"Lawmakers are unclear precisely what the intelligence community currently considers legal given the classified nature of the operations."

"President Joe Biden and two of his top cabinet members on Wednesday promised U.S. economic and criminal justice reforms that would benefit Black communities at a conference organized by longtime activist Al Sharpton."

"A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers on Thursday started talks on a police reform bill the day after Democratic President Joe Biden urged senators and representatives to act before the May 25 anniversary of George Floyd's murder by a Minneapolis policeman."

"To hold law enforcement accountable for misconduct in court improve transparency through data collection and reform police training and policies."

"We are rising up against all the ways that the criminal-legal system has harmed and failed to protect Black communities. The current moment requires a solution that fundamentally shifts how we envision community-care and invest in our society. History is clear that we cannot achieve genuine safety and liberation until we abandon police prisons and all punishment paradigms."

"Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a blistering dissent Thursday hammered a 6-3 decision penned by Justice Brett Kavanaugh that rejected certain limits on juvenile life sentences."

"The U.S. Supreme Court today refused to hear eight separate cases that had presented opportunities to reconsider its doctrine of qualified immunity. That doctrine created by the Supreme Court in 1982 holds that government officials can be held accountable for violating the Constitution only if they violate a clearly established constitutional rule. In practice that means that government officials can only be held liable if a federal court of appeals or the U.S. Supreme Court has already held that someone violated the Constitution by engaging in precisely the same conduct under precisely the same circumstances."

"The 21st Century law enforcement officer serves a variety of public service functions only some of which involve the enforcement of criminal laws. From some of those non-criminal public service roles the courts have recognized the community caretaking doctrine to authorize some limited stops and searches by officers that may not be related to criminal enforcement duties."

"The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday expanded the ability of people to sue police for excessive force ruling in favor of a New Mexico woman who filed a civil rights lawsuit after being shot by officers she had mistaken for carjackers."

"U.S. Supreme Court justices returned to the contentious issue of police powers on Wednesday as they grappled with whether to make it easier for officers to enter a home without a warrant for reasons of health or public safety in a case involving the confiscation of a Rhode Island man's guns."

"Against a backdrop of increasing national attention to police violence the Supreme Court on Thursday issued an opinion in a closely watched criminal-procedure case that clarifies the meaning of the term seizure."

"The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear the FBI's bid to block a civil rights lawsuit by three Muslim men from California who accused the agency of illegally conducting surveillance on them following the Sept. 11 2001 attacks on the United States."

"A second local prosecutor on Thursday asked the U.S. Justice Department to have his name removed from a controversial report on policing reforms saying he feared it would fail to address systemic racism in the criminal justice system."

"The U.N. human rights chief on Tuesday welcomed a pledge by U.S. President Joe Biden to work towards abolishing the death penalty in the United States."

"In 1994 death penalty lawyer Stephen Bright published his seminal essay Counsel for the Poor: The Death Sentence Not for the Worst Crime but for the Worst Lawyer. His argument 'succinctly stated in the title' was that indigent defendants were disproportionately sentenced to death because their lawyers (who were often court-appointed) were under-resourced ill-prepared and failed at the most basic levels in their duty to represent their clients."

"President-elect Joe Biden will be under tremendous pressure to take action toward greater racial justice throughout the country on Day 1 of his presidency following massive nationwide protests sparked by the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor along with other incidents of violence against Black Americans."

"The president promised one during his campaign. But civil rights groups and police union reps both said it wasn't necessary."

"Vice President Harris on Tuesday urged every American to do their part to confront racial injustice after a jury convicted former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin of murder in the death of George Floyd."

"This blog is maintained by Pamela Oliver. I am a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. My specialties are collective action and social movements race and ethnicity and racial disparities in criminal justice."

"NOBLE has been at the forefront of promoting police accountability since the organization's inception in 1976. NOBLE's mission is to ensure equity in the administration of justice and in the provision of public service to all communities and to serve as the conscience of law enforcement agencies and personnel by being committed to justice by action."

"American jurisprudence and law have profoundly shaped defined and constrained the lives of Black people for over 400 years. Racial inequality has extremely deep roots in American society and our Constitution statutes court cases and regulations not only bear witness to this but are often the source of it. This timeline provides an overview of some of these laws beginning with the first known case marking the legal difference between Africans and Europeans in 1640 in Virginia and continuing with laws recently introduced in the wake of the killing of George Floyd and other Black Americans. While not exhaustive the timeline focuses on a number of key legal events and actions that have structured and systematized racism in America."

"Recent events have brought to the fore longstanding concerns about the nature of policing in the United States and how it undermines racial equity. As an institution policing needs significant reconsideration. It is time to rethink the structure and governance of policing. It is also time to engage in a deeper conversation about the meaning of public safety. In the meantime however the following is a list of urgently-needed reforms compiled by a small group of law school faculty each of whom runs or is associated with an academic center devoted to policing and the criminal justice system. The reforms are not intended as an entire agenda for what ought to happen around policing or what American policing should look like. Rather they offer immediate concrete steps federal state and local governments can take to address enduring problems in policing. The authors are scholars who are also deeply involved in the daily practice of policing and included among them are the Reporters for the American Law Institute's Principles of the Law: Policing which works with advisers from across the ideological spectrum in drafting high-level principles to govern policing though the recommendations here go beyond the scope of the ALI project."

"Prompted by several recent high-visibility killings by police officers the U.S. civil rights enforcement regime is the subject of focused attention at the national state and local levels."

"Colorado's attorney general said Wednesday that a grand jury indicted three officers and two paramedics in the death of Elijah McClain a Black man who was put in a chokehold and injected with a powerful sedative two years ago in suburban Denver."

"Chief justices identify ways to implement reforms as part of modernization efforts"

"The New York State Bar Association is launching a task force focused on examining and addressing structural racism and other types of prejudice as part of its latest effort to resolve broader national social problems."

"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."

"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 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."

"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."