Lawsuit challenging “Death by Incarceration” goes before Pennsylvania Supreme Court 

On Wednesday, a lawsuit brought by people serving Death-By-Incarceration sentences, commonly known as Life Without Parole, took their case to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Represented by the Abolitionist Law Center, Amistad Law Project, and the Center for Constitutional Rights, they seek an end to the ban on parole for those serving life sentences for participating in a felony that led to a death, even if they played no direct role in the death and did not intend or anticipate it.  

“People change. After decades of incarceration, society should allow people the opportunity to demonstrate that they are not the same person who harmed their community so many years ago,” said Kris Henderson of Amistad Law Project. “Pennsylvania is uniquely cruel in denying a second chance to people who neither took a life or intended to. We urge the court to fix this injustice.”

Scott v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, filed in July 2020, is the first case of its kind in the country. It argues that mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole for those who did not kill or intend to kill serve no legitimate governmental interest and are illegally cruel under the Pennsylvania constitution. 

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Parents rights activist takes Child Services to court, seeks records related to firing 

Activist Joyce McMillan filed a petition in state court last night, seeking records from the Administration for Child Services (ACS) related to her firing from an ACS-funded nonprofit in January in 2021. Emails suggest it was pressure from an ACS director that caused her termination after she criticized the agency on Facebook. Filed on behalf of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Ms. McMillan by the law firm of Beldock Levine & Hoffman, the petition follows ACS’s failure to comply with a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request. 

Ms. McMillan, who years ago had to fight to recover her own children from ACS, is a longtime critic of the agency, which, she says, operates like an arm of law enforcement and poses a particular threat to Black families. She is a leader in a growing movement of advocates and parents challenging a system they say often needlessly takes children into custody, inflicting severe harm on families and communities. 

“Any agency seeking to make honest change would not silence the voice and expertise of a changemaker,” said Ms. McMillan.

Continue reading on our website. While you’re there, make sure to visit our case page McMillan FOIL Litigation Against ACSfor the latest updates.

Ramapough Lenape Nation reaches agreement with Hunt & Polo Club in religious freedom, Indigenous rights case 

In our case Ramapough Mountain Indians, Inc. v. Township of Mahwah, Ramapo Hunt & Polo Club, the Ramapough Lenape Nation and the Ramapo Hunt & Polo Club homeowners association have agreed to a settlement that sets forth a roadmap toward peaceful coexistence. After facing heavy fines and fees for practicing their religious and cultural traditions on their land, the Ramapough filed a federal lawsuit in 2018 alleging that the township of Mahwah and the Hunt & Polo Club were violating their constitutional rights.

In 2019, the Ramapough reached an agreement with Mahwah that dismissed all financial penalties, which had run to millions of dollars, and allowed them to practice their religion freely on their land. The Ramapough and the Hunt & Polo Club subsequently entered into more than a year of mediation, resulting in the current settlement.

The agreement, which requires the Hunt & Polo Club to provide the Ramapough with an undisclosed amount of monetary compensation, brings the federal lawsuit to a close. The Ramapough hope it ushers in an era of peaceful coexistence with their neighbors.

“We are eternally grateful to the Center for Constitutional Rights, Weil Gotshal, and our entire legal team,” said Chief Dwaine Perry. “Now we may come before the Creator without fear of awakening the ever present religious oppression from which we had suffered for so long.”

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Blog: “Brooklyn Shooting Highlights the Need for Abolition” by Alex Webster 

Latest on the blog, Communications Assistant Alex Webster underscores the error in relying on policing to end violence and harm in our community. It is only through defunding, and ultimately abolishing, policing, they say, and replacing it with a model of community-based crisis management that we will see a change in the tide for good. In the post they write:

The NYPD is a rogue agency with an effective $11 billion budget (one of the only agencies to not see a cut under the mayor's proposed budget), a figure which, if the city were a country, would make it 24th largest military spender in the world. The agency operates a sprawling network of surveillance technology and boasts of its police "omnipresence" on the city’s subway. And yet it was reportedly not the NYPD’s counter terrorism unit, which may have been tied up displacing our homeless neighbors, nor was it the city’s web of racially biased facial recognition technology, constitutionally questionable gang database, trigger-happy anti-crime unit, or any one of its army of 36,000 uniformed officers, that led to the shooter's capture. Rather, it was the attention of at least one concerned community member. 

…

The only equitable path forward is to defund this institution that is beyond reform and—finally—put that money toward real material support for our communities.

Read the blog post on our website.