BY: MICHAEL D. BRAUNSTEIN Decades after the start of the movement against lesbian, gay, transgendered, bisexual, and queer (“LGBTQ”) discrimination,[1] LGBTQ citizens have finally earned a long-sought victory. On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court ruled by a 5-to-4 decision that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage.[2] Although this was undoubtedly a huge […]
BY: MARLON BAQUEDANO The American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section has catalogued more than 38,000 statutes nationwide that impose collateral consequences on people convicted of crimes; these statutes create barriers to jobs, housing, welfare benefits, and voting.[1] The majority of these statutes (80%) work as denial of employment opportunities.[2] This means that statutes that make […]
BY: MARIA ORDONEZ Timothy Lee Hurst was charged and convicted with the gruesome May 2, 1998, killing of Cynthia Harrison during a robbery at the Popeye’s restaurant in Escambia County, Florida, where they were both employed. After he was granted a new sentencing trial because of counsel’s ineffective assistance[1], Hurst was again sentenced to death […]
BY: LAUREN MADDOX In 1986, the Supreme Court decided Batson v. Kentucky, holding that use of peremptory challenges to remove jurors from the jury pool based on race is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.[1] The following year, Timothy Tyrone Foster, an 18-year-old black male, was convicted and sentenced to […]
