Category: Civil Rights
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Broward courts accused of nurturing double standard of justice for poor, minorities
By Dan Christensen FloridaBulldog.org A letter from the U.S. Justice Department urging state judges across the country to eliminate “common” court practices that illegally trap poor defendants in cycles of debt and jail is reverberating in Broward with accusations that courts here favor the well-off.
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Evidence of police dishonesty leads to overturned convictions nationwide
By Nancy West VTDigger.org Maybe Debra Jean Milke masterminded the murder of her tow-haired son Christopher in Phoenix just before Christmas 1989 to collect the 4-year-old’s $5,000 life insurance policy. Or maybe – as Milke has insisted all along – she was just the innocent victim of a corrupt cop with a proven pattern of…
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Voting rights advocates try to put oversight back the map
By Kara Brandeisky ProPublica When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act last June, justices left it to Congress to decide how to fix the law. But while Congress deliberates, activists are turning again to the courts: At least 10 lawsuits have the potential to bring states and…
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The impact and echoes of the Wal-Mart discrimination case
By Nina Martin ProPublica When the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 5-4 decision in Wal-Mart v. Dukes in June 2011, no one needed a Richter scale to know it was a Big One. In throwing out a mammoth lawsuit by women employees who claimed that they’d been systematically underpaid and underpromoted by the world’s biggest…
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Finkelstein to feds: “Please do something” about improper police interrogations in Broward
By Dan Christensen BrowardBulldog.org Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein has asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate what he called the Broward State Attorney’s “long, distressing history” of condoning police use of “threatening, improper interrogation techniques.”
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The other crucial civil rights case the Supreme Court will be ruling on
By Suevon Lee ProPublica.org On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court said it would hear two cases challenging state and federal laws which prevent the legal union between same-sex couples. But it’s not the only significant civil rights case the Court has decided to take up this term.