Criminal Legal System
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Exclusive: groups call for US inquiry into police killing of ‘Cop City’ protester
Tags Share Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the Southern Center for Human Rights, and the University of Dayton Human Rights Center have filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, urging a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the police killing of “Cop City” protester Manuel Paez Terán. The petition demands the release…
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Manuel Esteban Paez Teran v. United States: Justice for murder of environmental activist
This case seeks reparative justice for the extrajudicial killing of Manuel “Tortuguita” Paez Terán, the first environmental activist in modern U.S. history to have been shot and killed by police during a protest.
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Guards at Louisiana ICE facility accused of illegally pepper-spraying protestors
Tags Share In January 2024, ICE officers at Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana pepper-sprayed hundreds of detainees who were participating in a peaceful demonstration and hunger strike. Guards retaliated by indiscriminately deploying pepper spray – an attack that blatantly violated individuals’ rights under the U.S. constitution, federal and state law, and ICE’s own legal standards…
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Cornell Law School: Immigration Clinic Visits Batavia Detention Center
Tags Share In March 2024, Cornell Law students and faculty from the 1L Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic visited the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia, NY, to provide legal assistance to detained immigrants. Partnering with Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the NYCLU, and Prisoners’ Legal Services of NY, the team met with detainees to…
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Solitary Confinement: VP Anthony Enriquez on Alarming Trends, Misconceptions, and Why the Practice Should be Banned
Tags Share In a brief video, Anthony Enriquez, Vice President of U.S. Advocacy and Litigation, urges an end to solitary confinement in United States prisons and detention centers. The United States locks up over 122,000 people in solitary on any given day, at odds with international legal guidance like the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules…
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Campaign to end solitary confinement gains national momentum
Tags Share Propelled by human rights groups and grassroots organizations, the campaign to end the torture of solitary confinement is gaining national momentum. In December, Senator Edward J. Markey introduced the End Solitary Confinement Act, historic legislation that would end solitary confinement in federal prisons, jails, and detention centers, with limited exceptions. Last summer, Congresswoman…
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ACLU represents Louisiana man seeking justice after violent encounter with LSP
Tags Share The ACLU of Louisiana and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights filed a writ application to appeal a misdemeanor criminal conviction on behalf of Anthony Monroe, a Louisiana man who was beaten by Louisiana State Police during a traffic stop and then convicted at a bench trial of resisting arrest. Mr. Monroe is now…
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Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and ACLU of Louisiana’s Justice Lab file criminal appeal following Louisiana man’s unlawful arrest during traffic stop
Tags Share BOSSIER CITY, LA, December 18, 2023 —Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights (RFKHR) and the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana (ACLU-LA) have filed a criminal appeal on behalf of their client Anthony Monroe, after Mr. Monroe was convicted of battery of a police officer and resisting an officer. The appeal, filed on November…
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Pressure to shut down Louisiana detention center mounts with release of reported abuses
Tags Share Reckon Media highlights a new report co-authored by Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights that documents years of abuse and torture at Winn Correctional Center in Lousiana. Staff attorney Sarah Decker comments on Winn’s history of human rights violations, including abusive use of solitary confinement. “We very frequently see ICE weaponizing solitary confinement,” she…
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Citing history of alleged abuse, groups call on ICE to end contract at former La. prison
Tags Share Speaking with Verite News, our staff attorney Sarah Decker calls on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to shut down Winn Correctional Center, a Louisiana ICE detention center with a long history of violence, abuse and negligence.
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Address at the University of California, Berkeley Campus
To understand the causes is not to permit the result. No man has the right to wantonly menace the safety and well-being of his neighbors. All citizens have the right to security in the streets of their community—in Birmingham or in Los Angeles. And it is the duty of all public officials to keep the…
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Address at the International Police Academy Commencement
Guns and bombs cannot build— cannot fill empty stomachs or educate children, cannot build homes or heal the sick. But these are the ends for which men establish and obey government; they will give their allegiance only to governments which meet these needs.
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