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NOVEMBER 20 | 2014 | DEFENDER
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U.S.briefs DYLANN ROOF, the white man charged with killing State Sen. Clementa Pinckney and eight others at a Charleston, S.C. church, will stand trial next year. A judge set a July 11, 2016, trial date for Roof, who faces multiple charges, including nine counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder. Following the hearing, Roof was denied bond on that grounds that he is a flight risk and a danger to the community. The local prosecutor in the case said it has the potential for a capital case, but the state has not said if it will seek the death penalty…….. HOUSE DEMOCRATS renewed their push for the restoration of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that was struck down by the Supreme Court two years ago, arguing that Americans’ anger over polarizing symbols such as the Confederate flag should motivate Republicans to take “substantive action” to protect minority voting rights. The newest effort to put pressure on Speaker John Boehner to bring a voting rights bill to the floor came after Republicans pulled a Department of Interior spending bill amid disagreements on whether to allow the display and sale of the Confederate flag on federal sites. “We must have an effective preclearance section to prevent discriminatory election laws from being enacted,” said U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus……..MARIJUANA USE IN TEENS is on the rise, while cigarette use is stable or declining. A study conducted by the Methodology Center at Penn State found that in 1993, Black adolescents were equally likely to use marijuana and cigarettes as whites. In 2013, nearly 19 percent of white teens smoked cigarettes, while almost 22 percent used marijuana. At the same time only about 10 percent of Black teens smoked cigarettes, but nearly 25 percent used marijuana.
VOLUME 84 • NUMBER 34 JULY 23, 2015
Publisher Sonceria Messiah-Jiles Advertising/Client Relations Selma Dodson Tyler Online Editor ReShonda Billingsley Art Director Tony Fernandez-Davila
Print Editor Marilyn Marshall
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Clinton accepts blame for excessive sentences NNPA News Service
F
ormer President Bill Clinton said he supported President Barack Obama’s plan to reform the nation’s criminal justice system, and assumed blame for crafting a bill that made matters worse. The remarks came in an address in Philadelphia at the 106th NAACP national convention. “The president spoke a long time and very well about criminal justice reform, and I appreciate what he has done,” Clinton said. “But, here’s what happened when I took office. “We had a roaring decade of rising crime – we had gang warfare on the streets. We had little children being shot dead on the streets who were just innocent bystanders standing in the wrong place. “We had kids in Los Angeles doing drills in their schools to learn how to drop down and get under their desks because of people just doing random drive-by shootings,” Clinton said. “Violent crime had tripled in the previous 30 years and the police force had only increased by 10 percent.” Clinton said 100,000 more police were placed on the streets and the Brady Bill and Assault Weapons Ban were passed. “And we passed funds to give people something to say ‘yes’ to in the after school hours, not just to say ‘no’ to,” Clinton said. “But in that bill,
there were longer sentences. And most of these people are in prison under state law, but the federal law set a trend. And that was overdone. “We were wrong about that. That percentage of it, we were wrong about,” he said. Clinton’s comments were in step with remarks Obama made during his earlier keynote address. Obama noted that incarceration disproportionately impacts communities of color. He said Blacks and Hispanics make up 30 percent of the population but 60 percent of inmates. “Around 1 million fathers are behind bars,” Obama said. “Around one in nine African-American kids has a parent in prison. What is that doing to our communities? What is that doing to those children?”
Lynch tells NAACP ‘our work is not finished’ NNPA News Service
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch pushed the NAACP to keep fighting for equality in education, economics and the criminal justice system during her speech at the organization’s Freedom Fund/ Thalheimer Awards ceremony in Philadelphia. “Your success is legendary,” Lynch told the attendees. “[But] there is so much more to do. Our work is not finished.” She reviewed achievements made under President Obama’s administration as evidence that some progress is being made. One of those achievements was the Supreme Court’s recognition of “disparate impact” in the
Federal Housing Act. With the court’s decision to uphold disparate impact, claims of racial discrimination in housing practices are not restricted to showing intent. She also praised Obama’s efforts to ease mandatory sentencing for non-violent drug crimes. Lynch said reforming the nation’s criminal justice system is a difficult task. “The road ahead will not be easy – it never has been,” she said. “We will face difficult times – we always have. But the beauty of America, the glory of America and the history of America tells us that many of our greatest accomplishments in civil rights, in human rights, come after some of our darkest days.”
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