“I’ve seen a lot in my life but to be degraded… not just stripped of my clothes, being stripped of my dignity, was what I had a problem with.” Kurdish American Karwan Abdul Kader was stopped and stripped by local law enforcement for no reason other than driving around in the wrong neighborhood. This is [...]
Continue reading …In defense of indigent defense-how the broken public defense system exacerbates racial disparities
September 24, 2010 Comments OffThe 6th Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees all citizens the right to representation when accused of a criminal offense. While Supreme Court decisions have clarified this to mean “effective” representation, the system has often failed to live up to this standard. With the majority of criminal defendants turning to the indigent defense system, why [...]
Continue reading …By Dorsey E. Nunn The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco will hear argument today (Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2010) in a lawsuit challenging the State of Washington’s denial of the right to vote from people with felony convictions. The legal issue in the case is whether the Voting Rights Act, [...]
Continue reading …There are disparities in the system of justice in South Dakota that can only be found in other states with large Native American populations. The incarceration ratio for Native Americans in South Dakota is far out of proportion with the total state population. The main prisons in the state are top heavy with Native Americans. [...]
Continue reading …By Elizabeth Renter The Racial Justice Act, only the second of its kind in the United States, has given inmates sentenced to death in North Carolina a potential route to relief. As of today, 114 death row inmates there have filed motions asserting their sentences were tainted by racial bias. While the individual circumstances in [...]
Continue reading …Our justice system requires us to punish wrongdoers, what if there were a better way?
August 19, 2010 Comments OffThe banner says “No justice. No Peace.” We think we know what it means — that we who want justice are willing to fight for it. The words have a deeper meaning, of course. They are intended to remind us that that it is an impossibility to have a peaceful society as long as there [...]
Continue reading …The biggest crime in the U.S. criminal justice system is that it is a race-based institution where African-Americans are directly targeted and punished in a much more aggressive way than white people. Saying the US criminal system is racist may be politically controversial in some circles. But the facts are overwhelming. No real debate about [...]
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By Terrion L. Williamson, Remember Don Imus? Remember how upset we were a few years back when the wretched shock-jock and his pals took to the airwaves to dis women of the Rutgers women’s basketball team, after they just missed winning the NCAA championship, referring to the black team members as nappy-headed hos? Remember how [...]
Continue reading …By Alan Bean This week, Curtis Flowers is being tried for capital murder for the sixth time in Winona, Mississippi. Friends of Justice is observing the trial. In this update from Day Eight, Friends of Justice’s Executive Director explains why the “evidence” offered by the prosecution is fundamentally misleading. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” The [...]
Continue reading …By Lili Ibara I’m writing from a motel in Winona, Mississippi, spending my vacation here so I can attend a capital murder trial for a man named Curtis Flowers. Flowers is accused of murdering four people in 1996; this will be the sixth time he is being tried for this crime. I’m here with Friends of Justice, [...]
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