The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR; formerly Law Center for Constitutional Rights) is an American progressive non-profit legal advocacy organization based in New York City. It was founded in 1966 by lawyers William Kunstler, Arthur Kinoy, Morty Stavis and Ben Smith, particularly to support activists in the implementation of civil rights legislation and to pursue social justice causes.[2][3]
Jules Lobel, current President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, testifying before Congressional subcommittee about the War Powers Act.
Incorporation for the Civil Rights Legal Defense Fund was filed on September 9, 1966; in February, 1967, the name was changed to the Law Center for Constitutional Rights. In 1970, the name was shortened to the Center for Constitutional Rights.[5] The founders, Morton Stavis, Arthur Kinoy, Ben Smith and William Kunstler,[2] came together through their civil rights work in the American South.[6] By 1970, according to one unaffiliated lawyer quoted at the time, CCR had become "the leading gathering place for radical lawyers in the country."[2]
The Center identified as a "movement support" organization; that is, an organization that concentrated on working with political and social activists to use the courts to promote the activists' work. Cases were chosen to raise public awareness of an issue, generate media attention, and/or energize activists being harassed by local law enforcement in the South. In this regard, the Center differed from more traditional legal non-profits, such as the ACLU, which was more focused on bringing winnable cases in order to extend precedents and develop the law, as well as pursuing First Amendment issues.[citation needed]
In 1998, CCR merged with the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee (NECLC),[7] an organization originally formed in 1951 to advocate for the civil liberties embodied in the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution, notably the rights of free speech, religion, travel, and assembly.[8]
Since 9/11, it has been known for bringing a variety of cases challenging the Bush administration's detention, extraordinary rendition, and interrogation practices in the so-called "Global War on Terror". When its president Michael Ratner filed Rasul v. Bush in 2002, this was the first lawsuit to challenge President George W. Bush's wartime detentions at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba in the early days of the "war on terror."[9] "It was the first time in history that the Court had ruled against the president on behalf of alleged enemy fighters in wartime. And it was the first of four Supreme Court decisions between 2004 and 2008 that rejected President Bush's assertion of unchecked executive power in the "war on terror."[9]
As of 2024[update], CCR's issue areas are: abusive immigration practices, corporate human rights abuses, criminalizing dissent, discriminatory policing, drone killings, government surveillance, Guantanamo, LGBTQI persecution, mass incarceration, Muslim profiling, Palestinian solidarity, racial injustice, sexual and gender-based violence, and torture, war crimes, and militarism.[10][11]
Notable cases
Dombrowski v. Pfister (1965): The CCR's first major case was a successful suit against the Louisiana Un-American Activities Committee to challenge the use of state anti-subversion laws to intimidate civil rights workers. CCR won the case in the Supreme Court, which ruled that such intimidation had a "chilling effect" on First Amendment rights and was therefore unconstitutional.[12][13][14][15]
Abramowicz v. Lefkowitz (1972): CCR'S Nancy Stearns challenged New York state laws that restricted abortion, and served as a model for challenges to similar laws in other states. This case marks the first instance of challenge to abortion statutes being argued by women as the plaintiffs in terms of women's right to choice rather than a doctor's right to practice.[21][22]
Monell v. Department of Social Services (1972): This case began as a challenge to New York City's forced maternity leave policies. Its resolution created a precedent that established local government accountability for unconstitutional acts and created the right to obtain damages from municipalities in such cases. Since 1978, this precedent has been used by lawyers and non-profits as a tool to challenge police misconduct, civil rights violations, and other local unconstitutional acts.[23][24]
State of Washington v. Wanrow (1972): A women's self-defense murder case, CCR became counsel when the appeal process reached the Washington Supreme Court. The appellate court reversal of the original conviction was upheld. The landmark Supreme Court decision had far-reaching effects on women's self-defense and the law.[25]
Filártiga v. Peña-Irala (1980): Filártiga established a precedent for the use of the Alien Tort Statute to allow foreign victims of human rights abuses to seek justice in US courts. CCR represented the family of Joelito Filártiga, the son of a left-wing Paraguayan dissident who had been tortured and killed by Paraguayan police. The precedent created by this case has facilitated subsequent international human rights cases, including Doe v. Karadzic and Doe v. Unocal. These cases have established that multinational corporations and other non-state actors can be held responsible for their complicity in human rights violations.[28][29]
Crumsey v. Justice Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (1982): CCR file for damages against the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) on behalf of five black women in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The women had been shot at, and four injured, by KKK members. It was the first civil rights suit filed against the KKK. The plaintiffs won $535,000 in damages. An injunction was served on the KKK prohibiting them from engaging in violence and from entering the black community.[30][31]
Paul v. Avril, (1994): In 1991, on behalf of six Haitian political activists, including Evans Paul, Mayor of Port-au-Prince, and under the Alien Tort Statute, the CCR sued former military dictator Prosper Avril for human rights violations. The suit sought compensation for damages that the plaintiffs suffered under Avril's rule. In November 1993, CCR attorneys moved for a default judgment. In July 1994, in an unprecedented decision in which a Haitian dictator or member of the military was held accountable for human rights abuses, a federal magistrate awarded a $41 million damage judgment to the victims of Prosper Avril.[32][bettersourceneeded]
Daniels, et al. v. the City of New York (1999): CCR filed a class action lawsuit challenging the New York City Police Department (NYPD) policy of stop-and-frisk without reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, and alleging the police used racial profiling for targeting. The case was settled, with the NYPD agreeing to a number of NYPD requirements, including a written anti-profiling policy and ongoing audits of the reasonable cause basis for stop-and-frisk activities.[10][33][bettersourceneeded]
Doe v. Karadzic (2000): In 1993, the Center for Constitutional Rights and co-counsel filed a lawsuit seeking compensation for victims and survivors of Serb leader Radovan Karadzic's campaign of genocide and torture in Bosnia. Karadzic defaulted in 1997. On September 25, 2000, the jury decided on a verdict of $4.5 billion.[34][35]
Rasul v. Bush (2004): CCR represented Guantanamo detainees seeking fair trials and an end to their indefinite imprisonment without charge. The US Supreme Court case established precedent for US courts' jurisdiction over the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, affirming detainees' right to habeas corpus review, including legal representation.[36][10] This right was later putatively revoked when President Bush signed the Military Commissions Act into law. CCR brought many of the same habeas corpus petitioners to the Supreme Court again in Boumediene v. Bush (2008), in which the Supreme Court declared the relevant parts of the MCA unconstitutional and restored the rights won in Rasul.[37][38][10][39]
Floyd, et al. v. City of New York, et al. (2013) CCR filed a federal class action lawsuit against the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the City of New York that challenges the NYPD's practices of racial profiling and "stop-and frisk." These NYPD practices had led to a dramatic increase in the number of suspicion-less stop-and-frisks per year in the city, with the majority of stops in communities of color. On August 12, 2013, a federal judge in a historic ruling found the New York City Police Department (NYPD) liable for a pattern and practice of racial profiling and unconstitutional stop-and-frisks. On January 30, 2014, the City agreed to drop its appeal of the ruling and begin the joint remedial process ordered by the court.[40][10][41]
Funding
Center For Constitutional Rights Inc., operates as a 501(c)(3) non-profit. For 2023, it had $14,848,424 in revenue (including $13,040,969 in contributions), $12,468,239 in expenses, and net assets of $42,978,051.[42]
Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2004), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in which the Court held that foreign nationals held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp could petition federal courts for writs of habeas corpus to review the legality of their detention. The Court's 6–3 judgment on June 28, 2004, reversed a D.C. Circuit decision which had held that the judiciary has no jurisdiction to hear any petitions from foreign nationals held in Guantanamo Bay.
Michael Ratner was an American attorney. For much of his career, he was president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a non-profit human rights litigation organization based in New York City, and president of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) based in Berlin.
The Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants". The CSRTs were established July 7, 2004 by order of U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz after U.S. Supreme Court rulings in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Rasul v. Bush and were coordinated through the Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants.
Arthur Raymond Randolph is an American lawyer and jurist serving as a senior U.S. circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. He was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in 1990 by President George H. W. Bush and assumed senior status in 2008.
Asif Iqbal is a British citizen who was held in extrajudicial detention as a terror suspect in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps in Cuba from early 2002 to 9 March 2004.
Fouzi Khalid Abdullah Al Odah is a Kuwaiti citizen formerly held in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. He had been detained without charge in Guantanamo Bay since 2002. He was a plaintiff in the ongoing case, Al Odah v. United States, which challenged his detention, along with that of fellow detainees. The case was widely acknowledged to be one of the most significant to be heard by the Supreme Court in the current term. The US Department of Defense reports that he was born in 1977, in Kuwait City, Kuwait.
Djamel Saiid Ali Ameziane is an Algerian citizen, and former resident of Canada, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.
The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) is a civil rights organization in the United States. Founded in November 1951 as the New York affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, it is a not-for-profit, nonpartisan organization with nearly 50,000 members across New York State.
Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723 (2008), was a writ of habeas corpus petition made in a civilian court of the United States on behalf of Lakhdar Boumediene, a naturalized citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, held in military detention by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba. The case underscored the essential role of habeas corpus as a safeguard against government overreach, ensuring that individuals cannot be detained indefinitely without the opportunity to challenge the legality of their detention. Guantánamo Bay is not formally part of the United States, and under the terms of the 1903 lease between the United States and Cuba, Cuba retained ultimate sovereignty over the territory, while the United States exercises complete jurisdiction and control. The case was consolidated with habeas petition Al Odah v. United States. It challenged the legality of Boumediene's detention at the United States Naval Station military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as well as the constitutionality of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Oral arguments on the combined cases were heard by the Supreme Court on December 5, 2007.
Al Odah v. United States is a court case filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights and co-counsels challenging the legality of the continued detention as enemy combatants of Guantanamo detainees. It was consolidated with Boumediene v. Bush (2008), which is the lead name of the decision.
In United States law, habeas corpus is a recourse challenging the reasons or conditions of a person's detention under color of law. The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. A persistent standard of indefinite detention without trial and incidents of torture led the operations of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to be challenged internationally as an affront to international human rights, and challenged domestically as a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments of the United States Constitution, including the right of petition for habeas corpus. On 19 February 2002, Guantanamo detainees petitioned in federal court for a writ of habeas corpus to review the legality of their detention.
Arthur Kinoy was an American attorney and progressive civil rights leader who helped defend Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. He served as a professor of law at the Rutgers School of Law–Newark from 1964 to 1999. He was one of the founders in 1966 of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City, and successfully argued a number of cases before the Supreme Court of the United States. He also founded the Public Interest Law Center of New Jersey.
Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Ruhal Ahmed, and Jamal Al-Harith, four former Guantánamo Bay detainees, filed suit in 2004 in the United States District Court in Washington, DC against former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. They charged that illegal interrogation tactics were permitted to be used against them by Secretary Rumsfeld and the military chain of command. The plaintiffs each sought seek compensatory damages for torture and arbitrary detention while being held at Guantánamo.
Shayana D. "Shane" Kadidal is an American lawyer and writer. Kadidal has worked at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City since 2001, and is senior managing attorney of the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative there, coordinating legal representation for the captives held in extrajudicial detention in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. Previously a writer on patent, drug and obscenity law, since 2001 he has played a role in various notable human rights cases, including:
Ricardo Manuel Urbina was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The first Latino judge on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, he was noted for his rulings in cases regarding terrorism during the George W. Bush administration, as well as for his ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, which was later reversed on appeal and by the United States Supreme Court.
Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582 U.S. ___ (2017), is a Supreme Court of the United States case in which the Court determined, by a vote of 4–2, that non-U.S. citizens detained in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks cannot recover monetary damages from high level federal officials for the conditions of their confinement. The case was consolidated with Hastey v. Abbasi, and Ashcroft v. Abbasi. It was argued on January 18, 2017.
Daniels, et al. v. the City of New York was a class action lawsuit filed in 1999 against the New York Police Department (NYPD) and the City of New York, charging them with racial profiling and unlawful stop and frisk, and requesting the disbanding of the NYPD Street Crimes Unit.
The stop-question-and-frisk program, or stop-and-frisk, in New York City, is a New York City Police Department (NYPD) practice of temporarily detaining, questioning, and at times searching civilians and suspects on the street for weapons and other contraband. This is what is known in other places in the United States as the Terry stop. The rules for the policy are contained in the state's criminal procedure law section 140.50 and based on the decision of the US Supreme Court in the case of Terry v. Ohio
Floyd, et al. v. City of New York, et al., 959 F. Supp. 2d 540, is a set of cases addressing the class action lawsuit filed against the City of New York, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and named and unnamed New York City police officers ("Defendants"), alleging that defendants have implemented and sanctioned a policy, practice, and/or custom of unconstitutional stops and frisks by the New York Police Department ("NYPD") on the basis of race and/or national origin, in violation of Section 1983 of title forty-two of the United States Code, the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Constitution and laws of the State of New York.
Elizabeth M. Schneider is an American lawyer, law professor, and leading feminist scholar in the fields of gender law, domestic violence, and federal civil litigation. She was a forerunner in establishing that violence against women is a public harm, and in the legal defense of battered women who kill in self-defense. During the 1970s, Schneider was a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, a non-profit legal activist group supporting civil rights and social justice, co-founded by William Kunstler. Since 1983, she has been a professor of law at Brooklyn Law School. She wrote Battered Women and Feminist Lawmaking (2000), co-wrote Domestic Violence and the Law: Theory and Practice, and co-edited Women and the Law Stories (2011).
References
↑ "Staff". Ccrjustice.org. February 20, 2009. Retrieved November 28, 2010.
↑ Peck, Leonard W. "Dombrowski v. Pfister (1965)". The First Amendment Encyclopedia presented by the John Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies. Archived from the original on July 9, 2020. Retrieved July 9, 2020.
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