The appeals ruling involved the civil rights of protestor Harold Hodge of Southern Maryland. In January 2011 after ignoring three warnings by Supreme Court police, Hodge was arrested while wearing a sign inside of the plaza near the front of the Court’s entrance that read, “The U.S. Gov. Allows Police to Illegally Murder and Brutalize African Americans and Hispanic People.”
The hearing also comes as California begins resuming executions this fall, introducing a new single-drug lethal injection procedure. The state had issued a defacto suspension of executions since 2006, joining many states’ concerns over the effectiveness and pain level of the established injection substances. It also comes just weeks after Connecticut’s Supreme Court commuted all of its condemned prisoners’ death sentences to life without parole. Voters in that state abolished the death penalty in 2012; however the law that was adopted only abolished it for future crimes, not for those already sentenced.
The 2-1 panel ruling did not dismiss the case outright, kicking the case back to lower federal court for further deliberation. The ruling, however, severely weakens the validity of the lawsuit and likely for similar cases of privacy invasion by the spying program in the future.
Gee had already found DHS in violation of the agreement in July, with the most recent ruling being a stern rebuttal of the government’s request to reconsider the ruling. DHS has argued that complying with the agreement would lead to a large influx of illegal immigrants crossing the border; however Gee called the argument “repackaged and reheated,” saying it was “speculative,” and equating it to “fearmongering.”
In a statement on Sunday President Obama called Bond “a hero and, I’m privileged to say, a friend.” Citing Bond’s long resume, Obama continued, “Julian Bond helped change this country for the better. And what better way to be remembered than that.”
Rauner, a Republican, worked alongside the bill’s primary sponsor, Chicago Democratic State Senator Kwame Raoul, as well as with police unions throughout the state to turn the reform into law. Rauner praised the bipartisan effort, saying in a statement, “As a society, we must ensure the safety of both the public and law enforcement. SB 1304 establishes new and important guidelines and training for police departments and their officers, while protecting the public by prohibiting officers from using excessive force.
The Connecticut legislature voted in 2012 to abolish the death penalty, however, that measure only affected future crimes committed in the state. Calling it unconstitutional, Associate Justice Richard Palmer wrote the majority opinion, stating that the death penalty “no longer comports with contemporary standards of decency and no longer serves any legitimate penological purpose.”
On Saturday, Michael Brown Sr. led a group of about 100 marchers during a peaceful five-mile journey through the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, accompanied by a state-police escort. The peaceful march was intended to not only commemorate the anniversary of the controversial killing of his son by police officer Darren Wilson a year ago Sunday,
On Wednesday, a three-judge panel from the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia ruled that the Fourth Amendment requires law enforcement officials to obtain a warrant before searching historical location data from a person’s cell phone. The case involved defendants Aaron Graham and Eric Jordan, who were accused of several Baltimore-area robberies. The
The New York Times paid tribute yesterday to a man whose death nearly went unnoticed in a national sense, but whose life needs to be celebrated. Dr. Donald L. Rasmussen died on July 23rd in Beckley, West Virginia at the age of 87. According to his stepdaughter, Julia Holliday, Dr. Rasmussen died from complications following