A US federal grand jury indicted the three Georgia men Wednesday charged with “federal hate crimes and attempted kidnapping” in connection with the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. Arbery is the unarmed 25-year-old Black man whose name became a rallying cry during the 2020 protests against police brutality. On February 23, 2020, three white residents of [...]

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law published a 26-page report and six-page annotated proposal Wednesday addressing why 18 USC § 242 makes it difficult to prosecute police, federal agents, and probation and correctional officers who engage in civil rights violations. The foreword to the report states that the Brennan [...]

A report from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Tuesday found that the practice of suspending driver’s licenses for failing to pay fines or appear at court proceedings is ultimately counterproductive to collecting money owed. The organization is recommending that state and local governments stop imposing such restrictions. The majority of US states suspend driver’s [...]

North Carolina Superior Court Judge Jeff Foster rejected bids on Wednesday to publicly release bodycam footage in the shooting of Andrew Brown Jr. The ruling is accompanied, however, by an order for the sheriff to allow Brown’s immediate family members and lawyers to view the footage independently. Under North Carolina law, while anyone may request [...]

A commission of human rights experts asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague on Tuesday to investigate the pattern of systemic police violence against Black people in the US. This comes shortly after the commission released a 188-page report detailing the crimes against humanity committed by police and prosecutors in the US. Commissioners [...]

A bipartisan group of US senators on Tuesday urged the Biden administration to impose more sanctions on the military regime that has taken over Myanmar. The letter was signed by senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Susan Collins (R-ME), Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Ed Markey (D-MA), and addressed to Treasury Secretary [...]

The US Supreme Court reversed an appeals court ruling Monday, allowing an inmate’s federal post-conviction challenge to his state conviction after he had completed his state sentence. The three-page unsigned per curiam opinion came in the case of Alaska v. Wright. Sean Wright had been previously convicted of sexual abuse of a minor in a [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta and Guam v. United States. In Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, the plaintiffs, two conservative nonprofits,  are “challenging the constitutionality of California’s requirement that charities and nonprofits operating in the state provide the state attorney general’s office with the [...]

US President Joe Biden signed an executive order Monday establishing the “Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment,” charged with increasing union density and promoting workplace organizing. The task force will be lead by Vice President Kamala Harris, who has advocated for public sector unions and co-sponsored legislation supporting the right to organize while serving [...]

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday heard oral arguments in HollyFrontier Cheyenne Refining, LLC v Renewable Fuels Association, a case regarding exemptions for small refineries from the Renewable Fuel Standards Program, and United States v Palomar-Santiago, which involves immigration law and noncitizen re-entry. HollyFrontier concerns the Clean Air Act‘s biofuels mandate to replace crude oil with [...]