Uncategorized

By SpearIt Last month the Department of Education clarified the eligibility rules for Federal Pell Grant funding. Although Congress barred Pell Grants in 1994 for those confined in “Federal or State Penal institutions,” according to the clarification, these are distinct from “juvenile justice facilities” and “local and…

SALT will testify at a public hearing on the Uniform Bar Examination (UBE) on January 20, 2015 at CUNY School of Law, making the points outlined in this letter. SALT will testify: 1) that New York attorneys have long critiqued the utility and disparate impact on racial minorities of the…

By Sahar Aziz Terrorism aims to invoke mass havoc and fear. Recent attacks in Western cities involved bombings of public buildings, transportation, and marathons, or mass shootings of civilians, conducted by amateur lone wolves. For this reason the calculated assassination of France’s best satirists raises serious concerns about the…

 By SpearIt The media spotlight on Cherif Kouachi’s life rekindles questions about prisons and radicalization. As an alleged participant of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, Kouachi has seemingly led many lives. In one incarnation, he was a marijuana-smoking rapper. Later, he would turn jihadi and find himself jailed, awaiting conviction…

Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues (2014 Olive Branch Press, 296 pages) Edited by Marjorie Cohn Shining Light Into the Dark World of US Drone Warfare By Charles Sevilla, Los Angeles Daily Journal, Book Review This book is a compilation of fifteen authors’…

By Marjorie Cohn Reading the 499-page torture report just released by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was a disgusting experience. Even after many years of writing books and articles about the Bush torture policy, I was unprepared for the atrocious pattern of crimes our government committed against other…

By Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions This is my most recent first cut at trying to make sense of all that I have read and seen over the past ten years working for criminal prosecution in US…

By Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions “I can’t breathe” is on the t-shirts and in the mouths of demonstrators all over America as they protest the non-indictment of Eric Garner’s killers in New York, the non-indictment of Michael Brown’s…

By Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions We now have the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Executive Summary of its Torture Report and for those who actually care about America, it is a nearly 600 page litany of…

Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions So later this morning Senator Dianne Feinstein will release the Executive Summary of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Torture Report.  With the firestorm of news coverages these past few days, you…

Benjamin G Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions Now that the former CIA leaders – thanks to Brennan – have had six months head start in preparing their vigorous public relations defense of the torture they did, please be prepared…

By Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions Talk about a double standard! Some punks experience depressive overload and riot burning property and stealing stuff from stores in a small town in America – this time Ferguson. Calls for…

By Marjorie Cohn You know the fix is in when a suspect who shot an unarmed man voluntarily provides four hours of un-cross examined testimony to a grand jury without taking the Fifth. On August 9, Ferguson, Missouri Police Officer Darren Wilson gunned down 18-year-old African American Michael Brown. Since…

By Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professir of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions There is a tendency in legal academia to parse subjects into narrow domains. The UN Committee Against Torture’s Concluding Observations on the United States ( http://www.ushrnetwork.org/news-updates/cat-concluding-observations-press-release for the USHRN press release and a…

November 21, 2014 The Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) calls for the upholding of the rule of law in relation to the death of Michael Brown. Michael Brown’s death and the subsequent protests in Ferguson remind us of the consequences when the community loses faith and trust in America’s…

Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions After the Ferguson non-indictment, the suggestion was made that all police should wear body cameras.  This suggestion while well-intended, gives me pause for two reasons. First, in our inimical style the proposal…

Read SALT statement released November 21, 2014 on Ferguson, Missouri

By Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/27111-the-cia-wants-to-destroy-thousands-of-internal-emails-covering-spy-operations-and-other-activities Here they go again. Do you remember Jose Rodriguez, head of the Counterrorism Center, destruction of the torture tapes in violation of the spirit at least of a federal…

By Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions http://justsecurity.org/17628/full-transcript-united-states-appearance-committee-convention-torture/ – transcript of the U.S. periodic review by the UN Committee Against Torture The riveting to watch video of the periodic review – http://www.treatybodywebcast.org/cat-53rd-session-united-states-of-america/ Each sovereign has the…

By Brooks Holland As many section members may know, the Washington Supreme Court in 2012 adopted a rule permitting non-lawyers to practice law as limited license legal technicians, or “LLLTs.” These LLLTs may practice law only within a limited scope of authority. For example, an LLLT may obtain…