Civil Rights

Red Cross: U.S. Tortured Prisoners

American intelligence agents tortured terrorist suspects captured after Sept. 11 in secret foreign prisons for years, suspending the practice only after the U.S. Supreme Court declared it illegal in a ruling last summer, according to a magazine article that appears on newsstands today. In doing so, the Central Intelligence Agency…

Aug 6, 2007 7:58 PM CDT

Civil Rights Crusader Hill Dies at 100

Updated: Renowned civil rights lawyer Oliver Hill has died. He was 100. A family friend told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that Hill died peacefully at his home on Sunday. Hill played a key role in the lawsuits that led to the landmark desegregation ruling, Brown v. Board of Education. He has…

Aug 6, 2007 6:15 PM CDT

Judge Perry to Win ABA Marshall Award

A revered South Carolina civil rights lawyer whose career included numerous “firsts” is to be presented by the American Bar Association later this month with its prestigious Thurgood Marshall Award. To be honored by the ABA at its annual meeting for his “substantial and long-term contributions to the furtherance of…

Aug 6, 2007 5:40 PM CDT

Mom’s Murder Leads to New Maine Laws

Over the years, William Bruce had reportedly attempted suicide, attacked both of his siblings, resulting in broken limbs, and threatened friends with an AK-47 automatic rifle, among other incidents. So no one who knew him well was amazed when the then 25-year-old paranoid schizophrenic, apparently in the throes of a…

Aug 3, 2007 11:31 PM CDT

Son to Get $250 K of $28 M Jail Award?

Lawyers for the son of a man who died in 1995 after 28 years in prison, serving a sentence for a murder he didn’t commit, told a federal judge in Boston yesterday that that her $28 million award to Louis Greco’s estate isn’t going to accomplish what she apparently intended.…

Aug 3, 2007 10:53 PM CDT

Judge OKs, Adds to Pedophile Injunction

Two Santa Clarita lawyers who sought an injunction to protect their daughters and other local children from associating with a self-admitted pedophile got everything they sought from a California judge today—and more. They had asked for a temporary restraining order to prevent Jack McClellan, a 45-year-old who admittedly is sexually…

Aug 3, 2007 7:15 PM CDT

Canada to Review Polygamy Ban?

In a case that could have an effect on United States law enforcement, a prominent Canadian criminal attorney serving as a special prosecutor has recommended that his country reconsider its ban on polygamy. Appointed in a British Columbia case involving a U.S.-based splinter Mormon group that has reportedly openly practiced…

Aug 1, 2007 11:47 PM CDT

City Code Cases Over Front-Yard Food

Corn. Tomatoes. Sunflowers. All are mainstays in many backyard gardens throughout the country. But now that so-called edible estates are replacing front lawns in urban areas, some neighboring residents are up in arms over the otherwise innocuous veggies. An increasing movement toward replacing the lawns in front of houses with…

Jul 31, 2007 10:19 PM CDT

Gitmo Inmate: Please Don’t Release Me

An inmate who spends 22 hours daily in a windowless steel isolation cell at the Guantanamo Bay prison is pleading with U.S. authorities not to release him. That’s because Ahmed Belbacha, 38, fears he will be treated even worse if he is returned to his native Algeria, reports the London…

Jul 31, 2007 4:44 PM CDT

1st Native American Lawyer in SD Dies

Corrected: Ramon Roubideaux, a well-known American Indian lawyer who represented activists involved in the 71-day standoff at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in 1973, has died. He was 82. Reportedly the first Native American to go into private practice in the state, Roubideaux worked…

Jul 30, 2007 7:40 PM CDT

Mexico City Jails OK Gay Conjugal Visits

Accepting the recommendation of a human rights commission, Mexico City has begun to allow conjugal visits between gay inmates. Such visits are commonly allowed for opposite-sex couples, even when they are not married, and a 2003 Mexico law bans discrimination on the basis of sexual preference, reports the British Broadcasting…

Jul 30, 2007 7:10 PM CDT

Raids Dividing Immigrant Families

As federal authorities amp up their efforts to enforce immigration laws, some immigrant families are facing a tough choice. Children born in this country are U.S. citizens and have a right to live here. But if their non-citizen parents are here illegally, the adults have to decide whether to leave…

Jul 30, 2007 6:17 PM CDT

8 Targets in Prison Masturbation Cases

Updated: A Florida inmate convicted this week of masturbating while alone in his jail cell is reportedly only one of eight targets—along with state taxpayers—of what a Miami Herald columnist describes as “a spectacular case of selective prosecution.” Given the likely prevalence of such commonplace behavior in state prisons (not…

Jul 27, 2007 8:09 PM CDT

Judge Voids Hazleton Immigration Law

In a ruling with national implications, a federal judge in Pennsylvania today struck down a controversial Hazleton municipal ordinance that would have imposed hefty fines on businesses for hiring illegal immigrants and landlords for renting to them. The ordinance was unconstitutional, ruled U.S. District Judge James M. Munley, because it…

Jul 26, 2007 9:38 PM CDT

Record $100 Million for Unjust Conviction

A federal judge in Boston has awarded $100 million to four men unjustly convicted of murder in Massachusetts state court in 1968, reportedly the largest such judgment ever made. Ruling today, U.S. Dist. Judge Nancy Gertner found that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had suppressed evidence that four men convicted…

Jul 26, 2007 8:06 PM CDT