Tag: Courts

‘We helped each other. We taught each other the law.’ | The Lens

In 1983, to help fight the wrongful charge, Calvin Duncan began to teach himself the law, while being held within the Orleans Parish Prison in New Orleans. In his new book The Jailhouse Lawyer, co-written by Sophie Cull, he writes about that time in his life:
— Read on thelensnola.org/2025/07/08/we-helped-each-other-we-taught-each-other-the-law/

Let’s Empower Jurors to Halt an Injustice | Cato Institute

But that could just as easily have come from President Donald Trump. Through a series of flagrantly unconstitutional executive orders, Trump has sought to silence the opposition. This culminated with an executive order demanding that the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security investigate former administration officials who pushed back against Trump’s frivolous claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

The Framers understood the danger of a despotic regime and regarded the criminal jury trial as a key procedural safeguard to help ensure that only those acts and individuals society deemed truly culpable result in criminal punishment. This is of particular importance today — in a nation plagued by rampant overcriminalization and coercive plea bargaining — where often all that stands between us and a criminal record is a prosecutor’s decision to charge.
— Read on www.cato.org/commentary/lets-empower-jurors-halt-injustice

Unprotected: Analyzing Judicial Protection of Constitutional Rights — scrutinize

We introduce a new metric for assessing judges: Suppression reversals. This
metric focuses on one of the judiciary’s most sacred duties: Protecting the
constitutional rights of individuals from police overreach. A suppression
reversal not only indicates that a trial court judge failed to properly
interpret and apply the constitution; it may also signal potential bias in
favor of the police.
— Read on www.scrutinize.org/unprotected

More than 100 cops who lied missing from Cook County’s Brady list

There is a serious problem with Brady lists. Some of the issues surrounding them are, do officers ever get a chance to be removed from those lists? What is due process for an officer that has been placed on a Brady list? Is there a criteria that the officers actions must meet to be placed on a Brady list? 

At least 15 of the nearly 120 Chicago police officers found to have made false or misleading statements were still on the force as of May.
— Read on chicagoreader.com/news-politics/brady-list-cpd-misconduct/

2023 Plea Bargain Task Force Report urges fairer, more transparent justice system

CHICAGO (Feb. 22, 2023) – Plea bargaining has become the primary way to resolve criminal cases in the United States, with nearly 98% of convictions nationwide currently coming from guilty pleas. But plea bargaining as currently practiced is often unj
— Read on www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2023/02/plea-bargain-task-force/

Get a .PDF copy of the report HERE