Blog of Rights
Emily
Zia
07/31/2009

Another Huge Step Towards Cracking the Disparity

By Emily Zia, Washington Legislative Office at 10:36am

Last week, we commended the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security for doing a markup of the long-awaited Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act of 2009 (H.R. 3245), sponsored by Rep. Robert Scott (D-Va.). This week, we have even more to cheer about: yesterday, the full House Judiciary Committee voted in favor of the bill by a vote of 16-9. This landmark and historic committee vote clears the way for the bill, which will now head to the full House of Representatives for a final vote.

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07/24/2009

Finally Cracking the Disparity: It's About Time!

By Emily Zia, Washington Legislative Office at 11:33am

Wednesday marked a historic moment: the House of Representatives did a markup of the long-awaited Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act of 2009 (H.R. 3245), sponsored by Rep. Robert Scott (D-Va.). The ACLU has been pushing for this moment for the past 22 years. Why is this bill so significant?

Ever since the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, there has been a huge disparity between the sentencing for crack cocaine and powder cocaine (different forms of the same drug). All it takes is for a person to have five grams of crack cocaine (little more than a packet of sugar) and they're guaranteed a minimum sentence of five years. But if a person has powder cocaine instead, things will look much, much brighter: it takes possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine to give a person the same exact five-year sentence. That's a ratio of 100-to-1 — a huge disparity that has fallen disproportionately on African-Americans. These are the kinds of laws that have caused the ranks of the incarcerated to swell to nearly 2.5 million, or one in every 100 adult Americans (PDF).

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06/17/2009

What Would You Do If Your Child Was Raped?

By Emily Zia, Washington Legislative Office at 5:29pm

Yesterday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released its official report on the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), an act that Congress passed in 1996 in order to combat the so-called "frivolous lawsuits" sometimes filed by prisoners. Unfortunately, as HRW's report proves, the PLRA not only weeds out frivolous cases — it also weeds out the serious and meritorious cases as well, effectively denying the civil rights of over two million people (PDF).

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06/05/2009

Nadler Hosts Hearing to Discuss Curbing the State Secrets Act

By Emily Zia, Washington Legislative Office at 5:04pm

Representative Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties subcommittee of the House Judiciary committee, held a hearing yesterday to discuss the long-overdue State Secret Protection Act of 2009 (H.R. 984).

Ben Wizner, lawyer for the ACLU, testified at this hearing to argue in favor of the bill, which sets the boundaries for the executive branch’s use of the state secrets privilege.

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