criminal justice system
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Black Man Actually Able to Use Self-Defense Plea After Violent Confrontation Outside Pennsylvania Bar
There is allegedly a right in the U.S. criminal justice system … the right to use deadly force to protect one’s property or to prevent death or bodily harm to one’s person. It is called self-defense. However, this plea usually only works for those of the Caucasian persuasion. There are statistics that bear this out;…
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Minor Damage: The Criminal Injustice of Black Youth Tried As Adults
No one knew. When 25-year-old guard Keriana Alexcee found the body of Jaquin Thomas hanging in a New Orleans jail cell, she didn’t know that Thomas had been dead for more than 90 minutes. According to the Advocate, Alexcee had not been trained to check on Thomas every 15 minutes—as mandated by a federal consent…
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Chicago Judge Exonerates 18 People Framed By Crooked Cops
On March 23, 2005, police officers arrested 32-year-old Ben Baker for dealing heroin in Chicago’s Ida B. Wells housing projects. After his arrest, Baker filed a complaint claiming he was framed by the officers. In December 2005, the same police officers arrested Baker and his wife during a traffic stop after officers said they found…
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Failed Ferguson, Mo., Prosecutor Bob McCulloch Headlined a Conference for District Attorneys. It Did Not Go Well
Nearly four years after failing to indict Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown Jr., a black man; only days after losing his re-election bid to Wesley Bell, a black man; an Oregon organization thought St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch would be the perfect person to headline its annual conference of district…
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Federal Judge Stops New Orleans From Jailing Those Who Fail to Pay Fines, Rules That They Must Have a Chance to Plead Poverty
Instead of being immediately tossed into jail for failing to pay fines or fees related to whatever legal issues you may have, a federal judge has ruled that anyone who owes money from criminal convictions in New Orleans must have a chance to plead poverty in a “neutral forum,” before being put behind bars for…
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Meek Mill Working With Philadelphia 76ers Co-Owner To Reshape The Criminal Justice System
When I think of Meek Mill, I think of his music, of course, (and immediately “Dreams and Nightmares” plays in my head) but I also think of the constant battle he’s been facing with the criminal justice system. Since being released from jail, he’s been working to help others who may have been in the…
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We Don't Trust the Criminal Justice System Until It Clears a Black Man of Sexual Assault. Then We're All In
In what I imagine will eventually be a very regretful decision on her part, Angela Rye—noted #BlackGirlMagic trumpeter, public speaker, CNN contributor and women’s empowerment scion—decided to jump out the window in defense of her “brother,” Charlamagne Tha God (CTG). Through Instagram comments that referenced resurfacing allegations that CTG drugged and raped a then-15-year-old girl…
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Black Teen Incarcerated for Days After Judge’s Release Order Despite No Probable Cause: Lawsuit
A San Francisco mother has filed a lawsuit alleging that the city kept her teenage son locked in a cell for days even though a judge determined that there was no reason that the boy should have been arrested in the first place and ordered his release. On June 29, 2017, Tureko Straughter’s 15-year-old son…
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Meek Mill’s Case Is Just 1 Example of How the Criminal-Justice System Fails Black People
As long as there has been freedom for black people post-slavery, there has been a criminal-justice system that has been committed to caging them again. From the convict-lease system, even slave catchers before the emancipation, there’s always been a system designed to watch black bodies, to catch black bodies, to exploit black bodies by incarcerating…
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Kim Kardashian Asks Governor for DNA Test to Help Man on Death Row
Kim Kardashian—who recently helped commute the sentence of 63-year-old Alice Johnson—is using her privilege yet again to bring attention to a prisoner she believes has been wrongly convicted. Saturday, Kardashian posted on Twitter asking California Gov. Jerry Brown if he could test the DNA of Kevin Cooper. Cooper has been on death row for 33…