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.

06/30/2011
War on Drugs

Just Say "No" to the War on Drugs

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 3:21pm

June 2011 marked the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon's declaration of a "war on drugs" — a war that has cost roughly a trillion dollars, has produced little to no effect on the supply of or demand for drugs in the United States, and has contributed to making America the world's largest incarcerator. Throughout the month, we’ve run daily posts about the drug war, its victims and what needs to be done to restore fairness and create effective policy.

Today, we got some encouraging news: the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted to retroactively apply the new Fair Sentencing Act guidelines to individuals sentenced before the law was enacted. This decision will help ensure that over 12,000 people — 85 percent of whom are African-Americans — will have the opportunity to have their sentences for crack cocaine offenses reviewed by a federal judge and possibly reduced.

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06/28/2011
California

The High Price of Habitual Offender Laws

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 4:07pm

Has North Carolina taken one step forward but another one back in trying to solve the state's prison population issues? The recently passed Justice Reinvestment Act looks to make some positive strides in the area of criminal justice reform, particularly by providing alternatives to prison for many drug possession offenses. But another new law that stiffens habitual offender laws is disturbingly reminiscent of other states' tough habitual offender laws — such as California's infamous "three strikes" law that, rather than reducing recidivism, has led to a well-publicized overcrowding problem in that state's prisons.

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06/20/2011
Overincarceration

Louisiana Passes Legislation Addressing Growing Number of Elderly in Prison

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 5:27pm

The Louisiana Senate has just passed H.B. 138, which will enable some prisoners to go before a parole board upon turning 60. The board can then decide to grant parole to those individuals it determines would pose no danger to the community upon release. Louisiana’s House of Representatives passed the bill two weeks ago. It now heads to the desk of Gov. Bobby Jindal, and we hope that he will go along with the will of the legislature.

H.B. 138 addresses an ongoing problem in Louisiana and across the nation: a growing geriatric population in our prisons, most of whom pose little to no risk to public safety, and cost taxpayers three times as much to imprison, on average, as younger inmates.

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06/06/2011

Louisiana: Act TODAY For Sensible Prison Reform!

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 4:06pm

Tomorrow, the Louisiana House will vote on House Bill 138, which would give individuals age 60 or older the right to a hearing before a parole board. The board could then determine whether these individuals can be safely released. In a state that imprisons more people than any other state and where life sentences are increasingly imposed without the possibility of parole, this bill would be a step in the right direction and would save the state a considerable amount of money without negatively impacting public safety.

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05/25/2011
Overincarceration

Plata Decision: Good for the Constitution, Communities and Taxpayer Wallets

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 4:36pm

Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the state of California to reduce its prison population in order to alleviate extreme overcrowding that endangers the health and safety of the state's prisoners and prison staff. The decision in Brown v. Plata affirms a lower court ruling in two long-running cases in which the medical and mental health care provided in California's prisons was found to be so deficient that it endangers the lives of prisoners and violates the U.S. Constitution's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. The ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case before the Supreme Court.

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05/23/2011

ACLU Lens: Supreme Court Orders California to Reduce its Prison Population to Alleviate Overcrowding

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 1:47pm

The U.S. Supreme Court today ordered the state of California to reduce its prison population in order to alleviate extreme overcrowding that endangers the health and safety of the state’s prisoners and prison staff. The decision in Brown v. Plata affirms a lower court ruling in two long-running cases in which the medical and mental health care provided in California’s prisons was found to be so deficient that it endangers the lives of prisoners and violates the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

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05/18/2011

Sentencing Children to Die in Prison

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 1:23pm

One year ago this week, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that sentencing youth who have committed non-homicide offenses to life in prison without some meaningful opportunity for review of that sentence is unconstitutional. Although the ruling does not guarantee that juvenile offenders will eventually be released, it requires that they be provided with some realistic opportunity to obtain release before during their lifetime. The ruling in the case, Graham v. Florida, was an important step in the right direction. It recognized that juvenile offenders are fundamentally different from their adult counterparts, that they have a greater capacity for change, growth and rehabilitation, and that they should not, therefore, be punished with the harshest sentence that can be imposed on adults.

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04/05/2011
BRCA

ACLU Lens: Appeals Court Hears Case Challenging Patents on Breast Cancer Genes

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 5:43pm

A crowd of scientists, medical professionals and legal scholars packed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit yesterday to hear an appeal in our lawsuit challenging the patents on two human genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer.

The ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation brought a lawsuit in May 2009 against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Myriad Genetics and the University of Utah Research Foundation, which hold the patents on the genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2. The lawsuit charges that the patents restrict both scientific research and patients' access to medical care, and that patents on human genes are illegal because genes are "products of nature." The groups brought the case on behalf of breast cancer and women's health groups, individual women, geneticists and scientific associations representing approximately 150,000 researchers, pathologists and laboratory professionals.

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03/21/2011
FISA Amendments Act

VICTORY! Court Says Plaintiffs Can Challenge Bush Wiretapping Law

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 12:47pm

In a huge victory for privacy and the rule of law, a federal appeals court today reinstated our landmark lawsuit challenging the FISA Amendments Act (FAA), a statute that gives the executive branch virtually unchecked power to collect Americans' international e-mails and telephone calls.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of a broad coalition of attorneys and human rights, labor, legal and media organizations whose work requires them to engage in sensitive and sometimes privileged telephone and e-mail communications with colleagues, clients, journalistic sources, witnesses, experts, foreign government officials and victims of human rights abuses located outside the United States.

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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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