June222010
Obama Nominates Women, Minorities to the Bench At Unprecidented Rate »
“Goldman, who has written extensively on the subject, said the appointments are particularly impressive because of the high level of discrimination that characterized the legal profession for decades. He noted that former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor could not even land a job as an attorney after graduating from law school but was offered a job as a legal secretary instead.”
June62010
Kagan's Nomination Is the Sweet Smell of Progress »
“If she is confirmed, we will be one step closer to the day when a female nominee’s gender is no longer remarkable, closer to that elusive cultural tipping point when it is no longer unusual to see women on the Supreme Court or in other positions of significant power. If three women are serving on the nation’s highest tribunal, perhaps the gender of the fourth female justice won’t be a focal point….
We’re still a long way from that day, but we’re a lot closer to it than when I started working to fight sex discrimination more than three decades ago.”
June52010
Long Live the Rule of Law, Part III »
“Engin Çeber’s father, Ali Tekin, told Amnesty international: ‘Although we are not completely satisfied with the judgment and nothing can bring Engin back, this is a first in Turkey. Maybe it will be important for the future. Let there be no more deaths like Engin’s, let there be no more torture.’”
Tags: /justice
May172010
Supreme Court Rejects Life Without Parole for Juveniles »
“‘We have all these protections for kids in virtually every area of law except the criminal justice system,’ Stevenson said. ‘Kennedy’s opinion begins to reconcile that.’”
Read more: The New York Times’ editorial on the opinion
Tags: /justice
May52010
Norway Builds the World's Most Humane Prison »
“‘In the Norwegian prison system, there’s a focus on human rights and respect,’ says Are Hoidal, the prison’s governor. ‘We don’t see any of this as unusual.’”
March172010
U.S. State Prison Populations Decline for First Time in 38 Years »
“As of January 1, there were 1,403,091 people in state prisons, which is 5,739 fewer than a year earlier, said the survey, titled Prison Count 2010,’ a drop of 0.4 percent.”
Read the report here
And listen to an interview about the study
Tags: /justice
March152010
Australia Ends Death Penalty Permanently »
“The death penalty has been buried forever after Federal Parliament passed laws ensuring it can’t be reinstated in any jurisdiction….ACT Liberal senator Gary Humphries said the abolition of the death penalty was a ‘hallmark of a civilised society’.”
January272010
Racist Arizona Sheriff's Popularity Nosedives »
“Arpaio’s support among independents stood at 62 percent in 2008; today, the sheriff musters approval from among just 34 percent of these voters. Support for the sheriff, a Republican, overall has sunk to just 39 percent of all voters. Even among Republicans, support for Arpaio has slipped 9 percentage points since 2008, to 57 percent. Arpaio’s ‘roundups’ of illegal immigrants have proved expensive and economically pointless, snaring but a handful of luckless immigrants.”
Read more: Arpaio sued in 2008 for racial profiling and for keeping inmates in tents, with 90-cents worth of food per day, which resulted in the National Commission on Correctional Health Care stripping his jail of accreditation.
January202010
Mongolia Announces Moratorium on Executions »
“‘The majority of the world’s countries have chosen to abolish the death penalty. We should follow this path,’ [the President] said in a speech. ‘From tomorrow, I’ll pardon those on death row,’ he added. ‘I suggest commuting the death penalty to a 30-year severe jail sentence.’”
January182010
A Reason for Optimism, Incarnate: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. »
Listen to the I Have a Dream speech, the A Knock at Midnight speech, Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam, and 1961 speech at Southern Seminary
Watch the I Have a Dream Speech and excerpts of his last speech (I Have Been to the Mountaintop)
Watch an excerpt of this speech: “How long? Not long. Because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice”
Or read several of his most famous speeches
And watch this: the 1957 program “The Open Mind,” where Dr. King and federal Judge Waring (read more about this truly honorable judge here) discuss the civil rights movement at that moment
Read: A 1956 comic book about “Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story”
And read: One of Dr. King’s final speeches, at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in April, 1968
Peruse the vast resources, including speeches, photos and video at the King Institute and the King Center
And, finally, listen to Nina Simone’s tribute, “Why (The King of Love is Dead)”
Tags: /justice /race /compassion
January132010
New Jersey Gets Rid of Draconian Mandatory Minimum Sentences »
“Corzine signed a bill on Tuesday that gives discretion back to judges in drug cases for people convicted of certain drug crimes in school zones….Sentencing discretion is important in all types of cases, but it’s especially critical in these school-zone offenses, where studies have shown that broad-brush mandatory minimums completely fail to make schools safer or to prevent kids from buying drugs….In many urban areas, as the great work of the Prison Policy Initiative has shown, almost everything is within 1,000 feet of a school.”
Tags: /justice
January72010
Federal Court Upholds Voting Rights, Decries Racial Bias in Criminal Justice System »
“The decision, written by Judge A. Wallace Tashima, said the studies [presented to the court] ‘speak to a durable, sustained indifference in treatment faced by minorities in Washington’s criminal justice system — systemic disparities which cannot be explained by ‘factors independent of race.” … [T]he ruling, if upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, would apply to all 48 states that ban voting by felons in prison or on supervision.”
Read more: The NAACP’s work on the case
January12010
Moving Towards Death Penalty Abolition: Six States To Watch In 2010 »
“Kansas has perhaps the best chance of repealing the death penalty in 2010 of any state in the nation. Surprised? A repeal bill passed committee in 2009, and an advisory committee of lawmakers, judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers has helped rewrite it to reintroduce in 2010. Four days of hearings on the issue start January 19. Kansas has 10 people on death row but hasn’t executed anyone since 1965.”
Tags: /justice
December262009
European Court of Human Rights Declares Racial and Religious Exclusion Unlawful »
“The court found, by 14 votes to 3 (16 votes to 1 with respect to the presidency), that the exclusion of Jews and Roma could not be justified. It stated that the ‘authorities must use all available means to combat racism, thereby reinforcing democracy’s vision of a society in which diversity is not perceived as a threat but as a source of enrichment.’”
December192009
U.S. Prison Population Drops for First Time in Almost Four Decades »
“Studies have touted significant savings with drug courts, saying they cost 10 percent to 30 percent less than it costs to send someone to prison….The reforms in many state prisons and courts come even as crime rates continue to drop nationwide. ‘It’s economically driven, but the science is there to support it,’ Austin said. ‘They are saving money, but not doing it in a way that jeopardizes public safety.’”
Tags: /justice
