Last week, a federal appeals court ruled that the Commonwealth of Kentucky was liable for $224,000 for the actions of Kim Davis, who refused to do her job and issue marriage licenses (to same-sex or different-sex couples) as county clerk. While Davis’ …
This piece was originally published in Just Security. For more than three years, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University have been litigating a series of Freedom of Information Act requests …
In March 2011, a tactical team of guards at a state prison in Lincoln, Illinois gathered 200 women and ushered them into a gymnasium, where they were brought in small groups into a separate room nearby. Inside that room, they were told to strip naked in …
In 2009, North Carolina passed the Racial Justice Act (RJA), which allowed defendants to strike the death penalty from their cases if they could show that racial discrimination was a factor in their prosecution. The law came as a response to a series of …
Ramon Torres had been a U.S. citizen for nearly ten years when he was detained for four days on an immigration hold – despite having a U.S. passport, a Louisiana driver’s license, and a Social Security card, and despite that fact that a court ordered his …
A pillar of our democracy is the presumption of innocence: before a person has been convicted of a crime, they are considered completely innocent under the law. Yet across the country, people who have not been convicted are punished—both explicitly and …
The budget for Trump’s turbo-charged immigration enforcement and border militarization is now larger than ever. And just last week, we learned that ICE plans to redirect even more money to further expand immigration detention and enforcement. The request …
A senior corrections officer at the Wyatt Detention Facility in Rhode Island has resigned after being placed on administrative leave for driving his pickup truck into a crowd of peaceful protestors on Wednesday night. The attack left one man, 64-year-old …
The fight to protect individual choices about reproductive care, including breastfeeding, is an ongoing battle. The central lesson of the reproductive justice movement is that choice means little without access. That lesson applies equally to breastfeeding …
Almost five years to the day of the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Attorney General William Barr descended on New Orleans to deliver a major policy address. His speech dismissed police violence and espoused a dangerous vision …
In the wake of last weekend’s tragic shootings, President Trump did what he does best: stoked fear and cast blame. He proclaimed that “we must reform our mental health laws to better identify mentally disturbed individuals who may commit acts of violence …
I went to a counter-serve restaurant recently, and when the time came to pay for my order, took out my wallet, presented a $20 bill, and was told, “Sorry, we don’t accept cash.” I was flabbergasted. What happened to “legal tender for all debts public and …
On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit became the first appellate court in the nation to directly address the privacy harms posed by face recognition technology. The decision is a significant advance in the fight against the threats …
The Trump Administration has shown it will stop at nothing to undermine access to health care for marginalized communities. Most recently, the Administration has proposed to undermine critical protections against sex discrimination in Section 1557 of the …
The Trump Administration has shown it will stop at nothing to undermine access to health care for marginalized communities. Most recently, the Administration has proposed to undermine critical protections against sex discrimination in Section 1557 of the …
Public outcry and protests in Puerto Rico brought on the resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosselló, the successor he appointed — former politician and lawyer Pedro Pierluisi — had to step down yesterday. The Puerto Rico Supreme Court unanimously decided …
Tiras Johnson, age 23, was unarmed when he was shot and killed in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His family was devastated by his death, and they were struggling to pay for Tiras’ funeral. Like many victims’ families, Tiras’ mother applied for financial compensation …
Late Friday evening, the Supreme Court gave the Trump administration a temporary green light to begin construction of the border wall using military funds Congress denied. The order, while temporary and limited to specific wall projects where fencing …
I was in 8th grade when it happened. I’ll never forget the feeling of those cold, clanky pairs of metal constraints. I was being handcuffed in front of my friends and classmates. As a lot of middle school students do, I was fooling around with my friends …
Driving up Daniel K. Inouye Highway on the Big Island of Hawai‘i at 4:30 in the morning is a sight few will forget: a silent, pitch-black road, with black lava and sparse trees. The dark air is a chilly 50 degrees. In our backpacks are packaged tuna, …
