Florida Justice Institute

Last updated
Florida Justice Institute
Formation1978
Headquarters Downtown, Miami, Florida
Executive Director
Randall C. Berg Jr.
Website www.floridajusticeinstitute.org

The Florida Justice Institute (FJI) is a nonprofit public interest law firm in Miami, Florida. [1] It was established in 1978 by Randall C. Berg Jr. The institute has been dedicated to improving conditions in Florida's prison system and has initiated numerous class action lawsuits toward this end. Berg is past president of the Florida ACLU. Berg also served on Governor Lawton Chiles' Transition Criminal Justice Task Force and is the past Chairman of the Corrections Committee.

The Florida Justice Institute is led by Executive Director Randall C. Berg Jr., and is staffed by attorneys who handle major, systemic civil rights litigation throughout the state of Florida. FJI litigates primarily on behalf of those incarcerated in Florida's prisons and jails. These types of cases include wrongful death, deliberate indifference to serious medical need, unconstitutional conditions of confinement, excessive force, failure to protect, First Amendment (including free speech, censorship, and religious freedom), disability discrimination, and others. FJI also conducts litigation for non-incarcerated victims of housing discrimination, disability discrimination, police misconduct, and engages in various other forms of impact litigation, education, and advocacy for the poor and disenfranchised. [2]

The Florida Justice Institute also operates the Volunteer Lawyers' Project for the Southern District of Florida, a pro bono project that helps low-income, pro se litigants obtain pro bono attorneys for civil cases. The Florida Justice Institute and the Volunteer Lawyers' Project are both housed in office space donated by the law firm of Carlton Fields, P.A. [3]

In 2007 the institute settled the Parilla v. Eslinger strip search class action lawsuit. In 2001 the institute collaborated with the Florida ACLU to protect the voting rights of Florida's poor and disenfranchised. [4] In 1996 the institute advocated for Blacks and Hispanics who were being discriminated against in the housing market. [5] In 2000 the institute was instrumental in eliminating Florida's Amendment 2, which would have enshrined the death penalty in the state's Constitution. The Florida Justice Institute regularly collaborates with WriteAPrisoner.com and Prison Legal News to advocate for prisoners' rights.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990</span> 1990 U.S. civil rights law prohibiting discrimination based on disabilities

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 or ADA is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin, and other characteristics illegal, and later sexual orientation and gender identity. In addition, unlike the Civil Rights Act, the ADA also requires covered employers to provide reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities, and imposes accessibility requirements on public accommodations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Civil Liberties Union</span> Legal advocacy organization in the United States

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". The ACLU works through litigation and lobbying, and has over 1,800,000 members as of July 2018, with an annual budget of over $300 million. Affiliates of the ACLU are active in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The ACLU provides legal assistance in cases where it considers civil liberties to be at risk. Legal support from the ACLU can take the form of direct legal representation or preparation of amicus curiae briefs expressing legal arguments when another law firm is already providing representation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Florida Central Voter File</span>

The Florida Central Voter File was an internal list of legally eligible voters used by the US Florida Department of State Division of Elections to monitor the official voter lists maintained by the 67 county governments in the State of Florida between 1998 and January 1, 2006. The exclusion of eligible voters from the file was a central part of the controversy surrounding the US presidential elections in 2000, which hinged on results in Florida. The 'Florida Central Voter File' was replaced by the Florida Voter Registration System on January 1, 2006, when a new federal law, the Help America Vote Act, came into effect.

The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, or simply the Lawyers' Committee, is a civil rights organization founded in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy. At the time, Alabama Governor George Wallace had vowed to resist court-ordered desegregation of the University of Alabama. Voting rights activist Medgar Evers was assassinated inside his home in Mississippi on June 11. These events galvanized private lawyers to call for officials to commit to the rule of law. These events also prompted President Kennedy to call for private lawyers to do more to defend the civil rights of Black citizens, with Evers' assassination amounting to the last straw. The organization's long-standing mission is to secure equal justice for all through the rule of law by enlisting the leadership of the private bar. While the Lawyers' Committee works to stop all civil rights violations, the majority of its work targets the inequities that primarily confront African Americans, and other people of color.

The Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights is a consortium of American law firms in Chicago that provides legal services in civil rights cases

William P. Quigley is a law professor and Director of the Law Clinic and the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center at Loyola University New Orleans. He was named the Pope Paul VI National Teacher of Peace by Pax Christi USA in 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Randall C. Berg Jr.</span> American attorney (1949–2019)

Randall Challen Berg Jr. was an American attorney.

Equal Rights Advocates (ERA) is an American non-profit gender justice/women's rights organization that was founded in 1974. ERA is a legal and advocacy organization dedicated to advancing rights and opportunities for women, girls, and people of all gender identities through legal cases and policy advocacy.

Prison Legal News (PLN) is a monthly American magazine and online periodical published since May 1990. It primarily reports on criminal justice issues and prison and jail-related civil litigation, mainly in the United States. It is a project of the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Pro se legal representation comes from Latin pro se, meaning "for oneself" or "on behalf of themselves" which, in modern law, means to argue on one's own behalf in a legal proceeding, as a defendant or plaintiff in civil cases, or a defendant in criminal cases, rather than have representation from counsel or an attorney.

<i>American Violet</i> 2008 American film

American Violet is a 2008 American drama film directed by Tim Disney and starring Nicole Beharie. The story is based on Regina Kelly, a victim of Texas police drug enforcement tactics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vanita Gupta</span> American lawyer

Vanita Gupta is an American attorney who has served as United States Associate Attorney General since April 22, 2021. From 2014 to 2017, Gupta served as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division under President Barack Obama.

Eva Jefferson Paterson is the president and founder of the Equal Justice Society, a national legal organization focused on civil rights and anti-discrimination.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey</span>

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey (ACLU-NJ) is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit civil rights organization in Newark, New Jersey, and an affiliate of the national American Civil Liberties Union. According to the ACLU-NJ's stated mission, the ACLU-NJ operates through litigation on behalf of individuals, lobbying in state and local legislatures, and community education.

Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP) is an 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Austin, Texas, that advocates for voter rights, racial and economic justice, and criminal justice reform. It was formed in 1990 by attorney James C. Harrington.

Founded in 1972, the Asian Law Caucus (ALC) is the U.S.'s first legal aid and civil rights organization serving the low-income Asian Pacific American communities. The ALC focuses housing rights, immigration and immigrant rights, labor and employment issues, student advocacy (ASPIRE), civil rights and hate violence, national security and criminal reform.

Public interest law refers to legal practices undertaken to help poor, marginalized, or under-represented people, or to effect change in social policies in the public interest, on 'not for profit' terms, often in the fields of civil rights, civil liberties, religious liberty, human rights, women's rights, consumer rights, environmental protection, and so on.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Felony disenfranchisement in the United States</span> Prohibiting criminals from voting in elections in the United States

Felony disenfranchisement in the United States is the suspension or withdrawal of voting rights due to the conviction of a criminal offense. The actual class of crimes that results in disenfranchisement vary between jurisdictions, but most commonly classed as felonies, or may be based on a certain period of incarceration or other penalty. In some jurisdictions disfranchisement is permanent, while in others suffrage is restored after a person has served a sentence, or completed parole or probation. Felony disenfranchisement is one among the collateral consequences of criminal conviction and the loss of rights due to conviction for criminal offense. In 2016, 6.1 million individuals were disenfranchised on account of a conviction, 2.47% of voting-age citizens. As of October 2020, it was estimated that 5.1 million voting-age US citizens were disenfranchised for the 2020 presidential election on account of a felony conviction, 1 in 44 citizens. As suffrage rights are generally bestowed by state law, state felony disenfranchisement laws also apply to elections to federal offices.

Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that campaigns on behalf of prisoner rights across the United States. The organization advocates for the rights of people in "state and federal prisons, local jails, immigration detention centers, civil commitment facilities, Bureau of Indian Affairs jails, juvenile facilities and military prisons." Some of the major focuses of the HRDC include work on free speech issues, government transparency and accountability, as well as opposition to the private prison industry.

David Kladney is an attorney and a Commissioner on the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Much of his career has involved pro bono work for people with disabilities.

References

  1. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-01-28. Retrieved 2011-02-02.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. "About Us". Archived from the original on 2013-09-16. Retrieved 2013-08-22.
  3. "About Us". Archived from the original on 2013-09-16. Retrieved 2013-08-22.
  4. American Civil Liberties Union : ACLU of Florida Launches Equal Voting Rights Project to Address Irregularities, Reform Election Practices in Florida
  5. "National Fair Housing Advocate Online". Archived from the original on 2006-10-15. Retrieved 2007-02-17.