By Paul Von Blum Paul Von Blum is a longtime member of the California State Bar and has taught at the University of California for over 40 years. He is currently senior lecturer in African American Studies at UCLA. John Edgar Wideman, Writing to Save a Life: The Louis Till File, Scribner, 216, 208 pp. […]
Archives
BOOK REVIEW: A Tilted Guide to Being a Defendant
By Kris Hermes Kris Hermes has been an active, award-winning legal worker-member of the NLG and has been a part of numerous law collectives and legal support efforts. He is the author of Crashing the Party: Legacies and Lessons from the RNC 2000 (PM Press), which examined how Philadelphia helped develop and usher in today’s […]
BOOK REVIEW: Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy
By Michael Avery Michael Avery is Professor Emeritus at Suffolk University Law School in Boston, and a former president of the National Lawyers Guild. Heather Ann Thompson, Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy, Pantheon; 2016. Hardcover: 752 pages. $35.00. Blood in the Water, by Heather Ann Thompson, provides […]
On Accepting the Champion of Justice Award, NYC Chapter of the NLG on June 9, 2017
By Alan Levine Alan Levine began his civil rights career representing activists in Mississippi and Alabama during the Freedom Summer of 1964. During his storied career he has represented Vietnam war protesters, Occupy movement activists, and countless others facing punishment for seeking a more humane and just society. I am deeply honored to be recognized […]
Editor’s Preface: Spring 2017
Shortly after 9/11 the New York Police Department, resurrecting the lawless spirit of COINTELPRO, initiated a vast surveillance and disruption program against local Islamic citizens and organizations. The program was the subject of a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles by Associated Press. The AP chronicled the constitutional abuses of a well-orchestrated system of policing, omnipresent […]
COULD OR MUST? APPRENDI’S APPLICATION TO INDETERMINATE SENTENCING SYSTEMS AFTER ALLEYNE
By David Loudon Introduction In a series of cases starting with Apprendi v. New Jersey, 1 the United States Supreme Court has held that the Sixth Amendment requires that any fact that increases the minimum or maximum sentence that a judge can impose on an offender2 must be found by the jury beyond a reasonable doubt, […]
“Deadly Force” Revisited: Transparency and Accountability for D.C. Police Use of Force
By Karen Hopkins Introduction In 1999, a Washington Post investigative series entitled “Deadly Force” revealed that the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) in the District of Columbia had “shot and killed more people per resident in the 1990s than any other large American city police force.” 1 The Post found that in some cases the police […]
Editor’s Preface
In 1999 the Washington Post won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, perhaps the most coveted of journalistic prizes, for “Deadly Force,” a five-part series of articles that sought to explain the alarming frequency with which police officers in Washington D.C. killed residents of the city they were charged with protecting. The series identified a […]
The Color of Pain: Blacks and the U.S. Health Care System – Can the Affordable Care Act Help to Heal a History of Injustice? Part I
By Jennifer M. Smith Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane. . . —The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1 Preface In 1940, when Moses A. Robinson was only 13 years old, he wanted to go to a movie in his hometown of Franklin, Louisiana. Because […]
Speaking of the Review: Speech at the Oakland NLG Convention, October 24, 2015
By Deborah Willis I want to thank the Guild for the Arthur Kinoy Award. I was surprised—in fact I was floored—but I’m very pleased and proud to receive it. Arthur Kinoy is someone I’ve admired for years and it’s an honor to receive an award with his name on it. I’m not a lawyer. I’m […]