Search Results for: Mississippi

The US Department of Justice on Thursday found that the Phoenix Police Department and the City of Phoenix have engaged in excessive force, discrimination and general civil rights violations against Black, Latino, Native American and other marginalized communities. The findings were published in a 126-page report, ending an investigation that began in 2021. Attorney General Merrick [...]

Sharon Basch is a rising 3L at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and a JURIST staff correspondent in Washington DC this summer.  On Tuesday I attended a hearing called by the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions to examine women’s freedoms, focusing on access to abortions across the United States [...]

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) released a 67-page report Tuesday detailing its findings from monitoring the 2022 US midterm election and showcasing strategies to combat racial inequality during upcoming election cycles. The report, entitled Democracy Defended, specifically focused on voter experiences in seven of the nation’s southern states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, [...]

Former Philadelphia Police Officer Edsaul Mendoza, accused of shooting an unarmed 12-year-old, pleaded guilty to 3rd-degree murder on Friday, according to the Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s Office. In March 2022, Mendoza shot Thomas “TJ” Siderio during a “tactically unsound” foot pursuit. The former officer had been charged with first-degree murder, third-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, [...]

The Alabama House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday that would define biological sex in binary terms based on individuals’ reproductive systems rather than their gender identity. House Bill (HB) 111 would amend the Alabama Code to define sex-based terms, provide policy relating to sex and gender identity, allow public entities to establish some [...]

The Tennessee Senate passed a bill Thursday that would require public schools to show a fetal development video comparable to one produced by an anti-abortion group to its students. SB 2767 will require public schools’ family life curriculum to include a three-minute “high-quality, computer-generated animation or high-definition ultrasound” that shows the development of vital organs [...]

The Florida Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the state constitution does not protect the right to abortion. The ruling in Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida vs. State of Florida allows the current 15-week abortion ban to be upheld and triggers the Heartbeat Protection Act to take effect. The Act, signed into law [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging an Ohio ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender minors. The organization filed the suit along with the ACLU of Ohio and Goodwin, a global law firm, on behalf of two families whose children are at risk of losing access to such care. The ACLU [...]

The last of the six members of the Mississippi law enforcement group known as the “Goon Squad,” Joshua Hartfield, was sentenced to just over ten years in prison on Thursday for his involvement in the January 2023 torturing of two Black men. All six officers were terminated and pleaded guilty to their involvement in the [...]

A federal judge in Mississippi sentenced former Rankin County sheriff’s deputy Christian Dedmon to 40 years in prison on Wednesday, making Dedmon the fourth in a string of sentences for deputies who pled guilty for their role in the January 2023 beating and torture of two Black men. Dedmon pleaded guilty alongside five other deputies [...]