Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently directed all federal prosecutors to pursue charges for the “most serious possible offenses.”
Last week, police shot and killed an African-American teen in a Dallas suburb, where he was leaving a party that he was concerned was becoming dangerous. Fifteen-year-old Jordan Edwards was a passenger in a car full of teens, including two of his brothers.
The SPLC and allies asked a judge today to certify a lawsuit challenging Louisiana’s broken public defender system as a class action case – citing an expert report that describes how the state’s overburdened public defense system fails to protect indigent defendants’ constitutional right to counsel.
Hundreds of Louisianans gathered at the state Capitol in Baton Rouge this week as part of an effort by the SPLC and grassroots groups to show support for reforms aimed at ending the state’s status as the nation’s leader in incarceration.
By ordering the Justice Department to review all of its consent decrees with law enforcement agencies, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is illustrating exactly why we and other civil rights groups strongly opposed his confirmation.
After hearing two months of testimony, a federal judge will now decide whether Alabama’s troubled prison system violates the rights of prisoners by failing to provide adequate mental health care.
After hearing two months of testimony, a federal judge will now decide whether Alabama’s troubled prison system violates the rights of prisoners by failing to provide adequate mental health care.
Louisiana officials are denying poor people their constitutional right to counsel by failing to establish an effective statewide public defense system, according to a lawsuit filed today by the SPLC and its allies.