G. Flint Taylor

Last updated

G. Flint Taylor
Born
Farmington, Maine
NationalityAmerican
OccupationAttorney
Years active46
Known forAdvocacy for people alleging forced confessions from police torture

G. Flint Taylor (born April 16, 1946) is an American human rights and civil rights attorney based in Chicago, Illinois, who has litigated many high-profile police brutality, government misconduct and death penalty cases. Taylor has pursued public interest law to take on allegations of corrupt police tactics and wrongful convictions in the city of Chicago and elsewhere. Taylor was part of a team of negotiators in the 2015 landmark decision by the City of Chicago to award reparations to the survivors of police torture, becoming the first municipal government to do so. [1]

Contents

Early life and family

George Flint Taylor Jr. was born in Farmington, Maine, and was named after his paternal great-grandfather George Flint, a Maine state senator. Taylor's father was a direct descendant of several English Pilgrims who came to Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the Mayflower in 1620. [2] Taylor graduated from Westborough (MA) High School, where he won ten varsity letters in basketball, football, and baseball. [3] He graduated from Brown University with an American History degree in 1968, and from the Northwestern University School of Law in 1972. [2]

Career

During his second year in law school at Northwestern, Taylor began to work with a group of lawyers who were representing counterculture political groups, including the Black Panther Party (BPP), the Young Lords Organization, Rising Up Angry and the Weathermen. In August 1969, these lawyers, together with two other law students, established the People's Law Office (PLO) on the north side of Chicago. [4]

Fred Hampton Black Panther case

One of Taylor's most notable cases involved litigation over the death of Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton, killed in what was reported by police as a shootout at his apartment. Taylor and his colleagues at the People's Law Office filed a civil rights suit following a raid on December 4, 1969, conducted by fourteen Chicago police officers, at the direction of Cook County State's Attorney Edward Hanrahan. The officers entered an apartment on Chicago's West Side, shooting and killing Hampton and Black Panther activist Mark Clark, and wounding four others. [5] Taylor, together with several other People's Law Office lawyers and staff, were called to the apartment by survivors. For the next ten days they collected evidence at the scene. [6]

This evidence was ultimately turned over to FBI ballistics expert Robert Zimmers, who determined that of the more than 90 bullets fired, all but one were fired by the police. [5] Thousands of Chicago citizens toured the apartment while the evidence was being taken. [7] One older black woman observed that it "wasn't nothing but a Northern lynching." [8]

In 1970, Taylor and his colleagues sued a wide range of police and prosecutorial officials for $47.7 million in damages on behalf of the families of Hampton, Clark, and the survivors of the police raid. Upon discovering that the FBI also was involved in the raid, under J. Edgar Hoover's COINTELPRO program, they later named several FBI officials as defendants. [9] [10] Taylor worked in cooperation with U. S. Senator Frank Church's (D-Idaho) Committee on Intelligence. [11] The Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations concluded in its 1976 report that the BPP raid by the Chicago police was part of a nationwide FBI program called COINTELPRO that was designed to "destroy" the Black Panther movement. [12] [13]

In January 1976, the BPP civil lawsuits went to trial with Taylor and law partner Jeffrey Haas as trial counsel. The trial lasted for 18 months, longer than any previous federal court case. During the trial, it was established that the FBI had not turned over 200 volumes of Black Panther documents to defense counsel. Both Taylor and Haas were jailed for contempt when they protested what they claimed were unfair rulings by federal Judge Joseph Sam Perry. [2] At the end of the trial, Judge Perry dismissed the case. Taylor, Haas and colleague Dennis Cunningham appealed to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. [14]

In April 1979, the Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, overturned the dismissal, holding that the evidence introduced at trial supported the allegations of a conspiracy among the Chicago police, the Cook County State's Attorney, and the FBI against the Black Panther members. The appeals court further ruled that the government should be sanctioned for suppression of the FBI documents and that Taylor and Haas were wrongfully cited for contempt. [15] In 1982, the case was settled for $1.85 million. It was never determined who fired the first shot at the apartment. [9]

Greensboro, North Carolina case

On November 3, 1979, members of the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party, with a former FBI and police informant, Edward Dawson, in the lead car, drove into Greensboro, North Carolina. In the absence of police officers, they fired into a crowd of anti-Klan demonstrators, fatally shooting five and wounding ten others. The demonstrators had gathered at a "Death to the Klan" march, sponsored by the Communist Workers Party, which had been organizing among mostly black workers in the textile mills. Six men were charged with murder in the state's criminal trial; three of these and another six were charged with criminal civil rights violations in a federal trial. All the Klansmen and Nazi defendants were acquitted in the two separate trials by independent all-white juries. [16] [17]

In 1980, a volunteer legal team had filed a civil rights damages case alleging a conspiracy among the Klansmen, Nazis, the Greensboro police, and the FBI in failing to protect protesters when they had knowledge of likely Klan violence. Taylor was one of the lead trial counsel. [3] In the spring of 1985, during a ten-week trial in federal district court in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Taylor and his co-counsel Lewis Pitts and Carolyn MacAllister questioned scores of Nazi, Klan, FBI, police and informant witnesses. [18] At one point in the trial, Taylor interrogated reputed Nazi leader Roland Wayne Wood about five miniature skulls pinned to his lapel. [19] The jury of five whites and one African American [20] was at first deadlocked, [21] then they returned a compromise verdictagainst some of the defendants. The verdict was cited by the plaintiff legal team as an "historic victory" because it was the first time that anyone had been held responsible for the killings in the Greensboro Massacre. [22]

Chicago Police torture cases

In 1987, Taylor, Haas and law partner John Stainthorp agreed to represent death row prisoner Andrew Wilson in his pro se civil rights suit. Wilson alleged that he was tortured with electric shock by Area 2 Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge and forced to confess to the 1982 murder of two Chicago police officers, for which he was convicted and sentenced to death. In 1989, Wilson's case went to trial with Taylor, Stainthorp and Haas as trial counsel. [23]

During the trial, Taylor received a series of anonymous letters from a person claiming to be an officer who worked with Burge. The anonymous letters asserted that what happened to Wilson was part of a decades-old pattern of police torture, led by Burge, that victimized African-American detainees. [24] These letters led Taylor and his colleagues to other alleged torture victims, but federal court trial Judge Brian Barnett Duff did not permit the jury to hear this evidence; he held Taylor and Haas in contempt of court. After eight weeks of trial, the jury was unable to reach a verdict. The case was retried later in the year. [23]

After a second trial that lasted eight weeks, an all-white jury found Burge not guilty, but the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the verdict. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that District Court Judge Brian Barnett Duff abused his discretion in allowing the Defendants to delve into the gory details of Wilson's past crimes against police officers despite the fact that it was undisputed that Wilson was convicted of those crimes. [25] In a written opinion by Judge Richard Posner (which was joined by noted Judge Frank Easterbrook), the appellate court heavily criticized Judge Brian Barnett Duff's evidentiary rulings saying,

"...a district judge has broad discretion in ruling on the admissibility of evidence, especially when balancing intangibles [however], we cannot avoid concluding that the limits of permissible judgment were exceeded. A mass of inflammatory evidence having little or no relevance to the issues in this trial (as distinct from Wilson's murder trial) was admitted, and the defendants' counsel was permitted to harp on it to the jury and thus turn the trial of the defendants into a trial of the plaintiff.". [26]

In short, the Appellate Court found that Federal District Judge Duff's rulings were so unfairly prejudicial to Wilson, and stacked the deck against him so much that Wilson had to be granted a new trial. The appellate court reiterated multiple times in its opinion that it was Defendant's alleged torturing of prisoners that was at issue, not Taylor's crimes. [27] Eventually Wilson was awarded more than $1 million in attorney's fees and $100,000 in damages; the $100,000 went to the estate of the officers who were killed in 1982.

Over the years, more than 100 men had said they were tortured on the South Side under Burge's watch. In addition to suffering electric shock, they told stories of police putting a loaded gun in their mouth or a typewriter cover over their head to make them believe they would die. [28] On the basis of newly discovered evidence, the Chicago Police Department in 1993 fired Burge, having found that there was "systematic" torture at Area 2. In 1994, Taylor, together with law partners Joey Mogul and Tim Lohraff, began representing death row inmate Aaron Patterson, who alleged that he was tortured by Burge and his men into a coerced confession.

In 2000, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that Patterson was entitled to a new hearing on his claims of torture. [29] In 2003 Illinois Governor George Ryan pardoned Patterson and three others on Illinois' death row, saying their torture claims proved the criminal justice system was "terribly broken." [30] He had already conducted a three-year review of the justice system and was disturbed to learn that 13 men on death row had been exonerated as innocent. In 2000 he declared a moratorium on use of the death penalty.

Taylor, with partners Mogul and Ben Elson, also represented police torture victims Darrell Cannon and Michael Tillman, winning Cannon's freedom in 2007 [31] and Tillman's in 2010. [32]

In 2011, Taylor and his colleagues obtained the first judicial decision holding former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley as a defendant in a civil police torture case, alleging a citywide conspiracy to cover it up. [33]

Taylor and his associates played a significant role in the decades-long campaign to obtain criminal charges against Burge. In October 2008, Burge was indicted by a federal grand jury for lying in a civil case about torturing suspects. He was convicted in June 2010, and subsequently sentenced to 4½ years in federal prison. [34] Burge was released from prison on October 2, 2014, to spend the remainder of his sentence at a halfway house near his Tampa, Florida, retirement home. [35] Burge will still collect his Chicago police pension. [36]

The day Burge was released from prison, Taylor, Mogul, colleagues from the Chicago Torture Justice Memorials (CTJM), and survivors of Chicago police torture, joined by 26 aldermen, urged the Chicago City Council to pass an ordinance to earmark $20 million in reparations to the victims of police torture in Area 2. The ordinance was conceived by noted Chicago civil rights attorney Standish Willis and drafted by CTJM co-founder Joey Mogul. It was the product of years of political organizing by grassroots organizations that included CTJM and Black People Against Police Torture. "With a majority of the aldermen on board for this ordinance, the powers that be in this city should take it seriously," Taylor told reporters. "There's definitely a political downside for the mayor (Rahm Emanuel) if he doesn't step forward and step forward quickly." [35]

Historic reparations award

For more than a year, the reparations ordinance, which had been introduced by Aldermen co-sponsors Joe Moreno and Howard Brookins Jr. in October 2013, had been stalled in the Chicago City Council. Political pressure began to build during the run-up to the 2015 Chicago mayoral primary. Mayor Rahm Emanuel was seeking a second term in office and faced four challengers, two of whom were African American. CTJM, Amnesty International, and other activists collected 40,000 signatures, which they delivered to Emanuel's office in December 2014, suggesting growing public support for the proposal. After a 2015 Valentine's Day Rally that attracted hundreds of supporters, a team of negotiators that included Taylor, fellow People's Law partner Mogul, and advocates from CTJM, and Amnesty International began negotiations with the city of Chicago's corporation counsel, Stephen Patton, on the terms of the reparations ordinance. The city's initial offer did not include any direct payments to victims or their families, a demand on which the team of negotiators refused to yield. Talks at first were strained. Various aldermen and staffers from the mayor's office and the law department got involved, and a compromise that would include financial payments to living victims, but not to the families of those who had died, was eventually brokered. [1]

In May 2015, a month after Emanuel was re-elected, Chicago aldermen unanimously approved a 5.5-million-dollar reparations package, agreeing to compensate the approximately 60 living victims with valid claims of torture while in police custody during Burge's command, each to receive up to $100,000. Additionally, the living survivors, their immediate families, and the immediate families of the deceased torture victims would all gain access to services, including psychological counseling and free tuition to the City Colleges of Chicago. The aldermen also approved building a public memorial to the deceased victims. [37] They also established a requirement that Chicago public schools teach students in the eighth and tenth grades about the Burge legacy of police brutality. [1] At the May Council meeting, in the presence of more than a dozen survivors, Emanuel offered an official apology on behalf of the City of Chicago, and the aldermen stood and applauded them. [38] Taylor stated in an interview that the "non-financial reparations make it truly historic." [39]

Darrell Cannon, one of those who will receive reparations for his coerced confession under torture, spent 24 years in prison, including nine years in the Illinois supermax prison, Tamms Correctional Center. He told The Guardian that the reparations package "is something that sets a precedent that has never been done in the history of America. Reparations given to black men tortured by some white detectives. It's historic." [37]

On Chicago becoming the first city to offer restitution to victims of police misconduct, Taylor articulated his hope that this will be a "beacon for other cities here and across the world for dealing with racist police brutality so prevalent in the past in this country." [1]

Honors and awards

In March 2002, Chicago magazine named Taylor to its list of the city's "30 Tough Lawyers". [40]

Other awards include:

  • 2014

IVI-IPO Legal Eagle Award, given annually to lawyers who have advanced the cause of justice. [41]

2014: The IVI-IPO's Legal Eagle Award, given annually to lawyers who have advanced the cause of justice, was presented to G. Flint Taylor. (Shared with Locke Bowman, Director of the MacArthur Justice Center and Alexa Van Brunt, Clinical Assistant Professor of Law and attorney for the MacArthur Justice Center). The three were recognized for their work on behalf of the family of David Koschman, who died in 2004 after being punched by Richard J. Vanecko, a nephew of former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. 2014 IVI-IPO Legal Eagle Award.jpg
2014: The IVI-IPO's Legal Eagle Award, given annually to lawyers who have advanced the cause of justice, was presented to G. Flint Taylor. (Shared with Locke Bowman, Director of the MacArthur Justice Center and Alexa Van Brunt, Clinical Assistant Professor of Law and attorney for the MacArthur Justice Center). The three were recognized for their work on behalf of the family of David Koschman, who died in 2004 after being punched by Richard J. Vanecko, a nephew of former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.
  • 2011 – Northwestern Law School's SFPIF (Student Funded Public Interest Fellowship Program) Distinguished Alumnus Award for "outstanding commitment to public service."
  • 2010 – National Lawyers Guild Chicago Chapter's Arthur Kinoy People's Law Award for his "commitment to the struggle for justice for the survivors of torture."
    2010: National Lawyers Guild Chicago Chapter's Arthur Kinoy Award given to G. Flint Taylor for his "steadfast commitment to the struggle for justice for the survivors of torture." (Shared with law partners Joey Mogul and John Stainthorp) 2010 NLG Peoples Law Award.jpg
    2010: National Lawyers Guild Chicago Chapter's Arthur Kinoy Award given to G. Flint Taylor for his "steadfast commitment to the struggle for justice for the survivors of torture." (Shared with law partners Joey Mogul and John Stainthorp)
  • 2009 – First Defense Legal Aid's First Defender Award for a "tireless commitment to protecting the civil rights of Chicago citizens."
    2009: First Defense Legal Aid's First Defender Award given to G. Flint Taylor for his "tireless commitment to protecting the civil rights of Chicago citizens." 2009 First Defense Legal Aid Award.jpg
    2009: First Defense Legal Aid's First Defender Award given to G. Flint Taylor for his "tireless commitment to protecting the civil rights of Chicago citizens."

Rainbow PUSH Coalition Father of the Community Award for "service and dedication to family and community."

2009: Rainbow PUSH Coalition Father to the Community Award 2009 Rainbow PUSH Father to the Community Award.jpg
2009: Rainbow PUSH Coalition Father to the Community Award
2009: National Lawyers Guild's Ernie Goodman Award given to G. Flint Taylor at its convention in Seattle "in recognition of extraordinary achievement by a National Lawyers Guild lawyer." 2009 NLG Ernie Goodman Award.jpg
2009: National Lawyers Guild's Ernie Goodman Award given to G. Flint Taylor at its convention in Seattle "in recognition of extraordinary achievement by a National Lawyers Guild lawyer."

National Lawyers Guild's Ernie Goodman Award "in recognition of extraordinary achievement by a National Lawyers Guild lawyer."

  • 2008 – Cook County Bar Association's William R. Ming Jr. Award for "outstanding and substantial contribution to the causes of civil rights and individual liberties."
  • 1977 – Operation PUSH Letter of Commendation "Advocate For Our Freedom"

U.S. Supreme Court decisions

Taylor's first case before the U.S. Supreme Court was in 1980, when Taylor, Haas and Cunningham successfully defended the Court of Appeals' decision in the Fred Hampton case against several petitions for certiorari. [42] In 1985, Taylor successfully argued before the Court that federal prison guards should not be given immunity from civil rights liability when they sit on prison disciplinary committees. [43] In 1993, he argued a case in which the Court created an exception to a prosecutor's absolute immunity from suit. [44]

Other significant cases

In the early 1980s, Taylor worked with New Orleans civil rights attorney Mary Howell to obtain a multi-million-dollar settlement in a series of civil rights cases that arose from the alleged torture and killing of several African Americans by New Orleans police officers in the Algiers section of the city. [45] Taylor also worked in the mid 80's with People's Law Office colleagues Cunningham, Haas, Stainthorp, Michael Deutsch and Peter Schmiedel on the "street files" cases, during which Chicago police detective Frank Laverty brought to light the Chicago Police Department's secret filing system in which detectives concealed evidence that supported a criminal defendant's innocence. [46] [47]

Ford Heights Four

In the late 1990s, Taylor joined Wyoming attorney Jerry Spence, now Federal Judge Matthew Kennelly, and former Northwestern School of Law professor Lawrence Marshall to obtain a $36-million-dollar wrongful conviction settlement for four men, who each served more than a decade behind bars for the 1978 murder of a couple in Ford Heights, Illinois, a suburb just south of Chicago. The Ford Heights Four were freed after DNA tests proved they were innocent. The Chicago Tribune quotes Taylor describing the case as another example of "outrageous police misconduct and prosecutorial misconduct." The newspaper reported:

By settling the lawsuits--which named as defendants the Cook County sheriff's office and five individual officers--the county avoided what promised to be a lengthy trial with embarrassing revelations about law enforcement work that was at best shoddy and at worst corrupt ... If any new investigation does get launched in the case, it will mark a dramatic departure from the stance previously taken by [Cook County] law-enforcement officials, who have strongly resisted tackling the issue of individual accountability for what happened in the Ford Heights Four case." [48]

Ryan Harris case

In 1998, the Chicago police accused a seven-year-old boy, along with his eight-year-old friend, of the murder and sexual assault of an 11-year-old girl, Ryan Harris. The boys were exonerated after DNA evidence established that neither boy could have committed the crimes. In 2005, Taylor and his law colleagues Jan Susler and Stainthorp obtained a multi-million-dollar settlement for the seven-year-old defendant. Taylor remarked to reporters that the case showed "systemic misconduct" from the top to the bottom of the Chicago police department. When the children were brought in for questioning, Taylor noted, "No one said, 'Show me how these kids could have done that.' No one was ever disciplined for it. Everyone walked away."[ citation needed ]

The Ryan Harris case resulted in changes to Illinois law to protect the rights of juvenile suspects. A lawyer must now be in the room when Illinois children under age 13 charged with murder or sex crimes are interrogated. Chicago police also now require a parent or guardian's presence when kids under age 13 are suspected of any felony and are interrogated. [49]

Writing, media, and testimony before official bodies

Taylor contributes to a variety of academic journals, [50] [51] [52] legal publications [53] and online blogs, including The Nation and Huffington Post, on the subjects of police misconduct and racism. [54] [55] [56] Both of Chicago's major newspapers have published opinion pieces by Taylor, who remains a harsh critic of Chicago's efforts in fixing accountability for police mistakes and misconduct. [57] [58] [59] [60] He has testified on these topics before the Chicago City Council, [61] Cook County Board, [62] U.S. Congressional Committees, [63] and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. [64]

When, in July 2006, Cook County Special Prosecutor Edward Egan failed to indict Burge for perjury and instead issued a report after four years of investigation of torture cases, Taylor publicly criticized the Special Prosecutor's failure to indict and called the report a cover-up that whitewashed the role of Richard M. Daley and other high ranking police and prosecutorial officials. [65] [66] [67] [68] Egan responded to Taylor's criticism in an interview with the Chicago Tribune. He questioned Taylor's motives, saying his main interest was making money. [66]

Taylor has continued to be a public advocate in the effort to hold Daley accountable for police abuses during his watch. [69] In March 2014, along with colleague Locke Bowman, Taylor filed a lawsuit accusing members of the Daley family of joining in a civil rights conspiracy with numerous high-ranking police and prosecutorial officials to cover-up facts in the case of David Koschman, who died in April 2004, after an altercation with former Mayor Daley's nephew, Richard J. "R.J." Vanecko. [70]

In his book The Torture Machine: Racism and Police Violence in Chicago, [71] Taylor recounts much of his struggle for human rights against the systemic racism of a corrupt criminal justice system in Chicago.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Kunstler</span> American attorney and civil rights activist (1919–1995)

William Moses Kunstler was an American attorney and civil rights activist, known for defending the Chicago Seven. Kunstler was an active member of the National Lawyers Guild, a board member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the co-founder of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the "leading gathering place for radical lawyers in the country."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fred Hampton</span> African-American activist (1948–1969)

Fredrick Allen Hampton Sr. was an American activist. He came to prominence in his late teens and early 20s in Chicago as deputy chairman of the national Black Panther Party and chair of the Illinois chapter. As a progressive African American, he founded the anti-racist, anti-classist Rainbow Coalition, a prominent multicultural political organization that initially included the Black Panthers, Young Patriots, and the Young Lords, and an alliance among major Chicago street gangs to help them end infighting and work for social change. A Marxist–Leninist, Hampton considered fascism the greatest threat, saying "nothing is more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morris Dees</span> American activist

Morris Seligman Dees Jr. is an American attorney known as the co-founder and former chief trial counsel for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), based in Montgomery, Alabama. He ran a direct marketing firm before founding SPLC. Along with his law partner, Joseph J. Levin Jr., Dees founded the SPLC in 1971. Dees and his colleagues at the SPLC have been "credited with devising innovative ways to cripple hate groups" such as the Ku Klux Klan, particularly by using "damage litigation".

C. Vernon Mason is a former lawyer and civil rights advocate from Tucker, Arkansas. Best known for his involvement in several high-profile New York City cases in the 1980s, including the Bernhard Goetz, Howard Beach, and Tawana Brawley incidents, Mason has not practiced law since his 1995 disbarment. He then served as the CEO of a non-profit organization. He is also an ordained minister.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chicago Police Department</span> Principal law enforcement agency of Chicago, Illinois, US

The Chicago Police Department (CPD) is the primary law enforcement agency of the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States, under the jurisdiction of the Chicago City Council. It is the second-largest municipal police department in the United States, behind the New York City Police Department. As of 2022 CPD had 11,710 sworn officers on duty, and in 2020 had over 948 other employees. Tracing its roots to 1835, the Chicago Police Department is one of the oldest modern police departments in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Viola Liuzzo</span> American activist and murder victim (1925–1965)

Viola Fauver Liuzzo was an American civil rights activist in Detroit, Michigan. She was known for going to Alabama in March 1965 to support the Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights. On March 25, 1965, she was shot dead by three Ku Klux Klan members while driving activists between the cities and transportation.

The Greensboro massacre was a deadly confrontation which occurred on November 3, 1979, in Greensboro, North Carolina, US, when members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party (ANP) shot and killed five participants in a "Death to the Klan" march which was organized by the Communist Workers Party (CWP).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner</span> 1964 murders of three activists in Mississippi, US

The murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, also known as the Freedom Summer murders, the Mississippi civil rights workers' murders, or the Mississippi Burning murders, were the abduction and murder of three activists in Philadelphia, Mississippi, in June 1964, during the Civil Rights Movement. The victims were James Chaney from Meridian, Mississippi, and Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner from New York City. All three were associated with the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) and its member organization, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). They had been working with the Freedom Summer campaign by attempting to register African Americans in Mississippi to vote. Since 1890 and through the turn of the century, Southern states had systematically disenfranchised most black voters by discrimination in voter registration and voting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ku Klux Klan Act</span> Act of the United States Congress

The Enforcement Act of 1871, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, Third Enforcement Act, Third Ku Klux Klan Act, Civil Rights Act of 1871, or Force Act of 1871, is an Act of the United States Congress that was intended to combat the paramilitary vigilantism of the Ku Klux Klan. The act made certain acts committed by private persons federal offenses including conspiring to deprive citizens of their rights to hold office, serve on juries, or enjoy the equal protection of law. The Act authorized the President to deploy federal troops to counter the Klan and to suspend the writ of habeas corpus to make arrests without charge.

The Civil Rights Congress (CRC) was a United States civil rights organization, formed in 1946 at a national conference for radicals and disbanded in 1956. It succeeded the International Labor Defense, the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties, and the National Negro Congress, serving as a defense organization. Beginning about 1948, it became involved in representing African Americans sentenced to death and other highly prominent cases, in part to highlight racial injustice in the United States. After Rosa Lee Ingram and her two teenage sons were sentenced in Georgia, the CRC conducted a national appeals campaign on their behalf, their first for African Americans.

Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that under the Due Process Clause of the Constitution of the United States, the prosecution must turn over to a criminal defendant any significant evidence in its possession that suggests the defendant is not guilty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Center for Constitutional Rights</span> US nonprofit legal advocacy organization

The Center for Constitutional Rights is a progressive non-profit legal advocacy organization based in New York City, New York, in the United States. 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 achieve social justice.

Police misconduct is inappropriate conduct and illegal actions taken by police officers in connection with their official duties. Types of misconduct include among others: sexual offences, coerced false confession, intimidation, false arrest, false imprisonment, falsification of evidence, spoliation of evidence, police perjury, witness tampering, police brutality, police corruption, racial profiling, unwarranted surveillance, unwarranted searches, and unwarranted seizure of property.

H. Candace Gorman is a Chicago, Illinois-based civil-rights attorney, known for representing two Guantanamo detainees and also for her work to uncover secret "street files" maintained by the Chicago Police.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jon Burge</span> Chicago police chief charged with misconduct (1947–2018)

Jon Graham Burge was an American police detective and commander in the Chicago Police Department. He was found guilty of lying about "directly participat[ing] in or implicitly approv[ing] the torture" of at least 118 people in police custody in order to force false confessions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Yagman</span> American lawyer

Stephen Yagman is an American federal civil rights lawyer, who also handles criminal defense and habeas corpus matters. He has a reputation for being an exceptionally zealous advocate in cases regarding allegations of police brutality. He has argued hundreds of federal civil rights cases before a jury, and has been involved in over a hundred and fifty federal appeals and certiorari petitions before the United States Supreme Court.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Truth Commission</span>

In Brazil, the National Truth Commission investigated human rights violations of the period of 1946–1988 - in particular by the authoritarian military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from April 1, 1964 to March 15, 1985.

People's Law Office (PLO) is a law office in Chicago, Illinois, which focuses on public interest law, representing clients believed to have been the subject of attacks by governmental officials and agencies. It was founded in 1969. Clients have included political activists, people who have been wrongfully arrested and imprisoned, or subjected to excessive force; and criminal defendants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Anthony Durkin</span> American defense attorney

Thomas Anthony Durkin is a criminal defense attorney in Chicago. He specializes in civil rights and domestic terrorism cases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homan Square facility</span> US interrogation compound in Chicago, Illinois

The Chicago Police Department's Homan Square facility is a former Sears, Roebuck and Company warehouse on the city's West Side. The facility houses the department's Evidence and Recovered Property Section. In 2015, the facility gained worldwide notoriety when the American journalist Spencer Ackerman wrote a series of articles in The Guardian comparing it to a CIA black site. After publication, some activists described it as a "secret torture site."

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Mills, Steve (May 6, 2015). "Burge reparations deal a product of long negotiations". Chicago Tribune. Tribune Publishing. Retrieved July 26, 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 McClory, Robert (August 4, 1978). "Why don't Jeff Haas and Flint Taylor just give up?". Chicago Reader. Retrieved September 26, 2014.
  3. 1 2 "4 Most Visible Lawyers in Civil Rights Lawsuit". Winston-Salem Journal. June 10, 1985.
  4. ↑ Hass, Jeffrey (2009). The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther. Chicago, Ill.: Lawrence Hill Books. pp. 52–58. ISBN   978-1569767092.
  5. 1 2 Warden, Rob (December 1982). "The Panther Lawyers". Chicago Lawyer. 5 (12).
  6. ↑ Haas 2009, p. 289-293.
  7. ↑ Johnson, Don (December 1969). "Chairman Fred Died a Natural Death". Chicago Journalism Review. 2 (12): 10–11.
  8. ↑ Haas 2009, p. 91.
  9. 1 2 "Cook County Board Approves Settlement for Panther Raid". New York Times. UPI. November 3, 1982. Retrieved September 26, 2014.
  10. ↑ Haas 2009, p. 127-131.
  11. ↑ Haas 2009, p. 224-230.
  12. ↑ COINTELPRO Action itsabouttimebpp.com
  13. ↑ Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, Book 3, p. 187-223.
  14. ↑ Haas 2009, p. 314-322.
  15. ↑ "Hampton v. Hanrahan 600 F2d 600 (7th Cir.)". OpenJurist.org. F2d (600). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit: 600. April 23, 1979. Retrieved September 26, 2014.
  16. ↑ Lopez, Robert (April 14, 2014). "Man charged in Kansas killings was at 1979 Klan-Nazi shootings". Greensboro News & Record. BH Media Group Holdings Inc. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  17. ↑ "Arguments Begin In Klan-Nazi Lawsuit". Raleigh News & Observer. March 26, 1985.
  18. ↑ "Klan Suit Defense Expects To Rest In a Few Days". Greensboro News & Record. May 23, 1985.
  19. ↑ "Klansman, Nazi say Agent Urged Guns for Rally". Greensboro News & Record. May 7, 1985.
  20. ↑ "Black, Five Whites seated on Monday as Klan-Nazi Jury". Greensboro News & Record. March 26, 1985.
  21. ↑ "Jurors Tell Judge They Can't Agree". Greensboro News & Record. June 7, 1985.
  22. ↑ "Plaintiffs Consider Verdict of Klan-Nazi Trial a 'Victory'". Greensboro News & Record. June 11, 1985.
  23. 1 2 Conroy, John (January 25, 1990). "House of Screams". Chicago Reader. Sun-Times Media, LLC. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  24. ↑ "2 decades of abuse charges, finally a sentencing in police scandal that haunted city". The Associated Press. Streetgangs.com. January 27, 2011. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  25. ↑ "FindLaw's United States Seventh Circuit case and opinions".
  26. ↑ https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-7th-circuit/1187980.html at P.1236
  27. ↑ "Wilson v. City of Chicago, 6 F. 3d 1233 (7th Cir.)". OpenJurist.org. F3d (6). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit: 1233. October 4, 1993. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  28. ↑ Marin, Carol; Moseley, Don (October 1, 2014). "Former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge Getting Out of Prison". WMAQ-TV. NBCUniversal Media. Retrieved October 3, 2014.
  29. ↑ "People v. Patterson, 192 Ill. 2d 93 (Ill. S. Ct. 2000)". August 10, 2000. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  30. ↑ "Ill. Governor Pardons Four Death Row Inmates". USA Today. Gannett Co. Inc. The Associated Press. January 10, 2003. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  31. ↑ Marin, Carol; Moseley, Don. "Appeals Court Hears Case to Overturn Torture Settlement". WMAQ-TV. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  32. ↑ "Michael Tillman, Tortured Into Murder Confession, Free After 24 Years (VIDEO)". The Huffington Post. March 18, 2010. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  33. ↑ Marin, Carol (August 9, 2011). "Former Mayor Daley can be sued as defendant in Burge case". Chicago Sun-Times. Sun-Times Media, LLC. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  34. ↑ Cohen, Sharon (January 29, 2011). "Jon Burge Case: Final Judgment In A Notorious Police Abuse Scandal". The Huffington Post. The Associated Press.
  35. 1 2 Spielman, Fran (October 2, 2014). "Burge victims renew their pitch for $20 million in reparations". Chicago Sun-Times. Sun-Times Media, LLC. Archived from the original on October 3, 2014. Retrieved October 3, 2014.
  36. ↑ Negovan, Tom; Crews, Julian (October 1, 2014). "Jon Burge to be released from federal prison in North Carolina". WGN-TV. Tribune Broadcasting. Retrieved October 3, 2014.
  37. 1 2 Ackerman, Spencer; Stafford, Zach (May 7, 2015). "Victims of Chicago police savagery hope reparations fund is 'beacon' for world". The Guardian. Retrieved July 26, 2015.
  38. ↑ Smith, Mitch; Davey, Monica (May 6, 2015). "Chicago to Pay $5 Million to Victims of Police Abuse". New York Times. Retrieved July 26, 2015.
  39. ↑ Davis, Ken (May 7, 2015). "Chicago Newsroom". CAN TV. Chicago Access Network Television. Retrieved July 26, 2015.
  40. ↑ "30 Tough Lawyers: You Want Them For You, Not Against You". Chicagomag.com. Chicago Magazine. Retrieved July 28, 2015.
  41. ↑ "Northwestern Law shared The Roderick MacArthur Justice Center's photo". Facebook. The Roderick MacArthur Justice Center. Retrieved July 26, 2015.
  42. ↑ "Hampton v. Hanrahan, 446 U.S. 754 (1980)". Justia.com. June 2, 1980. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  43. ↑ "Cleavinger v. Saxner, 474 U.S. 193 (1985)". Justia.com. December 10, 1985. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  44. ↑ "Buckley v. Fitzsimmons, 509 U.S. 259 (1993)". Justia.com. June 24, 1993. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  45. ↑ "Wanton Police Violence on Trial in New Orleans". Police Misconduct and Civil Rights Law Report. 10 (1). Thomson Reuters. January–February 2011.
  46. ↑ "Jones v. City of Chicago, 856 F. 2d 985 (7th Cir. 1988)". Leagle.com. November 15, 1988. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  47. ↑ Conroy, John (January 5, 2007). "The Good Cop". Chicago Reader. Sun-Times Media Group, LLC. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  48. ↑ Armstrong, Ken; Becker, Robert (March 6, 1999). "Record Ford Heights 4 Payout May Not Be End". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  49. ↑ Cohen, Sharon (November 10, 2005). "False murder charges against kids, seven and eight, lead to hefty settlements, new laws". Casper (WY) Star-Tribune. The Associated Press. Archived from the original on September 29, 2014. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  50. ↑ "Municipal Liability Litigation in Police Misconduct Cases from Monroe to Praprotnik and Beyond". Cumberland Law Review. 19 (3). Cumberland School of Law, Samford University: 447. 1989.
  51. ↑ "A Litigator's View of Discovery and Proof in Police Misconduct Policy and Practice Cases". DePaul Law Review. 48. DePaul University College of Law: 747. Spring 1999.
  52. ↑ "A Long and Winding Road: The Struggle for Justice in the Chicago Police Torture Cases". Public Interest Law Reporter (Featured Article). 17 (3). Loyola University School of Law. Summer 2012.
  53. ↑ , additional text.
  54. ↑ "Flint Taylor, Author Bio". TheNation.com. January 11, 2013. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  55. ↑ "G. Flint Taylor, Author Bio". The Huffington Post. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  56. ↑ "Flint Taylor Bio". InTheseTimes.com. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  57. ↑ Taylor, G. Flint (November 27, 2012). "A slap in the face of torture victims". SunTimes.com. Sun-Times Media, LLC. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  58. ↑ Taylor, G. Flint (June 22, 2012). "Time for apology in Burge cases". SunTimes.com. Sun-Times Media, LLC. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  59. ↑ Taylor, G. Flint; Stewart, Cathryn E. (March 1, 2000). "Law And Order, California-style". ChicagoTribune.com. Tribune. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  60. ↑ Van Hart, Adam (July 24, 2007). "Critics blast torture investigation". Chi-Town Daily News. Archived from the original on September 28, 2014. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  61. ↑ "County Board Hearing on Police Torture: Wednesday, 10:30 AM". Chicago.IndyMedia.org. Chicago Independent Media Center. June 12, 2007. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  62. ↑ "VIDEO-Congressional Briefing on The Law Enforcement Torture Prevention Act of 2012 [PANEL 1]". YouTube.com. TheUncannyNSP. January 27, 2012. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  63. ↑ "Panel Hears Claims Of Anti-Black Cop Brutality Here". Chicago Sun-Times. October 15, 2005.
  64. ↑ Rudoren, Jodi (July 19, 2006). "Report on Chicago Police Torture Is Released". The New York Times. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  65. 1 2 "Lawyer: Prosecutors lobbed 'softball questions' to Daley". Chicago Tribune. Tribune. July 27, 2006. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  66. ↑ "Evidence of Cop Torture Found". Chicago Sun-Times. Sun-Times Media, LLC. July 19, 2006.
  67. ↑ Goodman, Amy (July 20, 2006). "VIDEO-Report Confirms Chicago Police Tortured Black Prisoners". Democracy Now! A Daily Independent Global News Hour. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  68. ↑ Ravve, Ruth (July 16, 2013). "Ex-Chicago Mayor Daley called to testify on police torture claims". Fox News. FOX News Network, LLC. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  69. ↑ Novak, Tim; Fusco, Chris; Mihalopoulos, Dan (March 24, 2014). "Mom Sues, Claiming 'Official Coverup'". Chicago Sun-Times. Sun-Times Media, LLC. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  70. ↑ Taylor, Flint (April 2019). The Torture Machine: Racism and Police Violence in Chicago. Haymarket Books. ISBN   978-1-60846-896-6.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.