Sunday was the sixth day of mass protest. Hundreds of protests, with violent outbursts in many major cities, have occurred. At least 40 cities have imposed curfews and National Guard members have been activated in 15 states and Washington, DC. At least five people have been kill and property damage will most likely total in the hundreds of millions.
As I watched protests, looting, burning of buildings, and the chaos erupting all across American in response to the murder of George Floyd by four police thugs, I couldn't help but think about a movie from 1973, "The Spook Who Sat by the Door". During the movie, which is based on a book by the same name, Dan Freeman, a black man pretends to be an Uncle Tom* in order to become the first CIA officer. Freeman then uses his specialized CIA training in gathering intelligence, political subversion, and guerrilla warfare to provide tactical training to street gang members to plot a Black American Revolution involving organized chaos sparked by police brutality. Obviously, the George Floyd protests weren't the result of an organized plot, but you'll be amazed how similar the results of this past week of protest has been to the movie plot.
The Spook Who Sat By the Door 1973
*Sambo was actually the sell-out character and Uncle Tom was the hero, but racism has distorted the nature of those two characters.
Earlier today I had a conversation with one of my closest friends about looting and fires that took place in Minneapolis. It's easy to talk about peaceful responses to violence that's not happening to you. If George Floyd was your son, father, brother, or husband, how peaceful would you feel?
Tamika Mallory delivers a powerful message about violence prior to former NBA player Steven Jackson speaking about his friend George Floyd being murdered by police.
Individuals have a right to resist and rebel against a tyrannical government and political injustices. Isn't that the example set by our nation's founding fathers? Thomas Paine wrote in his 1776 pamphlet Common Sense when struggling to defend rights against tyranny, “it is the violence which is done and threatened to our persons … which conscientiously qualifies the use of arms”. Protesters in Minneapolis have been mostly peaceful, but some have decided, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" Instead of destroying tea, they destroyed buildings including a police station.
“Negroes
Sweet and docile,
Meek, humble, and kind:
Beware the day
They change their minds!"
–Warning! from Langston Hughes
On May 19th, in response to excessive force used by Des Peres, MO police against a black grandmother and her son who were falsely accused of stealing at Sam's Club on Hanley Road, I wrote the following response on Facebook.
"Until we do more than just protest, this will never end! Police and even random strangers feel comfortable violating our rights because they don't fear any consequences. As a collective group, we better figure out a way to make them fear us. It's just a matter of time before the next victim is you, your family member, or your friend, but unless there's a video you have almost zero chance at justice."
Less than a week later, the world witnessed the video of a random white woman, Amy Cooper, using her whiteness as an instrument of terror in New York's Central Park and a black man, George Floyd, tortured and murdered in Minneapolis by police.
Floyd is the latest high profile unarmed black lynching victim. Nearly five years ago, the police killing of Jamar Clark in Minneapolis sparked weeks of protests. Now here we go again. I cried as I watched yet another lynching of an unarmed helpless black man. The cop knew he was being recorded, but seemed to have the attitude that as a policeman, no matter what he does, on or off-camera, his badge would protect him.
It's a clear case of murder for anyone that watches the video of Floyd's death. There's no justification! As one of the hero bystanders who tried to save Floyd stated, Chauvin seemed to enjoy it. At what point do we stop peacefully letting them kill us!
Mike Freeman, county attorney for Hennepin County, condemned the actions of white cop Derek Chauvin as "horrific and terrible", but he added there was "other evidence that does not support a criminal charge". When a black Minneapolis cop, Mohamed Noor, killed a white woman in a split-second decision, he was arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to 12.5 years. Noor became the first Minneapolis policeman to be convicted of an on-duty killing. There was no video or talk about "other evidence".
There have been so many high profile killings of unarmed black people that go unpunished, it's difficult to keep track of them all, below is a partial list that includes four from St. Louis:
Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Sean Bell, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Eric Harris, Sam Dubose, Alton Sterling, Laquan McDonald, Akai Gurley, Walter Scott, Jordan Edwards, Mike Brown, Mansur Ball-Bey, Terry Tillman, Anthony Lamar Smith.
Chauvin was finally arrested and charged with murder, but not before a police station and more than fifty other buildings were burned. However, most police killings aren't recorded and don't become high profile. When cops lie and no video evidence exists, the cops are believed. It's always amazed me how many black men like Terry Tillman, supposedly point a gun at a cop and get killed before even getting off a shot.
King aptly stated that "riots are the language of the unheard"! King could utter the same words below today and they would be just as meaningful.
“But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.” – Dr. MLK Jr.
The Minneapolis police department has a long history of racism. The violence in Minneapolis is a symptom of racism. Until the disease racism is eradicated from police forces, these destructive reactions will become more common.
The current black police chief, Medaria Arradondo, filed a discrimination suit against the department earlier in his career. Only a tiny fraction of police brutality is captured on video, but that may soon change, as self-driving vehicles, delivery drones, and other technologies all equipped with multiple cameras, become more common, more incidences with be captured on camera.
Hopefully, cities all across American will learn a lesson from Minneapolis. Gone are the days when protest about brutality remains completely peaceful. Modern protesters include revolutionaries within the ranks, some with nothing to lose and no fear. The best protection against violent reactions is no unnecessary violence!
by Paige Marta Skiba, Vanderbilt University; Dalié Jiménez, University of California, Irvine; Michelle McKinnon Miller, Loyola Marymount University; Pamela Foohey, Indiana University, and Sara Sternberg Greene, Duke University
As more Americans lose all or part of their incomes and struggle with mounting debts, another crisis looms: a wave of personal bankruptcies.
Bankruptcy can discharge or erase many types of debts and stop foreclosures, repossessions and wage garnishments. But our research shows the bankruptcy system is difficult to navigate even in normal times, particularly for minorities, the elderly and those in rural areas.
COVID-19 is exacerbating the existing challenges of accessing bankruptcy at a time when these vulnerable groups – who are bearing the brunt of both the economic and health impact of the coronavirus pandemic – may need its protections the most.
If Americans think about turning to bankruptcy for help, they will likely find a system that is ill-prepared for their arrival.
The courts are sheltering in place too.
It’s a hard road
There are many benefits to filing bankruptcy.
For example, it can allow households to avoid home foreclosure, evictions and car repossession. The “automatic stay” triggered at the start of the process immediately halts all debt collection efforts, garnishments and property seizures. And the process ends with a discharge of most unsecured debts, which sets people on a course to regain some financial stability.
We know from our empirical research, however, that filing for bankruptcy comes with costs. In a Chapter 7 case, known as a liquidation when a debtor’s property is sold and distributed to creditors, households may be required to surrender some of their assets. The post-bankruptcy path to financial stability is often bumpy.
Nonetheless, struggling Americans may find bankruptcy one of few viable options to address their worsening money problems, particularly as the pandemic shows no signs of ending soon.
In the last 10 days of March, when states began issuing such orders, we found that Chapter 13 filings fell 45% compared with the last 10 days of March 2019, based on a docket search on Bloomberg Law. Filings in all of April – when most states were under lockdown – plunged 60%, while Chapter 7 filings were down 40%.
This suggests that there’s pent-up demand for bankruptcy protection – in terms of what we’d normally expect – on top of the impact from the coronavirus recession.
In somedistricts, only attorneys can file electronically, so people handling the process themselves must mail in their petition or find some other way of getting it to the courts, such as via physical drop boxes.
But such methods still assume access to technology. A computer, the internet and a printer are needed to access and print the petition. Libraries and other institutions that traditionally provide technology access for those who do not have it are, for the most part, closed.
Some courts are allowing initial email submission of the petition from those without attorneys, but petitioners are still required to follow up by sending original documents via the mail or drop boxes. Access to a computer, the internet and a printer remains necessary.
Finally many states require “wet signatures” on bankruptcy petitions. That is, people have to sign their names in ink, as opposed to using an electronic signature. To smooth filings while courts are physically closed, several states have waived this requirement for those using an attorney.
But even then, access issues still abound. People must first send their attorney the vast array of documents needed for filing – typically amounting to dozens of pages. Filers still need to be able to copy, scan and email documents. For those without computer access, they have to mail original documents, a somewhat risky proposition when important papers could get delayed, stolen or lost.
A bad time to file
In other words, the middle of a pandemic is not the best time to file for bankruptcy.
But a first priority should be shoring up individuals, for whom bankruptcy is seen as a last resort. If more aid isn’t forthcoming, the bankruptcy system may be too overwhelmed to handle even that.
Protesters demanding a freeze on rents in Minneapolis.
The current crisis also hits landlords, small ones especially, who may now struggle to meet mortgage payments, property taxes and other essential expenses. Again, the measures offered by Congress provide only limited relief.
As scholars of housing policy, we know that for any measure to have real impact, it will need to address problems facing both tenants and landlords. Such a solution may already exist in the Housing Choice Voucher program, a 40-year-old program which enables low-income households to afford rental housing in the private market.
Renters are afforded some protection. The legislation forbids private and public owners of rental housing financed with government assistance – about 28% of all rentals – from evicting tenants for nonpayment of rent over a period of six months. In addition to the CARES Act, 15 states and 24 cities have temporarily suspended evictions for nearly all renters in their jurisdictions.
The CARES Act also provides relief in the shape of expanded unemployment benefits as well as a one-off payment of $1,200 to eligible adults and an extra $500 per child.
Moreover, when renters skip their rent, they still owe it – it will need to be repaid at a later date.
These emergency measures do little to help landlords cover their expenses. It does prohibit lenders from foreclosing on landlords with federally backed mortgages, should they fail to make payment. But it does nothing to help them pay employees, utility bills or their property taxes. And when landlords cannot pay property taxes, it becomes even more difficult for hard-pressed cities, towns and school districts to provide essential services.
A downside of this approach is the potential for providing assistance to landlords and tenants who do not need it. It would also require a new apparatus to administer the program, which could delay implementation.
Advocates and policymakers have suggested other ways government could address the looming rental housing crisis.
The approach partially adopted by the CARES Act is to compensate displaced workers for their loss of income. This could be expanded through repeated cash payments to households. Alternatively, unemployment benefits could be increased. But there is also no guarantee that recipients will use the funds for housing or that funds would be targeted at low-income households that require assistance.
The government could pay employers to keep workers on their payroll and hire back those they have let go. It has already adopted this approach to an extent, but not anywhere close to the scale that would be necessary. Scaling up these efforts would probably take months and may not be politically feasible.
Vouchers for success
We believe a more viable option would be expanding the government’s Housing Choice Voucher program. Established in 1974, it enables low-income households to rent housing in the private market, paying no more than 30% of their income on rent, with the government paying the rest.
It is available to all low-income households and currently serves 2.2 million households – although as many as 10 million were eligible for the program before the COVID crisis.
The program already has the administrative apparatus needed to handle an increase in participants: a nationwide network of over 3,300 housing authorities with decades of experience. Many have already demonstrated their capacity to dramatically expand operations to accommodate new households in the event of natural disasters, such as hurricanes and floods.
If expanded to meet the demands of the current crisis, the Housing Choice Voucher program could act as a shock absorber for the rental housing market. For tenants, it would provide some stability where there now is uncertainty and reduce the risk of displacement, eviction and homelessness. For landlords, it would provide a steady stream of income to help pay the mortgage, property taxes and other expenses.
Republished with permission under license from The Conversation.
April 15, 2020 marks 60 years since the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, perhaps better known as SNCC, and usually pronounced as “snick.” SNCC became one of the most important organizations to engage in grassroots organizing during the modern civil rights movement and radically transformed youth culture during the decade. Jelani Favors, an associate professor of history and author of a book on how historically black colleges and universities ushered in a new era of activism and leadership, discusses SNCC’s legacy and what lessons it can offer today’s activists.
What role did SNCC play in the civil rights movement?
The founding of SNCC in April 1960 represented an important paradigm shift within the modern civil rights movement. SNCC encouraged black youth to defiantly enter spaces that they had been told to avoid all of their lives. The founding in 1960 resulted in a wave of SNCC activists being sent into the most hostile environments to register voters and mobilize African Americans for change. In doing so, SNCC ushered in the direct action phase of the movement.
Previous generations of activists had embraced lawsuits, such as the 1944 Smith v. Allwright against racial discrimination in voting, and the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case against racial segregation in public schools. Previous generations also embraced non-direct protest tactics, such as boycotts, to bring slow change. But the sit-ins – popularized by black college students who would later form SNCC – placed black bodies on the line in ways that other tactics had not. They clogged “five and dime” stores across the South, effectively shutting them down, dramatizing the movement for black liberation as the entire world looked on through television and media coverage.
Black youth courageously courted the danger that often accompanied breaking the color line in the racially segregated South. Their actions resulted in violent clashes that fully displayed the immorality of white segregationists and simultaneously captured the nobility and courage of black youth. Perhaps most importantly, SNCC radically transformed youth culture in America. The organization took a generation of youth that Time magazine had previously labeled in 1951 as the “silent generation,” and ushered in a decade – the 1960s – that would be widely characterized and defined by the militancy and dissent of young Americans.
How did historically black colleges and universities help form SNCC and its agenda?
Black colleges served as the incubators for this militancy. For generations, historically black colleges and universities – also known as HBCUs – exposed students to a “second curriculum” that was defined by race consciousness, idealism and cultural nationalism. These concepts not only blunted the toxic effects of white supremacy, but they also empowered youth and deliberately fitted them with a mission to serve as change agents within their respective communities and professional fields. It was not happenstance that the origins of SNCC were rooted within the crucial intellectual and social spaces that were carved out within HBCUs.
The overwhelming majority of students who convened in Raleigh, North Carolina, on April 15, 1960 were from southern black colleges where the sit-ins had unfolded. And it was also no mistake that they met at Shaw University, an HBCU located in Raleigh. After all, the woman who had the vision to bring those students together – Ella Baker – was a 1927 graduate of Shaw.
For generations, black college alumni like Baker worked within religious institutions, civil rights organizations, labor unions and special interests groups. Their work within these spaces was largely informed by the “second curriculum” they had been exposed to as HBCU students. SNCC was therefore part of a long tradition of radicalism that was cultivated and produced within black colleges. This exposure equipped them with the necessary intellectual and political tools they would use to take on white supremacy and Jim Crow – the system of legalized segregation in the South.
What is SNCC’s legacy?
SNCC had a relatively short lifespan compared to other civil rights organizations. By the end of the decade their operations were defunct. Much of this was due to both external and internal pressures. Nevertheless, SNCC distinguished itself as “the most powerful energy machine” for the freedom struggle. I argue that SNCC was the most important and effective civil rights organization of the 1960s.
Unlike most other organizations, SNCC eschewed “top-down” operations that fostered elitism and “helicopter” tactics in which organizers would swoop in to inspire local folks and then leave them to manage local struggles on their own. SNCC’s objectives were completely opposite. They entered into the most dangerous, racially hostile and violent regions of the country, such as Albany, Georgia, the Delta region of Mississippi, and Lowndes County, Alabama. Once there, they set up operations that listened to and empowered local people, such as Fannie Lou Hamer, Amzie Moore, Unita Blackwell and countless others.
The relationship between SNCC and local people was reciprocal. SNCC activists learned and lived among the black proletariat – sharecroppers, farmers and day laborers. These people’s wisdom, shrewdness and practical knowledge of how to survive and navigate the worst of the Jim Crow South proved invaluable as SNCC took the fight for black liberation into the rural communities and remote areas of the South. Their blueprint became the template for local organizing for the Black Power Movement and beyond. Perhaps most importantly, their actions played a crucial role in expanding the ballot to millions of Americans who had been marginalized by racist policies and violence.
What lessons can today’s student activists learn from SNCC?
Both SNCC’s victories and defeats are very informative on the history of black social movements. Internal debates are both necessary and healthy for activist organizations. However, by 1964 SNCC’s ability to function as a cohesive unit was under serious threat. Disagreements concerning the infusion of young white activists in the organization and field operations, arguments concerning the use of non-violence as a tactic, and debate over other competing ideological tenets, such as Marxism and Black Nationalism, greatly impaired the organization’s ability to keep a unified front.
Perhaps most challenging were the external threats to SNCC’s existence. The potency of SNCC drew the attention of federal and state agencies that wanted to curb its influence and power. SNCC activists were constantly under surveillance. They lived their lives under the looming shadow of intimidation from law enforcement and the threat of being infiltrated. Today’s student activists can and should be wary of arguments that are unproductive and those who seek to derail their organizations with their own toxic agendas.
In spite of these challenges, SNCC presented a model that empowered local communities and radically transformed American democracy. By listening to and learning from aggrieved populations and empowering local folks to carry out their own agendas, today’s student activists can extend the radical tradition established by SNCC.
We'll Never Turn Back (1963) | SNCC Film feat. Fannie Lou Hamer
Republished with permission under license from The Conversation.
by Andrew Schwartz, University of Colorado Boulder
The coronavirus pandemic has prevented countless people from fulfilling their contracts, from basketball players to babysitters.
The NBA suspended its season on March 11, citing the coronavirus risk. A force majeure clause in the NBA contract means players could lose money with each canceled game.
Could all of these people be sued for breach of contract, or are they excused due to this extraordinary event? What about payments made in advance, such as tickets bought for a concert that has now been canceled or a dorm room leased at a college that is now closed?
Wars, floods and other pandemics have undermined innumerable contracts over the years. In response, U.S. courts have established a fairly clear set of legal rules to answer these questions.
As a contracts law professor, I help future lawyers think through how these rules apply in a wide range of situations. That includes what the law says about contracts that are impossible to meet during pandemics.
The rules of impossibility and restitution
A promise given in exchange for money becomes an enforceable contract, and it remains enforceable even if living up to its terms turns out to be more challenging than expected.
If a babysitter promises to look after your children once a week for US$50, she is bound to the contract regardless of car trouble, the kids misbehaving or other hardships. If the babysitter gives up, that is a breach of contract and she is legally liable to you. This is what makes a contract a contract and not an idle promise to give it a try.
But what if the babysitter failed to show up because a coronavirus outbreak made it physically dangerous for her to enter your house or because the government issued an order to remain home to avoid spreading the virus?
Because this type of extraordinary and unanticipated event, often called an “act of God,” is so radically different from the ordinary risks and challenges of babysitting, and because it makes her performance so much more difficult and dangerous than expected, the courts will excuse her from the contract. Through no fault of her own, her performance has become effectively impossible, and so her failure to babysit does not count as a breach of contract.
That is not the end of the story, though. Under the legal doctrine of restitution, which prohibits unjust enrichment at the expense of another, the babysitter would have to return any money you paid her in advance. She has not breached the contract, but neither has she fulfilled it, so it would be unjust for her to keep that money.
When universities closed their dorms during the coronavirus outbreak, it meant breaking contracts with students. Many schools, including Howard University, shown here, have agreed to pay partial refunds.
This basic framework – impossibility and restitution – applies generally to contracts that have been upended by the coronavirus pandemic and government orders to combat the virus’s spread.
It does not apply to every expense, however.
If you bought a $100 ticket for a Lady Gaga concert and the event has been canceled, there is no breach of contract, although Lady Gaga would have to refund your $100 as a matter of restitution. But if you bought a nonrefundable $50 train ticket to travel to the concert, Lady Gaga is not liable for that loss. Since that money was never paid to Lady Gaga, she can’t be held responsible for it.
Force majeure: The escape clause
In some cases, an escape clause is written into the contract specifically for situations like this. It’s called “force majeure,” which translates to “superior force” and is often referred to as the “act of God” clause.
Force majeure clauses are common in corporate contracts. They dictate which types of unexpected events will excuse performance and how to deal with payments already made or other losses. The precise wording of these clauses is key. Some might expressly mention pandemics or government orders, while others might not. Similarly, some clauses might call for full restitution, while others might provide for 50% refunds or no refund at all. Whatever the force majeure clause says will displace the ordinary rules of impossibility and restitution.
The contract between the NBA and its players, for example, includes a force majeure clause that specifically covers epidemics. It states that basketball teams can withhold part of their players’ salaries for each canceled game, and ESPN reported that the league was considering it.
Pepperdine University students who have been evicted from their dorms are also bound to a force majeure clause that specifies no refunds if the dorms are closed in the event of an emergency. This overrides the general rule of restitution.
All that said, parties to a contract are always free to waive their rights under a force majeure clause and provide refunds anyway. Pepperdine officials have promised to do exactly that.
Republished with permission under license from The Conversation.
The legislation is an emergency intervention to provide paid leave and other support to millions of workers sidelined by school closures, quarantines and caregiving.
An obvious question you’re probably wondering is, “How will it affect me?”
The bad news is that the law does not provide blanket coverage for all workers. Instead, it’s a confusing mess – legislative Swiss cheese, full of exceptions and gradations that affect whether you are covered, for how long and how much pay you can expect to receive.
With schools closed, parents such as Jennifer Green, left, and Lisa Spalding, right, must stay at home with their children. Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
I study employment law and have combed through the bill to make sense of it. The law also provides emergency funding for unemployment insurance and subsidizes some employer health care premiums, but my focus here is on the core elements pertaining to sick and family leave.
Here’s what I learned.
Small, medium or large
To figure out whether you are covered, the first thing you’ll need to answer is how many people work at your company.
If your employer has 500 or more workers, it is excluded from the new law. Instead, workers at those companies will need to rely on any remaining sick leave benefits available under company policy or state law.
Several states, including New York, California and Washington, are also considering emergency legislation tied to the coronavirus pandemic and may offer some relief for workers at these bigger companies. These workers can also make use of the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act, which provides for unpaid leave if the employee or a family member falls seriously ill.
In addition, some large employers have made new accommodations for their workers. Walmart, the nation’s largest employer, for example, has extended its sick leave benefits for hourly workers. And coffee chain Starbucks expanded its existing sick leave policy to provide paid leave of up to 26 weeks if an employee contracts COVID-19 and is unable to return to work.
If your company employs fewer than 500 people, you should be covered by the new law. But there’s another exception: Businesses with fewer than 50 employees can make use of a hardship exemption if providing leave might put them out of business.
School closures
Assuming your company is covered, the amount of leave available – and how much workers can expect to get paid – will depend on the reason you aren’t able to report to work or do your job remotely.
Here’s where it gets really complicated.
If you are stuck at home due to the closure of a child’s school or day care, you will be eligible for leave under two separate parts of the new law – paid sick leave and family and medical leave.
Congress seems to have structured the law to allow working parents sidelined by a school closure to use both forms of leave at once. Parents would request up to 12 weeks of leave as family and medical leave for a school closure. But since this part of the law doesn’t offer pay until the third week, parents could use the new sick leave provisions to receive income for the first two weeks.
Whether you’re using sick or family leave, you can expect to receive two-thirds of your usual pay, or up to US$200 per day. The money would come directly from your employer who will be reimbursed by tax credits.
Alternatively, people could use the sick leave for the first two weeks and then take 12 weeks under family leave, for a total of 14 weeks, but that would include two weeks that are unpaid.
If you have any available vacation or sick pay under your company’s policy, you may want to use that first since it typically provides full pay.
What happens if you get sick
Workers who are directly affected by the new coronavirus can expect more generous income replacement – but only briefly.
If you are under government-ordered quarantine or isolation, self-isolating at the instruction of a health care provider or experiencing COVID-19 symptoms and seeking a medical diagnosis, you can make use of the new federal sick leave law for up to two weeks. During this time, you should receive your usual pay, capped at $511 per day.
If you become seriously ill beyond two weeks, the new law does not offer additional paid leave. However, you may be eligible to take another 12 weeks of unpaid leave under the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act. This covers only companies with more than 50 people and workers employed there for longer than 12 months. During this time, your job is protected, but you may be required to use any accrued sick leave or vacation available under company policy.
The rules are similar if you are caring for someone who is under government-ordered quarantine or isolation or has been ordered to self-isolate by a health care provider. The only difference is that your income would be only two-thirds of your usual pay, capped at $200 a day, for two weeks.
And again, if you are caring for a family member who becomes seriously ill, you may be able to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave under the 1993 act without losing your job.
In normal times, legislation like this would have been considered broad and ambitious, but as the crisis deepens, its exclusions will likely leave vulnerable workers exposed. With another stimulus bill in the works, Congress will have another chance to help Americans whose lives have been turned upside down by this pandemic.
Republished with permission under license from The Conversation.
The unknown is frightening. And with the spread of a deadly and communicable disease – the coronavirus is both – individual liberties may be temporarily sidelined to protect the larger community.
As a disaster law scholar, I study vulnerable populations during various stages of disaster response. In the age of coronavirus, people are asking me questions about their rights. Here are some answers.
1. I had contact with someone who has the coronavirus. Am I required to go into quarantine or isolation?
The answer: It depends. The Constitution gives states the power to police citizens for the health, safety and welfare of those within its borders. This means states have the right to quarantine an individual, community or area to protect the surrounding community. With testing supplies in limited quantity and high demand, citizens are strongly encouraged to self-isolate. However, if you are a citizen who came into contact with a person with the coronavirus in a different country and then flew home, CDC officials at the airport have the right to detain you and force you into quarantine.
That said, quarantine and isolation laws vary widely, as do the consequences of breaking them.
In some states – including California, Florida and Louisiana – breaking an order of quarantine or isolation can result in misdemeanor criminal charges. Jail time could be up to a year, along with penalties ranging from US$50 to $1,000.
Those under quarantine can have visitors, but physical interaction may be limited to prevent the spread of the disease. Limitations, depending on your state or local regulation, can include confining you to a specific physical space and barring physical touching, including hugging and kissing.
You can find a list of state laws about quarantine and isolation on the National Conference of State Legislatures website.
Federal, state and local governments have the power to enforce quarantines.
2. Who can enforce quarantines?
All three levels of government have the power to quarantine.
States can quarantine citizens who present with symptoms within their borders. Local governments can quarantine smaller communities or areas of individuals that present with the coronavirus symptoms. The federal government too has responsibilities; it has the power to prevent the entry and spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries.
And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has the authority to detain and examine anyone arriving in the U.S. suspected of carrying the coronavirus. That includes passengers from airplanes, motor vehicles or ships.
The CDC can also issue a federal isolation or quarantine order, which allows state public health authorities to seek help from local law enforcement to administer and enforce the federal quarantine orders.
3. Under what circumstances can I be tested for coronavirus?
At this time, no legislation has been passed to create a legal right to testing.
You must contact your doctor to get approval to be tested. If you don’t have a doctor, contact your public health authority. Currently not everyone can be tested due to the shortage of tests.
The CDC website bases testing criteria on the following ailments: You have a fever; you develop virus symptoms; you recently traveled to an area with an ongoing spread of the virus; or you have been in contact with someone known to have the coronavirus.
But with the current shortage of tests, you still may not be able to be tested. As testing becomes available, the restrictions on testing may also change.
4. My state has declared a state of emergency; will that affect my rights?
According to the National Governors Association, as of March 17, “State emergency/public health emergency declarations have been issued for each state and territory, as well as the District of Columbia.”
A state of emergency allows a state to activate its emergency or disaster plan, along with the accompanying resources. It also allows states to help with local response efforts, including providing money for personnel and supplies.
The state of emergency can affect your rights because states have used emergency declarations to close or restrict the hours of private businesses, close schools and public buildings, and enforce curfews for citizens.
There are federal-, state- and local-level declarations of emergency.
In Oregon, the governor used its state of emergency, according to the Associated Press, to activate “reserves of volunteer emergency health care personnel, especially important in rural areas,” develop guidelines for private businesses and aid employees by defining the coronavirus as a valid cause for sick leave. The addition of the sick leave definition will allow employees to take leave to care for their own sickness or for an immediate family member.
Republished with permission under license from The Conversation.
Now he’s on trial for his life, and prosecutors are planning to do what they’ve done to hundreds of other accused hip-hop artists: Use his own lyrics as evidence against him.
You wouldn’t think Bob Marley ‘shot the sheriff,’ but rappers are held to a double standard.
Because my research centers on African American literary and musical traditions – with a particular emphasis on hip-hop culture – I was asked by the defense to testify as an expert witness in Drakeo’s first trial.
This is work I’m called to do quite regularly. My best guess is that I’ve consulted on over 60 cases in which prosecutors have used rap lyrics or videos as evidence of guilt. In addition, my research with University of Georgia law professor Andrea Dennis has uncovered more than 500 instances in which prosecutors have used this strategy, a number we’re certain is just the tip of the iceberg.
As an expert witness, my job is to correct the prosecutors’ characterizations of rap music. They routinely ignore the fact that rap is a form of artistic expression – with stage names, an emphasis on figurative language and hyperbolic rhetoric – and instead present rap as autobiographical.
In effect, they ask jurors to suspend the distinction between author and narrator, reality and fiction, and to read rap lyrics as literal confessions of guilt.
No other art form is exploited like this in court. And yet it’s an effective strategy precisely because it taps into stereotypes about rap music and the young men of color who are its primary creators.
Lyrics on trial
To recap Drakeo’s legal drama: Last year, he was charged and tried in connection with a shooting at a party that resulted in the death of a 24-year-old man named Davion Gregory.
According to prosecutors, the shooting was botched. Drakeo, they claimed, had ordered the shooter to kill a different person – a musical rival who raps as RJ.
Their evidence was flimsy. RJ wasn’t even at the party, and there’s no evidence he and Drakeo ever had violent confrontations. In fact, RJ has repeatedly said that he doesn’t believe he was ever targeted by Drakeo. One of the district attorney’s own witnesses also said Drakeo didn’t know the shooting was going to happen.
So to bolster their case, prosecutors focused on Drakeo’s music. At one point, for example, they cited a line from his song “Flex Freestyle,” in which he raps, “I’m ridin’ round town with a Tommy gun and a Jag / And you can disregard the yelling, RJ tied up in the back.”
The line was fictional; nobody claims that RJ was ever tied up in the back of Drakeo’s car. Nevertheless, prosecutors wanted the jury to believe that the lyrics were actual reflections of Caldwell’s desire to harm an industry rival.
Despite the prosecution’s efforts to use Drakeo’s music against him, it didn’t work: In July 2019, the jury acquitted Drakeo of most counts, including the multiple counts of murder.
Nonetheless, prosecutors are taking the unusual step of retrying Drakeo on a charge on which the jury deadlocked the first time around: criminal gang conspiracy.
Meanwhile, the use of rap lyrics as evidence has exploded.
In 2014, for instance, San Diego prosecutors charged Brandon Duncan, who raps as Tiny Doo, with criminal gang conspiracy in connection with a series of shootings that took place in San Diego in 2013 and 2014. Nobody argued that Duncan participated in or even knew about the shootings. Nor was he in a gang.
But citing the same law now being used against Drakeo, prosecutors said his violent rap lyrics promoted gang violence – and that Duncan benefited from that violence in the form of enhanced “street cred.” So for crimes that everyone agrees Duncan didn’t commit or know about, prosecutors sought to put him away for 25 years to life. He sat in jail for more than seven months before a judge finally threw out the charges against him. Duncan later filed a lawsuit for wrongful arrest in the case, and just last month he settled with the city of San Diego for over US$700,000.
Duncan was far more fortunate than most young men who have their lyrics weaponized against them in court. The vast majority of the cases we’ve found end in conviction, often with lengthy sentences.
To highlight just a few of the recent cases I’ve testified in: There was Victor Hernandez, sentenced to life in prison for murder in Arizona; Christopher Bassett, sentenced to life plus 35 years for murder in Tennessee; and Ronnie Fuston, sentenced to death for murder in Oklahoma.
The question is not whether these young men committed the crimes they were convicted of. The question is whether they received a fair trial from an unbiased jury. When rap lyrics are introduced as evidence, that becomes highly dubious.
There’s a rhyme and a reason
Introducing rap lyrics can be highly effective for prosecutors because it allows them to draw on stereotypes about young black and Latino men as violent, hypersexual and dangerous. In front of a jury, that can foment prejudice.
Not only have I seen this firsthand, but there is also empirical evidence that reveals just how prejudicial rap lyrics can be. For example, in the late 1990s, psychologist Stuart Fischoff conducted a study to measure the effect of explicit rap lyrics on juries.
Participants were given basic biographical information about a hypothetical 18-year-old black male, but only some were shown a set of his violent, sexually explicit rap lyrics. Those who read the lyrics were significantly more likely to believe the man was capable of committing a murder than those who did not.
In a study conducted by social psychologist Carrie Fried, participants were given a set of violent lyrics without any indication of the artist or musical genre. In reality they were from the 1960 song “Bad Man’s Blunder” by the folk group Kingston Trio. Researchers told one group of participants that the lyrics were from a country song, and told the other group that they came from a rap song. In the end, participants who believed the lyrics came from a rap song were significantly more likely to view them as dangerous, offensive and in need of regulation. It’s worth noting that Fried’s study was replicated in 2016, with similar findings.
These studies – and others – highlight the enduring racial stereotypes that inform people’s perceptions of rap music. They also help explain an obvious double standard at work, one that the Supreme Court of New Jersey laid bare in a 2014 opinion that denounced the use of rap lyrics as evidence:
“One would not presume that Bob Marley, who wrote the well-known song ‘I Shot the Sheriff,’ actually shot a sheriff, or that Edgar Allan Poe buried a man beneath his floorboards, as depicted in his short story ‘The Tell–Tale Heart,’ simply because of their respective artistic endeavors on those subjects. Defendant’s lyrics should receive no different treatment.”
Unfortunately, however, they do receive different treatment, even as rap has emerged as one of the world’s most popular and influential genres.
It has also grown into a multi-billion-dollar industry, one that offers a chance at upward mobility, particularly in communities where such opportunities are desperately hard to come by.
Criminalizing it is cruel, unjust and silences some of the people most in need of a voice.
Republished with permission under license from The Conversation.
Alabama is the only state where people with multiple felony convictions are required to register with law enforcement and carry special ID cards, legal experts say. When felons are caught without them, they can be arrested and fined or jailed.
by Connor Sheets
When a sheriff’s deputy pulled Emmanuel Pullom over on a suburban street near Birmingham, Alabama, the night of Dec. 1, 2018, he suspected that Pullom had stolen the black Ford pickup he was driving.
The deputy handcuffed Pullom, searched the truck and then took him to the Jefferson County Jail in downtown Birmingham, according to the incident report.
But Pullom wasn’t charged with stealing the truck, which he says he had recently purchased from a friend. Instead, he was charged with failing to possess a piece of laminated paper that identified him as a felon.
“The cop said, ‘Where’s your felon card?’” Pullom recalled in an interview last month. “I said, ‘What kind of card?’ He said, ‘If you’ve got three felonies, you’ve got to get a felon card.’”
More than 300 people in Alabama have been charged since 2014 under a little-known, but long-standing state law requiring people with more than two felony convictions to register with their local sheriff’s offices and carry cards identifying them as repeat felons, according to arrest data analyzed by AL.com and ProPublica.
Violations carry the threat of jail time and fines. A man in north Alabama served a one-year sentence for failing to register as a felon and obtain a felon registration card.
While some other states have felon registration requirements, criminal law professors said they believe Alabama is the only one with a law requiring registration cards.
Legal experts say the law is likely unconstitutional and reminiscent of slavery-era restrictions that required black people in many parts of the South to present identification to white people on demand.
“The card is reminiscent of the cards Jews were forced to carry in the ghettos,” John H. Blume, a criminal law professor at Cornell Law School, said via email.
“It will also give police the ability to stop people they know are felons to see if they have their cards and … to avoid things like reasonable suspicion and probable cause.”
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, which arrested Pullom, did not respond to requests for comment.
Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran, the top law enforcement official in Alabama’s second-largest county, defended the requirement. He said the charge “gives you a good stepping stone” for jailing someone suspected of other crimes, when there otherwise isn’t enough evidence to make an arrest.
“This guy’s a five-time felon or something,” Cochran said in an interview. “And you say, ‘Hey, where’s your convicted felon thing?’ And he says, ‘Well, I don’t have one.’ You say, ‘Well, hey, bud, I [didn’t] have nothing to arrest you on, but now I do.’”
“‘So now I’m gonna arrest you, now I’m gonna inventory your car and tow it in. And if I found 5 pounds of pot in your car, then you’re gonna be arrested for trafficking marijuana.’”
Fullom’s felon ID card, with certain identifying information blurred out.
Repeat felon Derrick Rhodes has a different take. In 2016, he was arrested in Henry County and charged with failing to possess a felon ID card. Rhodes, 41, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 days of suspended confinement and two years of probation and ordered to pay hundreds of dollars of fees, fines and court costs. He has since obtained a felon registration card that he carries everywhere he goes
“What’s the use of having a card on you when you’re a free man?” he said. “I’m not their prisoner no more.”
“It Shall Be the Duty”
Beginning in the 1930s, jurisdictions across the U.S. instituted so-called criminal registration laws in response to rising concerns about organized crime and other illegal activity.
In 1935, Birmingham became an early adopter of such restrictions when it passed a city ordinance requiring that felons register with law enforcement “upon their arrival in the city,” The New York Times reported at the time.
“Police officials hope that the law will give them an accurate check upon the criminal element. … It also is expected that it will result in an exodus of a great many known criminals.”
Many such laws and ordinances have since been invalidated or repealed, but the federal government and individual states have instituted a series of increasingly restrictive sex offender registry laws since the 1980s. And many states and localities across the U.S. have approved narrower registration laws that apply to people convicted of specific crimes, such as arson, serious drug crimes and gun violence.
Florida, Mississippi and Nevada have felon registration requirements, but they do not require felons to have or carry registration cards, sometimes referred to as “ex-felon cards.” In fact, Nevada law specifically bars such requirements: “The sheriff of a county or the chief of police of a city shall not require a convicted person to carry a registration card.”
In 1966, a special session of the Alabama Legislature approved the Alabama Felon Registration Act, which instituted the statewide felon registration requirements that remain in place today.
Lawmakers passed the legislation “to aid the law enforcement agencies in detecting and preventing and reducing recidivistic behavior,” according to an article about the law published in the 1966-67 edition of the Alabama Law Review.
The law requires that anyone who “resides” in Alabama and “has been convicted more than twice of a felony” anywhere in the U.S. must “register within 24 hours after his arrival in the county” and obtain a registration card from the sheriff’s office.
“It shall be the duty of such person to carry the card with him at all times while he is within the county and to exhibit the same to any officer of a municipality, a county or the state upon request.”
The maximum penalty for failing to obey the felon registration law is 30 days in jail and a $50 fine per day spent in violation, which can add up to lengthy and expensive sentences over time.
From 2014 to 2018, there have been 235 arrests in Alabama on state charges of not having a felon ID card and 53 arrests for the separate charge of failure to register with the local sheriff. Police also made nine arrests of felons who failed to notify the local sheriff of a change of address. Individual law enforcement agencies across the state have reported dozens more arrests on the charges in 2019 and this year.
Of those arrested on the charges between 2014 and 2018, about 61% were white and 38% were black, according to the state data. As of July 2019, the U.S. Census estimated that 69% of Alabama residents were white and 27% were black.
Such arrests are made in large urban counties like Jefferson, Montgomery and Baldwin, as well as in more rural counties like Franklin in Alabama’s northwest corner and Henry in the southeast.
Public records show that some local jurisdictions in Alabama have additional requirements. Arrest reports show that people have been charged in recent years in Alabama towns including Gadsden and Dothan with violating local ordinances requiring felon registration and identification.
A limited number of places outside Alabama, such as Zanesville, Ohio, and the Borough of Berlin, New Jersey, also have felon identification laws or ordinances on their books.
One-Year Sentence
Sometimes people serve serious time for failing to carry their felon IDs.
Quincy Tisdale says that at the time of his arrest in August 2014, he was “the only black man living on Sand Mountain,” a low ridge in north Alabama. “So I stuck out like a sore thumb.” He was also dating a white woman, a fact that he says drew the ire of some white residents of the largely rural area, which has a long history of racial tension.
So the 38-year-old father of three says he was regularly pulled over and searched by Marshall County sheriff’s deputies and local police officers, but they never had cause to arrest him.
One morning a Marshall County sheriff’s deputy stopped Tisdale in his silver Kia sedan as he drove through the small town of Grant and informed him that he had found a reason to lock him up.
“When he pulled me over, he said, ‘Didn’t I tell you I was gonna get your black ass one day?’” Tisdale recalled during a January interview in the living room of the friend’s home in Scottsboro, where he is currently staying.
“He said: ‘I know you don’t got your felon ID card. Come on, get out of the car.’ … When they arrested me that day, that’s the first I heard I had to have a felony card or I’d go to jail.”
Tisdale, who had previous felony convictions for crimes including burglary, theft and assault, was arrested and booked into the Marshall County Jail and charged with failure to register with the sheriff’s office and failure to possess an ex-felon card. It is the only time Tisdale has been arrested in the county, according to state court records. His bond was set at $1,500, court records show.
Tisdale pleaded guilty to the charges in October 2014 and was sentenced to 365 days in the Marshall County Community Corrections work release program — a residential jail alternative in which inmates earn money to pay down fines, fees and restitution by working for contracted companies. Tisdale says that while he was at the work release, he worked long hours deboning and loading chickens at a poultry processing plant.
Quincy Tisdale pleaded guilty to not registering with the sheriff’s office and not carrying a felon ID card. He was sentenced to 365 days in the Marshall County Community Corrections work release program.
In February 2015, after breaking the rules of the community corrections facility and getting into an argument with an employee, Tisdale was moved to the Marshall County Jail, where he served out the remainder of his sentence, court records show. He says that the punishment upended his life.
“When you take me away from my family, and I’m supporting my family, you’re pushing them out onto the streets,” he said.
Marshall County Sheriff Phil Sims, who became sheriff in January 2019, said his office does not “actively” seek out people violating the state’s felon registration and identification law.
“It’s not one of those things where we’re going out banging on doors or I’ve got someone assigned to look for people who haven’t registered,” he said. “It would generally be a secondary charge where there’s some other type of law enforcement contact like a domestic violence call or something.”
But he said that the law serves a valuable purpose, “kind of like the sex offender registry,” and that he would enforce it if his office were notified that someone in Marshall County had failed to register as a felon or obtain a registration card. Neither Sims’ predecessor, J. Scott Walls, who was sheriff at the time of Tisdale’s arrest, nor Walls’ attorney responded to requests for comment.
Tisdale says it’s an indignity to be forced to carry a felon ID card for the rest of his life: “It reminds me I’m a criminal, day in and day out.”
Scarlet Letter
Like each of the criminal law professors interviewed for this story, Pullom said he never knew that Alabama required people with more than two felony convictions to carry registration cards.
He said that he only found out about the requirement when he was arrested for violating it, and that he believes the charge was little more than a pretense to apprehend him.
“Did I have drugs on me? Did I do anything wrong? No,” said Pullom, who has been convicted of several felonies including shooting a gun into an occupied building, drug possession and theft. “They were just trying to come up with something to arrest me for.”
In fact, the arresting deputy wrote in the incident report that the felon ID card charge would allow the sheriff’s office to hold Pullom in jail and “follow up with a property crimes detective … on any other charges.” The felon ID charge was dismissed two months after his arrest and no additional charges were filed.
Lynneice Washington, district attorney for Jefferson County’s Bessemer Division, said that “you’re marking a person” by requiring them to carry a felon registration card. She added that she does not recall having ever heard of felon registration or ID charges being brought in her division, which is a subsection of the county that does not include Adamsville, where Pullom was arrested.
“Just to stop a person because you know them and know their history and to ask them if they have a felon identification card and that’s an automatic charge if they don’t have it, I don’t agree with that,” she said.
In the 1957 case Lambert v. California, the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on the issue of felon registration. A woman named Virginia Lambert had been found guilty of violating a Los Angeles municipal law that made it “unlawful for ‘any convicted person’ to be or remain in Los Angeles for a period of more than five days without registering.” The conviction was upheld on appeal.
But the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the California ruling. The majority wrote that Lambert’s constitutional right to due process had been violated because she most likely had no “actual knowledge” that not registering as a felon was a crime.
“So the question would be whether Alabama has done a better job giving notice to someone that they need to register and/or get the ID card,” Rachel E. Barkow, a law professor and faculty director of the Center on the Administration of Criminal Law at New York University School of Law, said via email.
The piecemeal enforcement of Alabama’s felon registration and identification law also raises concerns, according to Alvin Bragg, a visiting law professor at New York Law School and co-director of the school’s Racial Justice Project.
Two-thirds of the state’s 67 counties saw no such charges brought between 2014 and 2018.
“Ultimately every law has got to be rational and not arbitrary and that’s the standard of review,” Bragg said. “I think this comes perilously close to being irrational and excessively arbitrary.”
Michele Deitch, senior lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Law and Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, said it would be difficult to argue that a year in jail is not a disproportionately harsh punishment for failing to carry a felon ID card.
“It would be challenged as an 8th Amendment violation,” she said. “It’s disproportionate to the underlying offense. And cruel and unusual — is there another locality that would sentence you to a year for that? Probably not. So that’s pretty unusual.”
Moving Violation
Sometimes simply failing to change an address can land a person behind bars.
That’s what happened to Michael Kelsay, who has been on law enforcement’s radar in Baldwin County for years. The father of three says that he sold his pickup this winter because he was tired of being pulled over nearly every time he left his trailer park.
A self-described former drug addict and petty criminal, he has a rap sheet spanning two decades, during which time he has been convicted of crimes including drug possession, negotiating a worthless instrument and receiving stolen property. The 39-year-old has also been arrested on two separate occasions for crimes related to felon registration.
Michael Kelsay was twice arrested and charged with failing to register a change of address on his felon registration card. At the time of the first arrest, he was temporarily living at his mother’s house, 3 miles away from the address on his card.
The first arrest took place one morning in August 2014, when Baldwin County sheriff’s deputies banged on the door at Kelsay’s mother’s house looking for him. When he came to the door, he says they informed him they had heard he was the last person seen with a criminal suspect they were trying to find.
After searching the area and determining the suspect was not there, Kelsay says one of the deputies ran his name through an electronic system, saw he was a repeat felon and asked him for his felon identification card.
“I show it to him. I’m like, ‘Boom, got it.’ They’re just grasping at straws, I feel like. Like, I’m good now,” Kelsay said during an interview in his kitchen last month.
“And then he hit me with, ‘Well, you don’t live at this address anymore,’ because I told him I was staying at my mom’s. I didn’t see the trap coming.”
Kelsay was arrested and charged with failing “to register, within 24 hours, his/her change of address or place of residence with the sheriff of Baldwin County,” according to court records. He says he was temporarily living at his mother’s house, 3 miles down the same road in Bay Minette from the address listed on his felon ID card.
Kelsay posted $5,000 bond and was released from jail three days after the arrest.
He was arrested a second time a month later and charged with failing to possess a felon registration card — he said the sheriff’s office had seized his card at the time of the first arrest because the address was incorrect and he had not replaced it — and again failing to notify the sheriff’s office that he had changed addresses. He pleaded guilty to the three charges that resulted from the two arrests and was sentenced to concurrent sentences of 30 days in jail and ordered to pay three $50 fines.
Anthony Lowery, chief deputy of the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office, defended the arrests.
“He was knowingly, willingly violating the law,” he said. “Obviously anytime you have a known convicted felon — like in this case Mr. Kelsay has been convicted multiple times of different crimes — [felon registration] does help. It’s a tool to protect the public.”
Lowery added that the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office pursues people who break the state’s felon registration law:
“If you’re asking if we’re just going out searching for these people, on occasion yes. … We’re charged with enforcing the law and if you’re a felon and you’re required to register and you’re violating the law then we’re going to enforce that.”
What sticks with Kelsay to this day is the idea that he was arrested because the law forever puts him in a separate category.
“I was flabbergasted by it. I couldn’t believe they took me to jail for that,” he said. “That’s what really bothers me about it is I feel like they charged me with that because they wanted me to go to jail.”
Republished with permission under license from Propublica.
