Archive for category: Human Rights

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  [Update3] SCOTUS Fails to Intervene to Prevent Execution of Mentally Ill Defendant

  By Noah Kaplan, Courts, Criminal Justice, Human Rights February 8, 2012 10:29 pm

  [Update3 - 10PM February 8] Edwin Hart Turner was executed at 7:21PM EST after receiving a lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary. Turner, represented by attorneys from the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center, had filed a petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court arguing that the execution would violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments because at the time of his offense Mr. Turner suffered from a serious mental illness.

   
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  North Carolina Responds to its History of Forced Sterilizations

  Courts, Criminal Justice, Human Rights, LGBTQ Rights, Poverty and Economic Justice, Race and Immigration, Reproductive Rights, Sex Equality January 29, 2012 6:55 pm

  In the upcoming weeks, the legislators of my home state of North Carolina will be faced with a dilemma: how does a government compensate victims of a historical atrocity that was deemed legal at the time?  At the national level, this question is often asked in the context of slavery [...]

   
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  Women on the rise?

  Human Rights, Issue Areas, Poverty and Economic Justice, Reproductive Rights, Sex Equality October 19, 2011 4:28 pm

  Many studies have demonstrated a strong correlation between the number of women in any given legislature or policy-making body and the extent to which that body takes up issues deemed important for women. On Sunday, the newly-formed United Nations entity, UN Women, announced that it was accepting applications for grants, with a focus on projects seeking to empower women in Arab countries transitioning to democracy. It’s only where real action occurs that women start to be empowered and involved in a way that strengthens a country’s democracy, making it responsive to the needs of all its population, not just the men.

   
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  Update: SCOTUS hears oral arguments in strip search case

  By Bill O'Neil, Criminal Justice, Human Rights, Original Content October 16, 2011 3:51 pm

  At the conclusion of oral arguments on Wednesday, pundits were left guessing whether the Supreme Court would declare that Americans’ constitutional right to privacy bars prison officials from strip searching them if and when they are jailed for minor, nonviolent offenses.  The case, Florence v. Bd. of Freeholders, explores both [...]

   
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  CR-CL News Round-up

  Criminal Justice, Human Rights, Issue Areas, LGBTQ Rights, Race and Immigration September 28, 2011 7:44 am

  A round-up of some of the top stories in civil rights and civil liberties news.

   
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  Jaycee Dugard Sues Government for Failing to Protect Her from Captor

  By Bill O'Neil, Courts, Human Rights, Original Content, Sex Equality September 25, 2011 5:45 pm

  Jaycee Dugard has filed suit against the U.S. government, alleging that the failure of law enforcement officers to adequately monitor her captor – a federal parolee – contributed to her nearly twenty-year confinement in a California backyard, during which time she endured multiple rapes.  In doing so, Dugard challenges decades-old [...]

   
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  In Their Own Words: Civil Rights and Aboriginal Australians

  Courts, Human Rights, Race and Immigration September 23, 2011 3:30 pm

  U.S. jurisprudence has dealt with constitutional rights since the enactment of the U.S. Constitution. In contrast, it was explicitly decided by the framers of the Australian Constitution to not include a similar Bill of Rights, although the American notions of judicial review, separation of powers, and federalism were incorporated. Accordingly, throughout Australian history courts have rarely acted to protect civil rights on the basis of constitutional interpretation. This method of rights protection has been largely inadequate to protect Indigenous Australians from breaches of their civil rights, particularly in regards to equal protection and racial discrimination.

   
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  Two Executions: Two Reasons for Opposing the Death Penalty

  By Noah Kaplan, Criminal Justice, Human Rights, Race and Immigration September 22, 2011 7:57 am

  While the world watches and waits for news on Davis, Lawrence Russell Brewer was put to death in Texas. Brewer is one of the men who, in 1998 in Jasper, Texas, dragged James Byrd, Jr. behind his truck. As easy as it is to hate Brewer, to hate the terrible crime that he committed, to hate his hate, his victim’s son, Ross Byrd, doesn’t want to see him die. “You can’t fight murder with murder.”