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Posts published in “Justice”

Eric Holder Wants Voting Rights Act Provision Upheld by Supreme Court

By goodblacknews on April 6, 2013

Eric Holder

WASHINGTON (AP) — On April 4th, the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s death, Attorney General Eric Holder challenged the Supreme Court to uphold a key section of the Voting Rights Act that requires all or part of 15 states with a history of discrimination to get federal clearance before carrying out changes in elections.
Holder made the comments Thursday in a speech to a civil rights group whose founder and president is the Rev. Al Sharpton. Focusing on issues he regards as important during President Barack Obama’s second term in office, Holder vowed to protect the voting rights of all Americans, safeguard young people from gun violence and improve the criminal justice system.
Opponents of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 say the pre-clearance requirement has outlived its usefulness. Starting in 2009, the Supreme Court made clear its skepticism about the present-day need for the provision. The court is considering a challenge on the issue from Shelby County, Ala., near Birmingham.

Forty Five Years Ago Today: Dr. King Delivers ‘I’ve Been To The Mountaintop’ Speech in Memphis

By goodblacknews on April 3, 2013

martin luther king mountaintop speech

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., is seen in this undated file photo. Martin Luther King Jr., leader in the African-American civil rights movement was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis. (AP Photo)

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last speech the evening before his assassination was especially resonant, considering the events that followed. Popularly known as the “I’ve Been To The Mountaintop” speech, King delivered the words at the Church Of God In Christ headquarters, Mason Temple, in Memphis, Tenn., on this day in 1968.
Full of prophetic themes and such, King was addressing the Memphis Sanitation Strike and was galvanizing workers in a call for unity and nonviolent protests. One of the more chilling moments of the speech is the foretelling of his death, which some experts feel was the speech’s most poignant moments. Dr. King would be assassinated the very next day at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis at the age of 39.  Watch part of the speech below:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oehry1JC9Rk&w=420&h=315]
article by D.L. Chandler via newsone.com

Nina Shaw Named Beverly Hills Bar Assn. Entertainment Lawyer Of The Year

By goodblacknews on March 30, 2013

Nina ShawThe Beverly Hills Bar Association will honor Nina Shaw with its 2013 Entertainment Lawyer of the Year award next month. Shaw is to be given the award by the Entertainment Law Section of the BHBA at its annual Beverly Hills Hotel dinner on April 16. A founding partner at Del, Shaw, Moonves, Tanaka, Finkelstein & Lezcano, the lawyer has specialized in the areas of television, motion picture and live stage for almost 20 years. “The Beverly Hills Bar Association recognizes Nina Shaw for her groundbreaking work in the field of entertainment law and her strategic focus on ever-evolving technology in entertainment and its far-reaching impact on the industry, as well as for her dedication to her clients and commitment to fair play in a notoriously competitive field, said BHBA Entertainment Law Section Chair Adam Siegler in a statement.
Among Shaw’s various clients, the lawyer counts Oscar winner Jamie Foxx, James Earl Jones, newly-named Who Wants To Be a Millionaire host Cedric the Entertainer and America’s Got Talent host Nick Cannon. A graduate of Barnard College and Columbia Law School, Shaw began her career in the Entertainment Department of O’Melveny & Myers. Established in 1931, the Beverly Hills Bar Association is the fifth largest bar association in California with more than 5,500 members.
article by Dominic Patten via deadline.com

Los Angeles Sheriff Seeks to Replace Men's Central Jail Cells With Classrooms

By goodblacknews on March 22, 2013
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Sheriff Lee Baca Addresses Inmates

NBC Southern California – The gutting of Men’s Central Jail cells to be replaced with inmate classrooms is one element of a dramatic re-envisioning of the Los Angeles County jail system as proposed by Sheriff Lee Baca.

During his tenure, Baca has expanded educational opportunities for county inmates. Gutting the old central jail to make room for inmate classrooms would take the program to a new level.

Inmates who obtain their high school graduate equivalent degrees (GEDs) are more likely to find work when released into society, and less likely to re-offend, Baca is convinced.

The response to the county’s inmate educational program is “like nothing I’ve seen in my 47 years in law enforcement,” Baca told reporters Tuesday outside the County Hall of Administration.  “It’s a good idea,” said one man following his release from Men’s Central Jail after serving a week for a drug violation. “Not everyone, but a lot of the men want to change.”

“Education can help,” said the former inmate, who declined to give his name. Other aspects of his plan include building a new central jail, repurposing Lancaster’s Mira Loma detention center, and transferring women inmates out of the Century Regional Detention Facility, either to Mira Loma or to the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic.

United Nations Joins Soccer Leaders to Rid Sport of Racism

By goodblacknews on March 22, 2013
AC Milan midfielder Kevin Prince Boateng, of Ghana, celebrates at the end of the Champions League round of 16, first leg soccer match against Barcelona, at the San Siro stadium in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013. AC Milan won 2-0. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

AC Milan midfielder Kevin Prince Boateng, of Ghana, celebrates at the end of the Champions League round of 16, first leg soccer match against Barcelona, at the San Siro stadium in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013. AC Milan won 2-0. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
GENEVA (AP) — The ugly side of the beautiful game was exposed Thursday as the U.N.’s top human rights official joined football officials and players in calling for an end to the “crime” of racism in sport.  U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said the world is a long way from achieving that as evidence by a series of incidents including racist insults and chants, Nazi salutes, petitions against players and denial of hiring that are based on color or ethnicity and have no place in football or any other game.
“Sport, at its best, is inclusive, generous-hearted, and fundamentally multicultural, based on values such as teamwork, loyalty, merit and self-control,” Pillay told a crowded forum at the U.N.’s European headquarters in Geneva, where she was flanked by AC Milan player Kevin-Prince Boateng, former France captain Patrick Viera and several FIFA and European football officials.
Several officials said they were taking real action, not just paying lip service to the problem, through actions such a FIFA anti-racism task force.

Howard University Graduate In Line for the Presidency of the American Bar Association

By goodblacknews on March 19, 2013

Paulette BrownPaulette Brown, a partner in the law firm Edwards Wildman Palmer in Madison, New Jersey, is the uncontested nominee to assume the presidency of the American Bar Association in 2015. Her elevation to the position of president-elect is expected at the ABA’s next midyear conference in February 2014. If approved, she will become the first African-American woman to lead the American Bar Association.
Brown is a prominent labor attorney and long-time advocate for increasing diversity in the legal profession. She is a graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C., where she majored in political science. She obtained her law degree at Seton Hall University in Newark, New Jersey.
article via jbhe.com

Women’s History Month: Four Unsung Black Women You Should Know

By goodblacknews on March 17, 2013



As with Black History Month, the focus on already well-known figures has been an ongoing criticism of Woman’s History Month. When it comes to black women, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells and Rosa Parks are on repeat. What makes these much-needed theme months thrive, however, is the spirit of discovery. It’s doubtful that the names Elizabeth “Mum Bett” Freeman, Callie House, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin or Johnnie Tillmon even draw a glint of recognition but they should. In their own ways, each of these women made important contributions to the ongoing struggle for freedom and justice.
Even as a slave, Elizabeth Freeman, known as Mum Bett most of her life, had the audacity to sue for her freedom. Born into slavery in Claverack, New York around 1742, Freeman, at a reported six months old, was sold, along with her sister, to John Ashley of Sheffield, Massachusetts, a judge in the Massachusetts Court of Common Pleas. Enslaved to Ashley until she was almost 40, Freeman was spurred to action when the mistress of the house Hannah Ashley tried to hit her sister with a heated kitchen shovel. Freeman intervened and was hit instead, leaving the house, vowing to never come back.

Security Officer Wins $13.2 Million Verdict for Civil Rights Violations by Cleveland Detectives

By goodblacknews on March 10, 2013

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David Ayers, center, walks out of the Cuyahoga County Justice Center a free man in 2011 after serving 11 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. Ayers won a $13.2 million verdict in federal court Friday. At right is Carrie Wood of the Innonence Project. (Plain Dealer file photo)

CLEVELAND, Ohio — A federal jury awarded $13.2 million to a former housing authority security officer Friday after finding two Cleveland detectives fabricated or withheld evidence at his 2000 murder trial.
David Ayers, 56, who spent 11 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit, and several jurors wept as the verdict against detectives Denise Kovach and Michael Cipo was read in U.S. District Court.
“These detectives didn’t do their jobs at all,” juror Stephanie Kocian told The Plain Dealer in an interview. “They manipulated the evidence, and didn’t look at anyone else except the most convenient suspect to convict. The word ‘railroaded’ was thrown around the jury room during deliberations.”
At the time of his 1999 arrest, Ayers had been working for more than eight years as a security officer with the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority. He was accused and eventually convicted of the beating death 76-year-old Dorothy Brown, who lived in a CMHA high rise in Cleveland.
Ayers continued to maintain his innocence, filing appeals while serving a life prison term for aggravated murder. He finally prevailed in 2011, when DNA tests proved that a single pubic hair found in Brown’s mouth did not come from him.

Obama Signs Expanded Violence Against Women Act

By goodblacknews on March 7, 2013
President Barack Obama (C), joined by Vice President Joseph Biden (L), House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) (3rd L), Sen. Michael Crapo (R-ID) (4th L), Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) (5th L), House Minority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) (5th R), Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI) (4th R), women's organizations members, law enforcement officials, tribal leaders, survivors, advocates and members of Congress, signs the Violence Against Women Act into law at the Department of the Interior March 7, 2013 in Washington, DC. The law expands protections for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and trafficking. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

President Barack Obama (C), joined by Vice President Joseph Biden (L), House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) (3rd L), Sen. Michael Crapo (R-ID) (4th L), Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) (5th L), House Minority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) (5th R), Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI) (4th R), women’s organizations members, law enforcement officials, tribal leaders, survivors, advocates and members of Congress, signs the Violence Against Women Act into law at the Department of the Interior March 7, 2013 in Washington, DC. The law expands protections for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and trafficking. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama signed a law Thursday expanding protections for victims of domestic violence, renewing a measure credited with curbing violence against women a year and a half after it lapsed amid partisan bickering.  The revitalized Violence Against Women Act marked an important win for gay rights advocates and Native Americans, who will see new protections under the law, and for Obama, whose attempts to push for a renewal failed last year after they became entangled in gender politics and the presidential election.
“This is your day. This is the day of the advocates, the day of the survivors. This is your victory,” Obama said. “This victory shows that when the American people make their voices heard, Washington listens.”  As Obama prepared to put his pen to the new law, new government data underscored both the progress that has been made and the enduring need to do more.

Montgomery Police Chief Apologizes To Freedom Rider Rep. John Lewis

By goodblacknews on March 6, 2013

LEWIS
The civil rights era Freedom Riders, who risked their lives and limbs by riding various forms of public transportation in the South to challenge local laws that sanctioned segregation during the turbulent ’60s, have finally received an apology — albeit decades overdue — from the Montgomery, Ala., police chief, according to NBC News.
Police chief Kevin Murphy’s (pictured right) apology was made at the historic First Baptist Church on Saturday not only to the famed Freedom Riders but also, personally, to U.S. Representative of Georgia, John Lewis (pictured left), who was a member of the historical civil rights crusaders. Lewis was in town as part for the 13th Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage to Alabama.