Criminal Justice
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Chicago Cop Who Quit Force After Shooting and Killing Rekia Boyd Wants All Evidence of His Criminal Case Erased
The then off-duty Chicago cop who fired his gun out of his car window, striking and killing Rekia Boyd, an innocent bystander, now wants all evidence of the criminal case filed against him cleared from the public record. Even though Dante Servin got off scot-free on charges of involuntary manslaughter when a Chicago judge threw…
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Cuba Gooding Jr. Hit With New Charge as His NYC Trial on Groping Charges Was Set to Open
On what was to have been the first day of Cuba Gooding Jr.’s trial on charges he groped a woman’s breast without consent, prosecutors had the proceedings delayed after announcing Thursday that the actor has been indicted on a second charge. According to the New York Times, prosecutors did not provide details on the second…
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Samuel Little Is the Most Prolific Serial Killer in U.S. History. Most of His Victims Were Black Women
His name is not as well known as Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, or John Wayne Gacy, though the scale of his crimes far eclipses theirs: confessing to 93 murders over 35 years. On Sunday, the FBI reported on months of investigatory work, declaring 79-year-old Samuel Little the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history. Fifty…
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21-Year-Old Florida Man Jailed for Missing Jury Service Has His Record Cleared—Now That He’s Experienced the Trauma of Prison
A 21-year-old Florida man who was locked up for 10 days for missing jury service had the rest of his sentence vacated and his record cleared Monday. Originally, Deandre Somerville was looking at a year of probation and 150 hours of community service, in addition to the 10 days he spent in jail, after a…
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Hugging Judge in Amber Guyger Murder Trial: Why Y’all Mad?
The judge who presided over the trial of Amber Guyger, the former Dallas cop convicted of murdering an unarmed black man last year as he was minding his own business inside his own home, says hugging Guyger after the trial was the “Christian” thing to do. Texas state District Judge Tammy Kemp has come under…
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Florida Judge Sentences 21-Year-Old to 10 Days in Jail for Missing Jury Duty
Talk about getting an “n-word wake up call”—to quote legendary comic Paul Mooney. A young black man, who said he overslept and missed jury duty, got the book thrown at him. Whether or not we are now considering missing jury duty a crime, a judge in Florida says it is—and it’s punishable by law. 21-year-old…
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Joshua Brown, a Key Witness in Amber Guyger’s Murder Trial, Killed Outside Apartment
A message has clearly been sent. Joshua Brown, a key witness who testified for the prosecution on Tuesday in the trial of killer cop Amber Guyger, was fatally shot outside of his apartment building in Dallas on Friday night. The neighbor of Botham Jean, who was murdered by Guyger, Brown’s body was found on the…
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Yesterday in Georgia, Women in Prison Regained Some of Their Dignity
On Tuesday, the Georgia Dignity Act (House Bill 345) went into effect in all women’s prison facilities in Georgia, giving more than 3,800 women locked up in the state access to basic necessities like sanitary napkins, as well as affording them the decency of not being chained while pregnant or giving birth. The bipartisan bill,…
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Democratic Donor Ed Buck Will Finally Face Federal Charges For His Role in the Death of Gemmel Moore
Yesterday, The Root reported that Ed Buck, a prominent white Democratic donor, was being charged with battery causing serious injury, administering methamphetamine, and maintaining a drug house—all felonies—after a third black man suffered a drug overdose in his home. Less than 48 hours later comes the news that after somehow eluding culpability for the drug-related…