unique opportunity to harness the momentum of African-American civic engagement that was forged in the 2008 Presidential election — this time, to ensure complete African-American inclusion.

No Word for ‘Prison’

The Editors — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:05:14 +0000

By Eisa Nefertari Ulen
What does a woman do after coming-of -age in Birmingham in the 1950s, after losing two friends in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed four little girls in the 1960s, after helping free her very high-profile sister from the clutches of the FBI’s Most Wanted List during the height of Black Power in the 1970s? What does she do after advocating for the end to Apartheid in the 1980s, after working as a Civil Rights trial lawyer through the 1990s?

A Realistic Second Chance

The Editors — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:23:36 +0000

By Joseph Robinson A decent job is a critical building block for a successful life. If it cannot be attained, how can there be hope of attaining others, like adequate housing and financial stability? At the time of their incarceration, many people with prison in their past were the family breadwinners. Their return home usually spikes expectations that the family’s financial struggles will be over. Instead, the struggles often worsen.

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris on Fighting Crime

The Editors — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:49:44 +0000

By Amy Alexander In 2003, Kamala Harris became the first African-American woman to be elected District Attorney in San Francisco. Re-elected in 2007, Harris continued the innovative law enforcement work she’d begun while serving as managing attorney in the Career Criminal Unit in the SF DA’s office.