Criminal Justice
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Blow Struck: Federal Judge Blocks Mississippi’s ‘Hearbeat’ Abortion Law
Down goes Frazier—at least, for now, when it comes to Mississippi’s new so-called heartbeat law, which bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected. I n a strongly worded ruling Friday, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction barring enforcement of the law that makes abortion illegal after a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can…
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Fight’s On: ACLU, Planned Parenthood Sue to Stop Alabama’s Virtual Abortion Ban
Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union on Friday filed a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn Alabama’s law that bans abortions except in cases of “serious” health risk to the mother, saying the law is patently unconstitutional. The legal counterattack, which was promised after Alabama’s senators gave a final OK to the bill almost…
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God's Property: Florida Lawmaker Says God Told Him to Reintroduce Anti-Abortion Bill Modeled After Alabama's
Since passing its anti-abortion law—a law so reprehensible that cities like Los Angeles have subsequently banned travel to the state—Alabama has become the bane of the entire universe. Not to be outdone, the Pensacola News Journal reports that a Florida lawmaker is so impressed by Alabama’s commitment to punishing women for owning ovaries that he’s…
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Philadelphia DA Accuses Judge of Bias, Says Meek Mill Should Get New Trial
Meek Mill’s legal woes have not only been lengthy, but have provided a textbook example of just how deeply flawed our criminal justice system is. But after years of bad news, the Maybach Music signee might finally be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. USA Today reports that on Wednesday, Philadelphia District…
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Michigan to Pay $860,000 in Lawsuit Over Prison Guards Who Bet on a Woman Inmate’s Suicide
How much is an incarcerated person’s life worth? At one Michigan jail, about the cost of a Subway sandwich. That’s what corrections officers wagered in response to a suicidal inmate, 25-year-old Janika Edmond, who threatened to kill herself—and requested help from guards—before eventually hanging herself in a prison shower. The Michigan Department of Corrections settled…
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Mississippi Mayor Offers Drug Dealers and Gang Members $10,000 to Get the Hell Out of His City
If you’re a drug dealer, “wannabe criminal” (apparently the pros are exempt) or gang member in Clarksdale, Miss., now’s your time to cash out because Mayor Chuck Espy has $10,000 with your name on it. In his efforts to eradicate crime in the city, Espy says you ain’t gotta go home, but you gotta get…
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NYPD Officer Arrested After Hiring a Hitman to Kill Her Husband and Her Boyfriend's Daughter
New York police officer Valerie Cincinelli, mother of two, paid $7,000 as part of a complicated scheme to have her husband Isaiah Carvalho Jr. killed. According to the New York Times, Cincinelli, a 12-year NYPD veteran who once worked in a Queens domestic violence unit, also planned to have the daughter of her boyfriend killed,…
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Citing Fears of Worsening Racial Bias, San Francisco Votes to Ban Police Use of Facial Recognition Technology
No other city in the U.S. is as closely associated with technological advancements than San Francisco, which, for the most part, has embraced both tech companies and their services in civic life. But on Tuesday, San Francisco passed an ordinance that would ban the use of one very specific technology—facial recognition—by local police departments, making…
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Missouri Governor After Seeing Alabama’s Abortion Ban: Hold My Moonshine
The clearly not-so-great-state of Alabama just enacted the most extreme abortion ban since abortion was made legal by Roe v. Wade some 46 years ago. Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, signed the bill that could punish doctors who perform abortions with life in prison. Twenty-five white men (and Kay—surely among the 53 percent of white…
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An Arizona Prisoner Was Sent a Book Critical of the Criminal Justice System. Now, the State Has Banned It
In one of the most memorable passages of his seminal autobiography, civil rights leader Malcolm X made explicit the impact his in-prison education had on him. Arrested on charges of larceny and sentenced to 10 years in prison, Malcolm read voraciously. “I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of…