Civil Rights News: Police Discrimination; Wrongful Convictions; Diverse Judicial Nominations

Four Connecticut Officers Charged With Depriving Latinos of Rights
By Michael Muskal, Los Angeles Times

On Tuesday January 24, 2012, the Department of Justice issued an indictment alleging that four East Haven, Connecticut police officers conspired “to injure, oppress, threaten and intimidate members of the East Haven community in the free exercise and enjoyment of rights.” The specific charges include: assaulting handcuffed suspects, arresting and detaining Latinos without probable cause, and conducting illegal searches and seizures. Federal authorities began investigating the New Haven Police Department in 2009, and the Department of Justice found a pattern of discrimination and poor supervision within the police department.

Eyewitness Identification Has 50% Error Rate? How We Throw People in Prison Based on False Identification
By, Patricia J. Williams, AlterNet (The Nation)

On January 11, in Perry v. New Hampshire, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that courts aren’t required to evaluate the reliability of eyewitness testimony before presenting the evidence to a jury. The Court only mandated that law enforcement agents can’t employ “unnecessarily suggestive” techniques. Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the only dissenting justice, and she agrees with the Innocence Project’s concerns about the reliability of eyewitness testament. A study conducted by the Innocence Project recently found that eyewitness misidentification resulted in 75 percent of the 281 wrongful convictions in the United States, as proven by new DNA analysis. Recent scientific and psychological evidence has identified several modifications to the eyewitness identification process that would improve the evidence’s reliability and protect against wrongful convictions.

Christie Names a Gay Man and an Asian for the Top Court
By Kate Zernike, New York Times

In a surprise move, Governor Chris Christie nominated two unprecedented justices to New Jersey’s Supreme Court. One nominee, Phillip H. Kwon, is the first Asian and the first immigrant to serve on the New Jersey Supreme Court. Bruce A. Harris is the other nominee, and he’s the first openly gay justice to serve on the state’s highest court. Harris is the third African American to ever be nominated for the prestigious position, and he would be the only African American currently serving on the New Jersey Supreme Court. Gay rights groups, although admittedly surprised by the move, applaud the typically socially conservative New Jersey Governor’s nomination of Harris.