Civil Rights Movements & the Law

"A new survey released by the ABA on Thursday found stark divisions based on age and race when it comes to believing that there are racial biases built into the rules procedures and practices of the justice system."

"America was founded on the principle that all men are created equal. Throughout our history we have not always lived up to that self-evident truth. This has been especially true in our criminal justice system."

"A federal grand jury has indicted the four former Minneapolis police officers involved in George Floyd's arrest and death accusing them of willfully violating the Black man's constitutional rights as he was restrained face-down on the pavement and gasping for air."

"A recent American Bar Association study found that the legal profession in America has remained overwhelmingly white and male over the last decade and that racial diversity among lawyers has actually regressed in some respects"

"An unusual coalition is banding together in a petition to release an 84-year-old former Black Panther convicted for his role in the killing of a police officer."

"State judge overturns earlier ruling orders police force to give Cariol Horne her backpay and pension."

"The Justice Department will launch an investigation into the Louisville Metro Police Department to determine if there is a pattern of discrimination or excessive force within its ranks Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Monday."

"U.S. Census Bureau Delivers Data for States to Begin Redistricting Efforts"

"For the first time in four years the estimated number of violent crimes in the nation increased when compared with the previous year's statistics according to FBI figures released today."

"Three Georgia men were indicted today by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Georgia and charged with hate crimes and the attempted kidnapping of Ahmaud Arbery. The indictment also charges two of the men with separate counts of using firearms during that crime of violence."

"Today the FBI released Hate Crime Statistics 2020 the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program's latest compilation about bias-motivated incidents throughout the nation. The 2020 data submitted by 15136 law enforcement agencies provide information about the offenses victims offenders and locations of hate crimes."

"New Policy Limits Circumstances in Which Federal Law Enforcement Can Use Chokeholds and 'No-Knock' Entries"

"To help reduce this massive prison population and to promote human dignity and growth over punishment and retribution WITNESS is supporting advocates lawyers and incarcerated individuals in using video for sentencing mitigation and to advocate for decarceration through clemency and parole."

"25 years ago in the shadows of Apartheid in South Africa the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formed to properly address generations of racial injustice that had been all but ignored. It's time for the United States to do the same. In spite of all of our movements for change the thing we call the justice system in the United States has never been a reliable competent compassionate professional respectful tool for justice for tens of millions of Americans. Instead it has often been a cruel and oppressive force of injustice for African Americans Native Americans Latinos immigrants members of the LGBTQIA community and all marginalized communities. Consequently when marginalized people have needed to finally rely on this system for justice it has routinely failed them in the worst ways imaginable. This isn't a bug in the system but a feature. It's operating exactly the way it was designed and built to function. That's why we're imagining and building something new. Today in partnership with the District Attorneys of San Francisco Philadelphia and Boston we are announcing the formation of the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission to actually process and address the injustices of the past that simply were not given the time attention and dignity that they deserved."

"A service to Washington's legal community"

"The ABA Legal Education Police Practices Consortium aims to contribute to the national effort examining and addressing legal issues in policing and public safety including conduct oversight and the evolving nature of police work. The Consortium will leverage the ABA's expertise and that of participating ABA accredited law schools to collaborate on projects to develop and implement better police practices throughout the United States. "

"Bryan Stevenson is the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative a human rights organization in Montgomery Alabama. Under his leadership EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing exonerating innocent death row prisoners confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill and aiding children prosecuted as adults."

"The SPLC is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society. Using litigation education and other forms of advocacy the SPLC works toward the day when the ideals of equal justice and equal opportunity will be a reality."

"The Innocence Project founded in 1992 by Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck at Cardozo School of Law exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice."

"Established in 1937 the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) is the nation's oldest and largest progressive bar association and was the first one in the US to be racially integrated."

"The ACLU Racial Justice Program aims to preserve and extend constitutionally guaranteed rights to people who have historically been denied their rights on the basis of race."

"The Citing Slavery Project provides a database of slave cases and the modern cases that continue to cite them as precedent."

"We understand the positive impacts of stable housing and work to support families to maintain their current housing. We also understand the many long-term effects of evictions on households families and communities. It is with this understanding that we are committed to supporting Milwaukee County individuals and families and that is at or below 200% of the federal poverty guidelines with the legal support needed to effectively manage the eviction process."

Mission Statement: To seek justice for the innocent and the wrongfully imprisoned, the marginalized, and forgotten of Arizona's criminal justice system.Vision: Achieve justice for the innocent and wrongfully imprisoned in Arizona.

"In an increasingly diverse society it is quickly becoming imperative for estate planning attorneys to be culturally competent to effectively serve their evolving and diverse clients."

"Law schools would be required to train students in bias racism and cross-cultural competency under a proposal being considered by the American Bar Association arm that oversees legal education."

"An armed robber walks into seven stores in Indiana and Michigan during a three-week crime spree in October 2017. Investigators get from the robber's phone carrier real-time cell site location information (CSLI) that show his phone's pings to nearby cell towers which help the investigators geolocate their suspect. The robber gets arrested and charged in federal court with five counts of robbery and several accompanying weapons charges. And the rest of the world gets an opinion from the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on one of the many questions that the Supreme Court left open when it decided its seminal privacy-related opinion Carpenter v. United States 138 S. Ct. 2206 (2018)."

"Law Schools and Bar associations are sharing some excellent stories as part of black history month."

"The legal profession which was almost entirely white slowly began to crack open its doors to lawyers of color in the 1970s. The 1972-73 Prelaw Handbook (p. 9) noted that "the number of lawyers from minority groups is still disproportionately small" but there were "signs of change." "