FW: The New (York) Jim Crow
Dianne Tramutola-Lawson
From: The Marshall Project [mailto:info=themarshall...@mail208.atl121.mcsv.net] On Behalf Of The Marshall Project
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2016 5:59 AM
Subject: The New (York) Jim Crow
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Opening Statement |
Edited by Andrew Cohen |
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Opening Statement is our pick of the day’s criminal justice news. Not a subscriber? Sign up. For original reporting from The Marshall Project, visit our website. |
Jim Crow North. Racial bias in the state prisons of New York is pernicious and pervasive. Blacks and Latino prisoners, for example, are far more likely to be disciplined than their white counterparts and more likely to be sentenced for longer stints in isolated detention. There is rarely any oversight or accountability for these practices, which some experts say is based on a “fundamental upstate-downstate culture clash that plays out daily on the cell blocks” with white guards and prisoners of color. The New York Times Related: The parole system in the state is a racial disaster as well. The New York Times Way down in the hole. Minnesota is lagging far behind the national trend away from the use of solitary confinement. More than 1,600 inmates there have been held in isolated detention for at least six months and hundreds have endured such punishment for one year or longer. There are no laws that limit the amount of time a prisoner may be isolated and no independent review to evaluate whether such punishment is justified. The result is prisoners made mad by their confinement and those with preexisting mental illness made worse. Star Tribune Deadlock! Jurors deliberating the fate of former police officer Michael Slager in South Carolina are reportedly deadlocked 11-1 on charges he unlawfully shot and killed Walter Scott last year. According to the jury foreperson the lone holdout says he cannot vote to convict Slager despite video evidence of the cop shooting Scott in the back as Scott ran away. The judge late Friday told the panel to take the weekend off and come back this morning to try to reach a verdict and avoid a mistrial in the case. The Post and Courier “You’re telling me you can come back out on the streets and rob again, hold people hostage again, kill again?” There were good intentions behind Washington, D.C.’s “second chance” youth law that gives teenagers shorter sentences and allows them to get out of prison without criminal records. But in practice that law has allowed hundreds of offenders to commit new crimes, including murders, after their “second chance.” Moreover, there is little judicial or political oversight over how the law operates. The Washington Post “What real loss sounds like.” Mary Kuanen survived the violence of Sudan only to see sudden death come to her family in Denver. Now, five years after her husband was murdered, she soldiers on, a mother to five children, a woman determined to see them thrive even as she tries to pursue justice against those who changed her life forever. And the crime? Looks like it was a case of mistaken identity, a gang-related hit gone bad. 5280 magazine
Police in Chicago, Illinois, open up their proposed new use-of-force policy for public review; it’s designed to more faithfully acknowledge and protect the “sanctity of life.” The Wall Street Journal Another week, another execution is halted in Texas amid concerns about the mental competence of a condemned man. Buzzfeed The fight over the contours of juvenile justice in Virginia is intense, and complicated, and at least recently showing signs of progress. Bloomberg Legal An Alabama family will never recover from an accident in which a toddler shot and killed his older sister. The Washington Post A Florida cop alleges that he was fired for reporting his department’s illegal stop-and-frisk practices. Miami New Times
The case against predictive policing. Not only does it raise obvious Fourth Amendment concerns, there are questions about whether it actually works. USA Today Related: A primer on predictive policing. The Marshall Project If you can’t afford a lawyer. How the chief public defender in New Orleans is seeking to break the justice system in order to fix it. Reveal Adios, “Death Penalty Donnie” Myers. The South Carolina prosecutor leaves office tainted by controversy and overturned convictions. The Washington Post “I used to serve a congregation. And now I work at crime scenes.” A chaplain describes how gun violence in Milwaukee, Wis. and one case in particular, changed the way he views his ministry. The Trace Related: How one brutal weekend of gun violence in Chicago changed the lives of the reporters who covered it. The New York Times Life without parole for pot. And now denied clemency. The story of how one federal prisoner’s hope for relief just faded in a maze of bureaucracy. The Washington Post
Technology of the Day: A software glitch that gets you arrested and the resulting litigation that surrounds it. Ars Technica Surveillance of the Day: The feds just got broad new power to hack into phones and computers with a rule that allows a single judge national jurisdiction over searches. New York Magazine History of the Day: The fight over criminalizing flag-burning goes back 125 years, to another time when white Americans felt threatened. Politico Scholarship of the Day: As fewer states impose the death penalty the federal government may begin to initiate more capital prosecutions. And that may mean a federalism battle over the death penalty. Northern Kentucky University Initiative of the Day: A new policing strategy, born of the Trayvon Martin case, is helping heal the relationship between police and communities of color. And clearance rates for crimes are going up. The Wall Street Journal |
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