Amicus Blog
Pleas Are Out of Control. The Fix? Put Communities Back Where They Belong
Community Plea Proposal Panels move review by a jury of one’s peers to the most critical phase in the modern criminal adjudication process. They would empower communities that best know the harms caused by crime and the effects of criminal sentences, rather than prosecutors, to craft the disposition in most criminal cases.
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This Week in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
Welcome to This Week in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. Folks in Jackson, Mississippi are still without running water, state legislatures continue to introduce and pass anti-trans legislation, and jury selection for the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former officer...
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Pretrial Detention Has Become Exponentially More Deadly in the Pandemic
Pretrial detention, or keeping a person accused of a crime in jail until their trial, is a common practice throughout the United States. Though the system is portrayed as a way to protect public safety and ensure people show up for their trials, most often it instead simply forces those who cannot afford bail to sit in jail, while those who are able to pay the fine roam free before their court date. Although some local governments have reduced jail populations by releasing detainees, it has not been enough to protect inmates from the spread of COVID-19 within jails.
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Legislation Giving Teeth to Title VI, Left Stalling Under the Trump Administration, Reintroduced by Democrats
Photo Credit: Cecil Stoughton/Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum In the month leading up to the 2020 presidential election, the United States House of Representatives passed the Equity and Inclusion Enforcement Act (H.R. 2574), which would amend Title VI of the 1964...
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This Week in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
This week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on Arizona’s “ballot harvesting” law, a federal judge in Texas rules the pandemic moratorium on evictions is unconstitutional, the House passes the Equality Act, and the most violence in Myanmar since the military coup at the beginning of February.
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This Week in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
Welcome to This Week in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. This week’s post focuses on Covid-19 in prisons and jails, incarcerated persons’ access to communications technology, and analyses of police violence.
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Can a Reconstruction-Era Law Targeting the KKK Bring Accountability for Donald Trump?
Photo credit: Shay Horse/Nurphoto/Getty Images Last week, Congress voted to acquit former president Donald Trump of inciting the capitol insurrection, under the impeachment articles brought against him. Given that impeachment is the process of removing a president...
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The Family Regulation System: Why Those Committed to Racial Justice Must Interrogate It
The absence of the child welfare system from mainstream discussions on systemic racism, as well as the positioning of the system as a just alternative to policing, has caused concern for many family defense practitioners, scholars, and families impacted by the child welfare system.
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This Week in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
Welcome to This Week in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. This week, the Supreme Court stays an execution in Alabama, President Trump is acquitted in the Senate, President Biden announces plans to close Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, and hate crimes against Asian...
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This Week in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
Welcome to This Week in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. This week, the Biden Administration continues a string of immigration reform efforts; the Senate approves a budget resolution including a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package; Republican lawmakers in states...
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Justice for Breonna Taylor: The Abuse of Prosecutorial Discretion
On March 13th, 2020, Breonna Taylor, an EMT, aspiring nurse, and unarmed Black woman, was fatally shot in her home. Months after she was senselessly killed by police, Kentucky Attorney General, Daniel Cameron, recommended charges against just one of the three officers...
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This Week in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
Welcome to This Week in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. This week, the courts heard the Trump Administration’s last-ditch efforts to challenge the ACA, DACA, and the election results; the coronavirus continues to impact the education and employment sectors; the...
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