While candidate Donald Trump promised to protect medical marijuana on the campaign trail, President Trump’s Justice Department wants to be more aggressive against state-legal marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Attorney General Jeff Sessions personally asked Congress for funds to prosecute medical marijuana cases in states where it is legal. The legal sale of recreational marijuana remains […]
Activists in New York City are engaging in profound acts of resistance against over-policing in the subways. Politicians are listening, but are they really hearing them?
The prosecution of a San Diego attorney is raising major concerns in the legal community about the attorney-client privilege and the possibility that Jessica McElfresh is being prosecuted because she did her job. McElfresh, who has represented other clients who are involved with cannabis, is facing multiple felony charges related to one of her clients, […]
The officers’ credibility is under fire.
Two Houston police officers who were accused of going too far with a roadside body cavity search after they thought they smelled weed on Charnesia Corley in 2015 have been cleared by a Harris County grand jury. Deputies William Strong and Ronaldine Pierre were originally indicted in June 2016 after pulling Charnesia Corley over for a traffic […]
Last Wednesday, County District Attorney Kristen Barnebey of Aransas County, Texas announced that her office will not accept cases presented by a local police department until its officers are better educated and trained. A press release issued by her office on Tuesday states that the Rockport Police Department has withheld evidence in violation of the law — […]
The family of an Aaron Bailey, an unarmed black man killed by police in Indianapolis, are asking for a special prosecutor to investigate the case. Family members argue that Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry has a conflict of interest and cannot fairly assess the culpability of Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Officers Michal P. Dinnsen and Carlton […]
In 2015, New Mexico became the first state to ban civil asset forfeiture, also known as policing for profit. Law enforcement cannot take people’s valuables and use the civil court system to gain ownership of them. State law now stipulates that cash and property can only be seized by law enforcement and forfeited when the original […]
Embattled Orange County Prosecutor Tony Rackauckas will not prosecute a police officer who shot an unarmed 18-year-old. Rackauckas announced in a letter last month that there’s insufficient evidence that Santa Ana Detective David Prewett committed a crime in the January shooting of Steve Salgado. This is the second time Prewett has been cleared in a fatal shooting […]
Like Vida B. Johnson, I was outraged at the t-shirt worn by a Metropolitan Police Department officer that glorified the use of “jump-out cars” and contained a common white supremacist symbol. Police and political leadership should actively identify and root out white supremacists from police departments throughout the country. At the same time, community leaders should examine […]
Tatyana Hargrove is not a 5’10”, 170 pound bald man with a goatee. But that didn’t stop Hargrove, a 5’2″, 120 pound 19-year-old, from being arrested by Bakersfield, California police on June 18, even though the person cops were looking for was older, taller, heavier, and a different gender. The only similarity between Hargrove and […]
Last year, Portland, Oregon Mayor Ted Wheeler successfully ran on a platform that championed police reform as a major priority. But since he took office, Wheeler has repeatedly drawn the ire of local criminal justice reform activists and organizers. On Monday, Wheeler took a step that could begin to heal his relationship with concerned Portlanders by appointing Danielle Outlaw, a 19-year veteran […]
The Washington Post, the Root, and others have recently written about a District of Columbia police officer who was seen in D.C. Superior Court wearing a t-shirt with a white supremacist symbol and the grim reaper holding a rifle and police badge. Under the ugly image of death is the caption “let me see that waistband […]
In a speech last week to a group of law enforcement officials in Suffolk County, New York, President Trump suggested that America was under threat “because police [aren’t] allowed to do their job.” He decried laws that he sees as “heavily stacked against [police]” and “made to protect the criminal.” In the face of this perceived […]
Earlier this week, the Oregonian newspaper reported that Ted Wheeler, the Mayor of Portland, Oregon had narrowed the field of candidates for Portland police chief to four candidates.
In response to an increase in violent crime, lawmakers, law enforcement, and various community members in Baltimore, Maryland are considering a plan that has proven ineffective at reducing crime for decades: mandatory minimum sentencing. Under a proposal announced last Friday, people caught in possession of an illegal firearm within 100 yards of a public space— including […]
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle had “no basis in the law” when she threatened to prosecute a man for recording a conversation he had with the Chief of the Homestead Police Department. As a result, James Eric McDonough’s federal lawsuit against Fernandez-Rundle can proceed. According to […]
A recent report by CityBeat shows that Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney Joe Deters has engaged a longtime friend and former subordinate in a number of no-bid contracts totaling approximately $2.2 million. Two-thirds of the funds paid by Deters to Dennis Lima and his technology company have come from funds collected by his office through criminal forfeiture efforts.
For decades people who’ve jumped over the turnstiles in the New York subway system have faced arrest and being charged with criminal “theft of services.” But New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance recently announced that his office would no longer pursue criminal charges against most people for fare evasion, and would instead seek to send them […]
Police accountability advocates in Portland, Oregon celebrated a rare victory last October when former mayor Charlie Hales renegotiated the city’s contract with the Portland police union. Though many details of the negotiation were criticized, Hales did succeed in getting the union to strikethe long-held, controversial 48-hour rule that allowed officers involved in fatal shootings to wait […]
Justine Damond called 911 Saturday night because she was concerned about a possible assault in the alleyway behind her home. For reasons that remain unknown, she was shot and killed by police after they arrived to investigate the incident. So far police have offered no explanations for the shooting. The officers’ body cameras were off […]
Between July 2015 and June 2016, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) made $1.9 million from civil asset forfeiture, the law enforcement practice of seizing cash and property from members of the public and forcing them to legally forfeit those belongings. Now, evidence shows that the funds came from low-income, predominately non-white neighborhoods. According to […]
In early June, District Attorney Mark Peterson was busy planning for his reelection campaign in Contra Costa County, California. But life comes at you fast, especially when you’ve admitted to embezzling $66,000 in campaign funds for hotel rooms, movie tickets, jewelry, and other frivolities. Peterson got an unusual taste of his own medicine when he was […]
Overwhelmingly, “undocumented” residents are referred to by the current administration In Washington as “illegal aliens” and identified almost exclusively as Latinos. There is little, if any, subtlety in this regard. The administration’s policy is undeniably race based.
Keith Kaneshiro, the city prosecutor in Honolulu, has become a suspect in a widening federal public corruption investigation that has already snared one of Kaneshiro’s top prosecutors and her husband, the city’s former police chief. Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha has already resigned due to the far reaching inquiry. His wife, deputy prosecutor Katherine Kealoha, is also under investigation […]
Since Larry Krasner began his campaign for Philadelphia District Attorney, the consensus has been that he will have to win over the stringent objections of the Philadelphia police.