judicial system

Judges Should Have To Go To Law School

October 4, 2023 Seth Stern, Freedom of the Press. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Judges, judicial system, Law School

Laws are only as good as the judges tasked with upholding them. And lately, journalists across the U.S. have learned that the legal protections they thought they could rely upon often exist only on paper. But what they may not realize is that, in many states, some judges deciding their constitutional rights aren’t even required to go to law school. The August raid of the Marion County Record, purportedly to investigate whether a journalist illegally accessed driving records, is illustrative. The warrant application failed to mention the federal law -– the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, or PPA — that bans newsroom searches except in limited, inapplicable circumstances.

Legalizing Tyranny

March 6, 2018 By Chris Hedges, Truthdig.com Educate! Exploitation, judicial system, Legal System, Prisons

The students I teach in prison who have the longest sentences are, almost without exception, the ones who demanded a jury trial. If everyone charged with a crime had a jury trial, the court system would implode. Prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges use those who insist on a jury trial—often people who did not commit the crime with which they were charged—as examples. Their sentences, frequently life sentences, are grim reminders as to why it is in the best interests of a defendant, even if he or she did not commit the crime, to take a plea agreement. Ninety-four percent of state-level felony convictions and 97 percent of federal felony convictions are the result of guilty pleas. And studies by groups such as Human Rights Watch confirm the punitive nature of jury trials: Those who go to jury trials get an addition 11 years, on average, tacked on to their sentences. The rich get high-priced lawyers and lengthy jury trials.

9to5 Colorado Fights For Renter’s Rights, Affordable Housing

September 21, 2017 Staff, www.9to5.org Resist! Affordable Housing, Housing, judicial system, renter's rights

By 9to5 Colorado. Colorado - Community members from Denver, Aurora, Westminster, and Commerce City came together to participate in the National Renter’s Week of Action alongside other affiliates of the Right to the City Homes For All campaign. These impacted community and non-profit organizations behind the following local actions are all part of a statewide coalition called Colorado Homes For All, which was formed as a response to the national and local housing crisis. Colorado kicked off the National Renters’ Week of Action here locally with “Evicting THE EVICTOR,” an action that exposed the Tschetter, Hamrick and Sulzer Law firm that represents 80% of corporate landlords across Colorado.

Louisiana Takes Suit Against Energy Corps To Supreme Court

July 13, 2017 Kevin McGill, www.ap.com Resist! climate crisis, Floods, judicial system, Oil and Gas

By Kevin McGill for Associated Press. NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A Louisiana flood protection board has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revive its lawsuit seeking to make oil, gas and pipeline companies pay for decades of damage to coastal wetlands, hoping to reverse losses in the lower federal courts. The suit drew fierce opposition from the energy industry and many in state government when it was filed in 2013 by the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East. It said the energy industry’s dredging of canals in coastal drilling areas contributed to loss of wetlands that form a hurricane buffer for New Orleans. Some 80 companies are named as defendants, among them Chevron, Exxon Mobil Corp., and subsidiaries of BP.

This Lawsuit Could Save Standing Rock

February 19, 2017 Lee Camp, www.youtube.com Resist! #NoDAPL, judicial system, Oil and Gas, Pipelines

By Lee Camp of Redacted Tonight. Are you invested in seeing justice for the Standing Rock Sioux and a halt to the build out of the Dakota Access Pipeline? Then you should get familiar with the name Tangerine Bolen. Bolen, a guest in the latest episode of Redacted Tonight VIP, is the founder and executive director of RevolutionTruth.org, an all volunteer organization dedicated to standing up for human rights and preserving civil liberties. Claiming a need for both environmental and racial justice, Bolen talks with host Lee Camp about her effort to bring forward lawsuits that could put an end to the Dakota Access Pipeline and protect the land and water of the Standing Rock Sioux. While so many people fight on the ground as Water Protectors in North Dakota, millions of others are helping out on social media or by donating money to the cause.

Officials Outraged: Report NYPD Kicking People Out Of Homes

February 10, 2016 Sarah Ryley, www.propublica.org Educate! Corruption, judicial system, Law Enforcement, NYPD, Police abuse

By Sarah Ryley for ProPublica and the New York Daily News - A wide swath of public officials are calling for change in response to a Daily News and ProPublica investigation about the NYPD’s use of an obscure type of lawsuit to boot hundreds of people from homes. The cases are happening almost exclusively in minority neighborhoods. Several city council members said they were considering amendments and other reforms to safeguard abuses. Council Member Vanessa L. Gibson said the statistics included in the story are “shocking.”

Baltimore Rent Court Privileges Landlords, Evicts Tenants

December 8, 2015 Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org Educate! Evictions, Housing, judicial system, Rental housing

By Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. Baltimore, MD - Every year in Baltimore City, 6,000 to 7,000 renter households are judicially evicted for not paying the rent. These evictions result from a court system – known colloquially as “the Rent Court” – that is overwhelmed by landlord litigation, to the tune of 150,000 rent cases annually. The scale of this enduring crisis sets Baltimore apart from most rental housing markets in the nation. In fact, among metro areas studied in the 2013 American Housing Survey, Baltimore ranked second only to Detroit, Michigan, in the percentage of renters experiencing the threat of rent eviction.1 Many of these struggling renters feel that the public has tuned out their stories or flipped those stories against them.

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