Blog of Rights
Rachel
Myers

Rachel Myers is a senior communications strategist at the ACLU focusing on criminal justice issues. She worked previously at the ACLU of Maine and the Portland (ME) Education Partnership, where she trained teachers, students and community organizations to use service learning in the public schools. She is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin.

03/09/2011

Even Bigfoot Knows His Rights

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 5:02pm

The ACLU of New Hampshire is suing the state on behalf of America's favorite furry, bipedal humanoid. Well, actually — on behalf of a human filmmaker and performance artist who was barred from filming his ape suit adventures at a local mountain.

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09/16/2009
Guantánamo

Government Asks For Delay in Guantánamo Military Commission Cases of 9/11 Defendants

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 5:28pm

The government indicated today it would ask for a further delay in the Guantánamo military commissions cases of the defendants charged in the 9/11 attacks. The proceedings are currently scheduled to resume on Monday, September 21, and it will be up to the military judge whether or not to grant a requested delay. The government’s request would come on the heels of a petition filed by military defense lawyers on September 10 asking a federal court to halt the unconstitutional military commissions system.

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06/23/2008

Words Are All We Have

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 11:21am

George Carlin, a warrior for the First Amendment who exercised his right to free speech even after being arrested for it, died last night.

In his landmark comedy routine, “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” Carlin reminded everyone of the arbitrariness of government censorship:

There are some people that aren't into all the words. There are some people who would have you not use certain words. Yeah, there are 400,000 words in the English language, and there are seven of them that you can't say on television. What a ratio that is. 399,993 to seven. They must really be bad. They'd have to be outrageous, to be separated from a group that large. All of you over here, you seven. Bad words. That's what they told us they were, remember? 'That's a bad word.' 'Awwww.' There are no bad words. Bad thoughts. Bad intentions.
That routine landed New York radio station WBAI in the Supreme Court in the 1970s. The station was censured and fined by the FCC for airing Carlin’s bit, and the Supreme Court upheld the decision in 1978, ruling that “of all forms of communication, broadcasting has the most limited First Amendment protection.”

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01/15/2008
Protestors' Rights

Protestors Should be Seen and Heard

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 11:58am

Once again, it appears free speech may be the victim of official White House policy. In the rather un-grand tradition of shielding the president from dissenting opinions, several New Mexicans were recently made to stand 150 yards - and behind a blockade of police cars and horses - away from the presidential motorcade route while Bush supporters wielding a "God Bless George Bush! We Pray for You!" sign got right up close.

Like the Ranks in West Virginia who were escorted out of a Bush speech for their anti-Bush T-shirts, or Leslie Weise and Alex Young who were kicked out of another presidential event in Denver for the "No Blood for Oil" sticker on their car, it's likely that the treatment of the New Mexico protestors was dictated by the official Presidential Advance Manual.

This manual encourages people on the ground at the site of a presidential appearance to "ask the local police department to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferably not in view of the event site or motorcade route" and suggests "rally squads" of supporters to "use their signs and banners as shields between the demonstrators and the main press platform."

Today the ACLU filed a complaint in federal court on behalf of six of the New Mexico protestors. The Constitution guarantees us all the right to express our views and protects us from being treated differently because of them. Policies - from the White House, local law enforcement agencies or otherwise - that dictate different treatment for different opinions is unconstitutional, and we hope this case proves so once and for all.

You can learn more about the case from blogger Chris Weigant's interview with ACLU Staff Attorney Catherine Crump on HuffingtonPost.

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11/05/2012
U.S. Death Penalty

Replace the Death Penalty in California

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 2:55pm

Imagine for a minute that all the public busses in California sat dormant in a parking lot, never to run again. Imagine that the public schools sent all the kids home for good. Imagine also that state’s hospitals shuttered their doors and turned the ill away. Now imagine that, despite a total shutdown of the transportation, education and health care systems, California taxpayers still paid millions every year to fund these non-functioning systems.

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05/17/2012
Medical Marijuana

Op-Ed: A Judge’s Plea for Pot

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 4:53pm

Today, in a powerful and brave opinion piece in the New York Times, Judge Gustin L. Reichbach tells of how he relies on marijuana to tame the abysmal effects of chemotherapy and radiation, which in turn are meant to tame the cancer that ravages his body. Nausea and pain, he says, are constant companions of the treatment, and none of the drugs his doctors can prescribe him are any help. The only thing that helps is marijuana, which his doctors can’t prescribe – even when they, his doctors, know it is in his best interest – because lawmakers prohibit it.

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02/02/2012
NYPD

NYC Marijuana Arrests Still Too High

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 3:43pm

The New York City Police Department made a near-record number of low-level marijuana arrests in 2011, surpassing 2010 and making 2011 the second-most prolific period for marijuana arrests in NYC history. The 50,684 arrest occurred despite the fact that possessing a small amount of marijuana is not a crime in New York unless it is in public view.

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01/17/2012
Solitary Confinement

Washington Post Editorializes on Solitary Confinement in Virginia

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 3:06pm

The Washington Post had this important editorial on the overuse of solitary confinement in Virginia prison. The Post calls on Virginia to follow in the footsteps of other states that have moved in the right direction and begun to reduce their reliance on solitary confinement.

As we wrote last week, Department of Corrections (DOC) officials laud 23-hour-a-day lockdown as a necessary measure for handling the “worst of the worst.” Unfortunately, this supposed “worst of the worst” includes the mentally ill — the Virginia DOC admits that almost 30% of those in solitary in Red Onion State Prison have been diagnosed as mentally ill. Even worse, prisoners are sometimes kept in solitary for years, regardless of their mental health status.

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01/13/2012
Medical Marijuana

Arizona Governor Will Implement Medical Marijuana Law

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 5:02pm

Gov. Brewer had previously challenged the law in court, arguing that state officials fear federal prosecution for implementing the law. Her case was dismissed earlier this week.

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11/04/2011
Alabama

New Chance for Justice in Alabama

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 10:00am

This week we got the welcome news that the state of Alabama will not appeal a ruling ordering a new trial for ACLU client Montez Spradley, who was sentenced to death despite inadequate and very weak evidence, after his trial judge rejected the jury’s 10-2 vote for a life sentence .

As we’ve written before, Spradley, a young African-American man, has always vigorously maintained his innocence in the 2004 murder of a 58-year-old white grandmother in Birmingham, Alabama. The prosecution's case against Spradley was alarmingly thin and riddled with inconsistencies, and in ordering a new trial the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals found that much of it was "improperly admitted."

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