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A Crack In The Danziger Bridge Cover-Up

The Editors — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 01:41:12 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels What was the scope of the lawlessness some New Orleans police officers unleashed against people in that devastated city in the days after Hurricane Katrina struck? How many people did officers unlawfully shoot? How many did they kill? How many others were victimized in other ways by police officers’ illegal use of force? [...]

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.

Exoneree and Rape Survivor Meet 24 Years after Misidentification

The Editors — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:59:11 +0000

By Liz Webster Thomas McGowan, a Texas exoneree who was released in April 2008, recently had the opportunity to meet the rape victim who had misidentified him nearly a quarter-century before.

Detroit Diaries: Wiping the Slate Clean for Ex-Felons

The Editors — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:39:38 +0000

By Desiree Cooper With many states considering closing their prisons in order to balance their budgets, it’s time to ratchet up the national conversation about what to do with a growing number of ex-felons, especially those who are sincerely trying to re-integrate into society

A Cause for Dissent: The Death Penalty’s Cruel and Unusual Punishment

The Editors — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:33:21 +0000

By Jin Hee Lee, Vincent Southerland and Christina Swarns Dissenting opinions — offered not by liberal advocates but by moderate, if not conservative, law-and-order judges — stand as a strong rebuke to the presumed effectiveness of the death penalty system. And they also confirm longstanding concerns about how abuses of power, under-resourced defense counsel, and racial bias undermine both the accuracy and judiciousness of death penalty convictions.

An Innocent Man Was Executed. How Many More Will There Be?

The Editors — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 19:54:23 +0000

By Matt Kelley An exhaustive report published this week in the New Yorker shows that Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in Texas in 2004, was innocent.

Warriors for Justice: The Innocence Project Fights for Exoneration

The Editors — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:36:15 +0000

By TaRessa Stovall This independent national litigation and public policy organization was established at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York City, to free the wrongfully convicted and reform the criminal justice system.

Life After Wrongful Conviction

The Editors — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:41:38 +0000

By Olympia Duhart At the age of 48, Alan J. Crotzer has spent more than half of his life behind bars: 24 years, six months, 13 days and four hours, to be precise. And he was innocent of every single charge leveled against him.

Equalizing Cocaine Sentencing Gains in Congress

The Editors — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 02:18:25 +0000

By The Editors

Efforts to equalize federal sentencing guidelines for offenses involving crack and powder cocaine gained significant momentum in Washington last week.

By The Editors Efforts to equalize federal sentencing guidelines for offenses involving crack and powder cocaine gained significant momentum in Washington last week.

Can You Trust the Police? The ‘Skip’ Gates Incident

The Editors — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:21:04 +0000

By John Payton
On Thursday, July 16, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., professor and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Studies at Harvard University, was arrested outside of his Cambridge home for “disorderly conduct,” after several police officers confronted him for trying to open a door to his home. A neighbor had called the police when she saw Gates trying to open his front door, which was jammed shut. Gates was held for four hours then released. Here John Payton, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) shares his expert opinion.--The Editors

Innocence Denied

The Editors — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:53:25 +0000

By Stacey Patton On June 18, the United States Supreme Court ruled that convicts cannot access DNA evidence to try to prove their innocence. Stacey Patton, Senior Editor ofTheDefendersOnline, talked with Peter Neufeld, Co-Director of The Innocence Project, a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent further injustice.

The Fear of Too Much Justice

The Editors — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:02:11 +0000

By Stacey Patton Last week's Supreme Court ruling, which denies prisoners the constitutional right to post-conviction DNA testing that could prove their innocence, says something bigger about the quality of justice in America.

Sentencing Disparity: Crack Cocaine v Powder Cocaine

The Editors — Wed, 27 May 2009 20:19:56 +0000

By The Editors The current federal law mandates far more severe sentences for low-level offenses involving crack cocaine than powder cocaine, even though the former is no more addictive or dangerous than the latter.

LDF Attorneys on Supreme Court Decision Against Mumia Abu-Jamal

The Editors — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:55:25 +0000

By TaRessa Stovall The Supreme Court has denied an appeal from Mumia Abu-Jamal, the journalist and former member of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, who was convicted in a 1981 death penalty trial for killing a white police officer after a trial by a predominantly white jury. On Monday, April 6, the court rejected without comment Abu-Jamal's bid to have the conviction overturned.

Lady Justice, the Drug War and Me

The Editors — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:34:23 +0000

By Kemba Smith As most Americans, I believed in the motto, liberty and justice for all, until at the age of 23 in April 1995, I stood in a court room with Lady Justice watching as Federal District Court Judge Richard B. Kellam sentenced me to a mandatory minimum sentence of 24.5 years in the Federal Women's Prison in Danbury, Conn., as a first-time non-violent drug offender with no possibility of parole.

Icon, Trailblazer, Crusader: Constance Baker Motley

The Editors — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:26:06 +0000

By TaRessa Stovall One cannot consider civil rights in America without paying homage to Constance Baker Motley, who brought her legal brilliance to the most important civil rights cases for 20 years, and became the first African-American woman to serve as a federal judge and in the New York Senate, among other historic milestones.

Hopes Rise for Reform of New York’s Drug Laws

The Editors — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 03:46:28 +0000

By The Editors The New York State Assembly, the lower chamber of the state legislature last week approved a bill eliminating New York's mandatory-sentencing requirement for drug offenses.

Mumia Update: LDF Challenges Jury Selection in Original Trial

The Editors — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:00:14 +0000

By Christina Swarns On March 5, 2008, LDF filed a “friend of the court” brief asking the United States Supreme Court to review the jury selection process in the controversial 1982 trial of Mumia Abu-Jamal. This brief urges the Supreme Court to enforce the existing laws that require courts to promptly investigate “inferences” of racial discrimination and ensure that the criminal justice system maintains its own integrity, provides a fair trial for the accused, and protects prospective jurors of color from discrimination.

Judges Paid to Jail Kids; More Hispanics Locked Up

The Editors — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:58:59 +0000

By The Editors Amy Goodman of Democracy Now TV/radio news writes of two Pennsylvania judges who pleaded guilty to taking kickbacks from the builders and owners of private prison facilities who profited from the imprisonment of some 2,000 children