Search Results for: jury, race

In courtrooms from Birmingham, Alabama, to Santa Maria, California, Thomas Mesereau has faced some of the highest stakes in American criminal law. Renowned for his landmark criminal defense of pop icon Michael Jackson and over two decades representing clients on death row in the Deep South, Mesereau speaks with JURIST’s Senior Editor for Long-Form Content, [...]

Forget the TV drama of “democracy under attack.” There is no season twist on Capitol Hill, no slick villain delivering a chilling monologue to a string-quartet soundtrack, and no mastermind plotting from half a world away to bring America to its knees. The real plot twist unfolds much closer to home. It is the claim [...]

With every cell of my being and with every fiber of my memory, I oppose the death penalty in all forms. I do not believe any civilized society should be at the service of death. I don’t think it’s human to become an agent of the angel of death. Elie Wiesel (1928-2016) Holocaust survivor and [...]

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced on Thursday that a Texas man was charged with making death threats against New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Jeremy Fistel, a 44-year-old man from Plano, Texas, was indicted by a grand jury on September 4. He was arrested in Texas on September 11 and extradited to Queens [...]

The first day of June marks the centennial of Pierce v. Society of Sisters, a landmark civil liberties decision in which the US Supreme Court struck down an amendment to the Oregon constitution mandating compulsory public education for all children between the ages of 8 and 16 who had not yet completed the eighth grade. [...]

The organization Equal Rights Center (ERC) filed a lawsuit against Meta on Tuesday alleging that it unlawfully discriminated against Black Facebook and Instagram users by disproportionately advertising for-profit colleges and universities to Black users, while marketing public colleges and universities to white users. ERC argued in its complaint that Meta’s discriminatory marketing practices were unlawful [...]

For too long, this country’s criminal legal system has perpetuated violence, brutality, and murder, with Black people bearing the brunt. While methods may change, the underlying outcomes remain the same. The modern-day manifestation of our nation’s history of anti-Black violence is perhaps most apparent in capital punishment. Marcellus Khaliifah Williams – father, poet, and imam [...]

Missouri Governor Mike Parson announced the state will move forward with plans to execute Marcellus Williams at 6 pm local time on Tuesday despite controversy over evidence and racial discrimination in the trial that led to his 2001 capital conviction. Who is Marcellus Williams? The jury that convicted Williams of capital murder knew little about [...]

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) released a report Monday assessing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives following a June 2023 Supreme Court ruling that banned race-conscious college admissions and heightened scrutiny of workplace diversity efforts nationwide. DEI efforts proliferated across the US after the May 2020 police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man [...]

The trial of four American socialist activists began this week in Florida in a case that echoes the ideological tensions of the Cold War era. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has accused these individuals of instigating social unrest in the US at the behest of the Kremlin. This case pits allegations of Russian misinformation against [...]