The Defenders Online | A Civil Rights Blog » Criminal Justice

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.

Census Bureau Gives States New Option on Counting Inmates

The Editors — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:09:28 +0000

By The Editors This month the U.S. Census Bureau issued new guidelines that could significantly alter how inmates in state prisons are counted for the census. That, in turn, could affect whether voting districts across the country gain or lose population in advance of the 2011 Congressional and state legislative redistricting.

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?

Blue Wednesday: Baltimore’s Mayor Convicted, Citizens Question the Cost

The Editors — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:47:08 +0000

By Deborah Rudacille On a rainy morning in early December, the mood in Baltimore’s barber shops and beauty salons is subdued. The day after Baltimore mayor Sheila Dixon was convicted of one misdemeanor count of embezzling about $500 worth of gift cards intended for the city’s needy, her political fate remains uncertain and shop owners and customers seem torn about the verdict.

Remembering Scottsboro

The Editors — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:25:02 +0000

By Ellen Feldman In March, 1931, as the Depression was deepening and 200,000 young people under the age of twenty-one were hoboing the country in search of an odd job, or a few scraps of food, or the little bit of fun that was supposed to be the birthright of youth, a group of young black and white men got into a fight on a freight train going from Chattanooga to Memphis, Tennessee, by way of northern Alabama. No crime in America, let alone a crime never committed, has resulted in as many trials, convictions, reversals, retrials, and Supreme Court decisions, including a seminal 1935 ruling. Collectively, the nine young men spent more than a hundred years in some of the worst jails and prisons in Depression-era America. Only one of them lived to be pardoned.

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.

Update: President Obama Signs Hate Crimes Law Expansion

The Editors — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:37:15 +0000

By The Editors Related Links Congress Extends Hate Crimes Law Protections to Gay Men and Lesbians; Obama Expected to Sign the Measure Declaring that “we must stand against crimes that are meant not only to break bones, but to break spirits—not only to inflict harm, but to instill fear,” President Obama has signed historic legislation expanding federal hate [...]

Congress Extends Hate Crimes Law Protections to Gay Men and Lesbians; Obama Expected to Sign the Measure

The Editors — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:02:54 +0000

By The Editors President Obama is widely expected to sign historic legislation expanding federal hate crime laws to cover attacks against gay men and lesbians.

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

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.

Bending Toward Justice

The Editors — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:26:58 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels There are four men still living who know in all of its gruesome detail the maelstrom of violence that took the lives of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael “Mickey” Schwerner that June night in Neshoba County, Mississippi during the “Mississippi Freedom Summer” of 1964.

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.

Black Privilege, Fact or Fiction?

The Editors — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:51:48 +0000

By George Alexander Black is sometimes black, and that’s that. Well, maybe. Recent news events have pulled the focus from the economy, healthcare and Iran to the horrible practice of racial profiling. On the positive side, this forces us to examine the notion of black privilege. Just what is it anyway? Does it exist at all?

Update: Congress Urges Obama: Pardon Jack Johnson

The Editors — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 01:31:08 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels The long fight to right a nearly century-old wrong against Jack Johnson, America’s first black heavyweight champion, took a substantial step closer to success Wednesday when the U.S. Senate approved by a voice vote a resolution urging President Obama to posthumously pardon 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.