Category Archives: Civil Rights

Read Civil Rights updates, alerts, news, and legal commentary from leading lawyers and laws. Providing news and information about Civil Rights Law for legal professionals.

ACLU questions Rhode Island cops stopping NY cars

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island is questioning the constitutionality of Gov. Gina Raimondo’s directive allowing state police to stop vehicles with New York license plates.

The Democratic governor on Thursday called the measure extreme but pointed out New York City is the epicenter of the disease in the United States.

Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU of Rhode Island, says while Raimondo has the authority to suspend some state laws and regulations to address a medical emergency, she cannot suspend the Constitution.

He says under the Fourth Amendment, having a New York state license plate “simply does not, and cannot, constitute ‘probable cause’ to allow police to stop a car and interrogate the driver, no matter how laudable the goal of the stop may be.”

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Supreme Court Weighs Abortion Case; Schumer Remarks Draw Rebuke From Roberts

There were fierce clashes at the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday and a fierce critique from Chief Justice John Roberts afterward upon learning about statements made by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer outside while the arguments were taking place inside.

Addressing a crowd of abortion-rights demonstrators, Schumer, D-N.Y., referred to the court’s two Trump appointees, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, and said, “You have unleashed the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

Schumer’s statement was apparently a reference to Kavanaugh’s angry statement to Democratic senators at his 2018 confirmation hearing, “You sowed the wind. For decades to come, I fear the country will reap the whirlwind.”

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Use Amazon, Uber or Walmart.com? You’ve probably signed away your right to sue them

Tucked into the sign-up process for many popular e-commerce sites and apps are dense terms-of-service agreements that legal experts say are changing the nature of consumer transactions, creating a veil of secrecy around how these companies function.

The small print in these documents requires all signatories to agree to binding arbitration and to clauses that ban class actions. Just by signing up for these services, consumers give up their rights to sue companies like Amazon, Uber and Walmart before a jury of their peers, agreeing instead to undertake a private process overseen by a paid arbitrator.

Binding arbitration clauses have been common for decades, whether buying a car or joining a membership club like Costco, but the proliferation of apps and e-commerce means that such clauses now cover millions of everyday commercial transactions, from buying groceries to getting to the airport.

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Supreme Court Justices set to hold meeting on civil legal needs in Detroit

How the state’s judicial system handles debt collection, landlord tenant disputes and expungements will be among the issues two Michigan Supreme Court justices are hoping to hear about from residents during a Monday town hall meeting.

Chief Justice Bridget McCormack and Justice Brian Zahra will hear testimony and questions from Metro Detroit residents Monday during a public meeting of the Justice for All Task Force near downtown Detroit. It is scheduled for 6 p.m.-8 p.m. Monday at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union Hall, 1358 Abbott in Detroit.

McCormack and Zahra are seeking input from Michigan residents to help identify the needs they have on issues relating to the civil branch of the law. The information gathered from residents will  help shape a statewide plan to fill in the gaps of service for civil legal needs.

“We’re trying to take inventory of what’s out there,” McCormack said. “It’s a way for us to hear directly from the public about their experience of trying to navigate the court system on their own.”

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‘RACE AGAINST TIME’ RE-EXAMINES UNSOLVED CIVIL RIGHTS CASES

BY DR. GLENN C. ALTSCHULER
SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER

“The past is never dead,” William Faulkner wrote in “Requiem for a Nun.’’ “It’s not even past.”

In “Race Against Time,’’ Jerry Mitchell applies this aphorism to racially motived murders of the 1960s: The assassination of Medgar Evers; the fire-bombing of the home of Vernon Dahmer; the bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama that killed four girls; and the Mississippi Burning killing of James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner and Andrew Goodman.

A journalist for the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi for more than three decades and the founder of the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, Mitchell braved death threats to play a pivotal role in reopening and prosecuting these cold cases. Sobering and suspenseful, his book is a must-read during Black History month.

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