Entries tagged with 'Criminal Justice'
The Fair Sentencing Act is on its Way to the President!
The Fair Sentencing Act passed in the House today, and since it already passed in the Senate back in March, it will now go to President Obama for his signature. This historic legislation will reduce the disparity between crack...
A Second Chance at Life
Randi Levine is a Staff Attorney at Advocates for Children of New York and a former Eisendrath Legislative Assistant at the Religious Action Center. All views expressed are her own. When Ian arrived at the prison processing center, nobody...
It's Time to Crack the Disparity
An editorial published in yesterday's New York Times, titled "Bad Science, Bad Policy," makes the case for passing a federal law that with eliminate the sentencing disapritiers betwen crack and powder cocaine. it begins, "The federal law that mandates harsher...
"We sentence innocent people to their deaths."
Andrea Woods is a Program Assistant for Witness to Innocence. It is Death Penalty Awareness Week, and supporters of human rights across the country have turned their attention to a uniquely complicated injustice - the implementation of capital punishment in...
What Happened to Assurance of Fair Trial?
In Texas today, Bobby Wayne Woods, a 44-year-old man convicted of murder is scheduled to be executed. Woods was convicted in 1998, but his original appellate attorney did not properly introduce evidence of Woods's impaired mental capacity: he has...
What's Crackin' with Sentencing Disparity?
At the White House yesterday, Tino Cuéllar, the Special Assistant to the President for Justice and Regulatory Policy on the White House Domestic Policy Council, sat down with a coalition of over ten different organizations (including the RAC) to discuss...
Jailhouse Rock: Combating Youth Violence
Debra Fricano is a participant in the Religious Action Center's Machon Kaplan summer program for college students. She is a student at Brandeis University and an intern at the Student Peace Alliance.The US has the distinct honor of being...
Is Jeff Sessions on Crack?
The Sotomayor hearings have been creating quite a bit of news, but who would've guessed they would also yield a YouTube sensation?! Well, it might not be a sensation, as it is at 159 views as of this posting, but...
Ending Prison Rape
Last week the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission issued its 259-page report on the disturbing prevalence of sexual abuse in our nation's prisons. The Commission, established under the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (which was drafted with the help...
Rape and Torture
Andrew Sullivan, blogger for The Atlantic, has been relentless in advocating for the prosecution of government officials who sanctioned the torture of detainees during the previous administration, a position the Obama Administration has resisted.Torture opponents seeking to defend human dignity...
Crack the Disparity
Last week the Crack the Disparity Coalition held its second annual (and last) lobby day seeking to reform the egregious crack-powder cocaine sentencing disparity....
A Disappointing Update on Troy Davis
Yesterday, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Troy Davis' petition to file a second petition of habeas corpus. The three-judge panel denied Davis' claim "that executing him for the 1989 murder of Officer Mark MacPhail would violate his...
Mistrial by iPhone?
On Tuesday, one of two newspapers in my hometown, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, published its final print edition, finally succumbing to the pressures of declining revenues related to the emergence of the Internet. The impact of Internet-based revolutions with regard to...
Light up the Colosseum: NM Abolishes the Death Penalty
Late last night, Governor Bill Richardson signed legislation abolishing the death penalty in the state of New Mexico! This makes New Mexico the second state (New Jersey being the first) to abolish the death penalty since 1965. Today, we released...
SCOTUS says no to indefinite detention (sort of)...
Today, the Supreme Court vacated a ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals "that gave the President the authority to detain indefinitely as terrorism suspects individuals living legally in the United States." A few weeks ago, the Justice Department...
An Update on Maryland
The fight to end the death penalty in Maryland continues and the Philadelphia Inquirer has a great editorial about this battle and its leader, Governor Martin O'Malley. Since last month when the Governor made repealing the death penalty his top...
Scaling Fences
Last week, Rachel wrote about the environmental impact of a border fence and the need for a comprehensive approach to immigration reform.Another aspect of our broken immigration system was put in the spotlight earlier this month when Arizona's Maricopa County...
Troy Davis: The Saga Continues
Last week, I wrote about the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to deny the appeal of Troy Anthony Davis, a Georgia death row inmate. Death penalty abolition advocates, yours truly included, were left with little hope that Mr. Davis's life would...
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