Tifton, Georgia

The idea of a Sundown town is nothing strange when it comes to my family. My mom spent a fair amount of her childhood in Tifton, Georgia. This was a period in time when the state of Georgia finally caved and integrated their public schools. Tifton was split by a railroad line and as you can guess one side was black and the other was white. My mom was bussed 45 minutes across town to the dilapidated african-american run schools and many of their students were bussed to the much nicer white schools. Her family was all about everyone having an equal opportunity at a proper education but why was she being bussed to the under funded and under staffed school nearly an hour away. Needless to say her family was very frustrated.

Her stories from Tifton are not exactly heart warming, it was an unofficial sundown town. The racial tension could be cut with a knife. After living their for a few years, a black family moved in next door from way out of town. My grandfather made an effort to warn them but they didn't understand the gravity of what it meant to live on the wrong side of the railroad tracks. The night after they moved in my mom woke up to in the middle of the night to see a giant cross burning in their new neighbors yard. The Klu Klux Klan had gotten word of them moving in and made it very clear they were not welcome. Before the end of the next day the family had packed their things and moved out of town. 

Seattle May Day Protest

I talked earlier about the violence that took place at the Kent State protests during Vietnam. This is a story with a slightly different ending. May Day is international holiday for workers to protest better working conditions. In Seattle, apparently this protest is a big deal as the turn out was enormous. There was rioting in the streets. Police moved in with riot gear and attempted to defuse the situation without using lethal force. Protestors proceeded to shoot fireworks, throw rocks, and fling molotov cocktails at police. These clashes lasted all day and by the end of it nine protestors were arrested and five officers were injured.

Which considering our country's history with riots is a miraculous outcome. The mayor of Seattle was quoted in saying, "It is unfortunate and deeply regrettable that in a city that goes to incredible lengths to respect First Amendment rights, there are some who disregard our values and engage in senseless acts of violence and property destruction," he said. "My thoughts are with the officers who were injured."(CNN). If only the police could have been this careful in 1970, but either way fortunately times have changed.

Exxon and Climate Change

The oil giant Exxon is suing claiming their first amendment rights are being violated. The company was served a subpoena to release their documents on climate change to the public, as there was suspicion that they have been misleading the public. The issue stems from investors concern that the company isn't being honest about their impact on climate change. 

Exxon is refusing the subpoena and in tern suing under the first amendment, as they believe their right to freedom of speech is being violated. Exxon has also come out on record saying they believe this to be a political move and will fight this to the bitter end. 

Kent State Massacre

On April 30th 1970, President Richard Nixon announced we would be invading Cambodia and thus would officially be involved in the Vietnam War. Outraged poured in from across the nation especially on college campuses. One that was particularly opposed to the issue was the students at Kent State. They held a school wide protest that started out as a peaceful demonstration but slowly got out of hand. The state of Ohio immediately declared Marshall Law and chaos ensued.

The National Guard was brought in to defuse the situation but this would turn out to be a fatal mistake. On May 4th, twenty-eight of the ninety guardsmen posted on campus opened fire into the crowd of students. Four of these students were killed and nine were severely injured in the incident. The nation was outraged. In the aftermath, eight of the twenty-eight were indicted but all charges were dropped due to lack of evidence. It is a fact that everyone has a right to peaceful protest and when it gets out of hand it crucial that police or military defuse it but how could it ever be imaginable to fire into a crowd of unarmed students. Whether it was a mob or not this kind of animalistic behavior was not only tolerated but backed by the justice system as all the shooters walked away scott free.

Plessy vs Ferguson and Judge Harlan's Dissent

In the Plessy vs Ferguson case of 1896 the large majority of Justices voted in favor of "separate but equal". In fact only one Justice, Harlan, voted against it. So why did he still vote against it when he knew he would for sure lose, because Harlan made a valid, strong argument to push for equality. For those willing to listen he provided a substantial argument in an attempt to protect the freedoms of african-americans. His argument had some really strong points as he cited and gave his own interpretation of the 14th amendment. He also discussed how our judicial system did not need to fail the african-american people again after it already had with the Dred Scott Decision.

At the time I'm sure more white people probably trusted the system than african-americans, so there was not likely to be a large objection from the general population. This is especially the case because of how over whelming the votes from the Justices was. Today, it seems people are much more worldly and cultured than they were at the time. Even though it was a large majority decision, I don't believe the majority of America would have stood for it.

I'm sure at the time this would have been hard to see, but I believe this slimmer of hope for equality from Justice Harlan is spark for our judicial system to head in the right direction. Our system definitely still had a long way to go but it is the opinions of people with a voice like Justice Harlan that can make a change.
 

Scott vs Sanford

For my first moot court I represented John Sanford who was arguing to keep the rights to his property in his slave Dred Scott who was fighting for his freedom. Scott's team went first and cited many strong points. First off they cited a case from history where it was proven that once you are free, you are always free. They also pointed out that according to the Missouri compromise, Scott was being held in a territory was slavery was not legal. Finally that Dred Scott was never made aware of his rights while being held in this free territory. My team was up to speak, we really only needed to make two very simple points. First, the Missouri compromise was later deemed unconstitutional and therefore his right to freedom in those specific territories was not actually true. Secondly, and most importantly, according to the US government any man with full african descent was not a citizen of the United States. If you are not a citizen of the United States you can not sue for your freedom. Unfortunately, this would turn out to be case closed for Dred Scott and the supreme court did not grant him his freedom. So on March 6th 1857 was denied his freedom. This would affirm the right of slave owners to take their slaves into western territories without any consequence. According to the courts Dred Scott was property of his owner and could not be taken from his position as property without due process of law. This would go down as one of the most controversial and embarrassing cases our judicial system has ever faced. 

State vs Mann

In class the first two moot court groups argued the State vs Mann case, where a slave trying to flee her master was shot in the back and severely injured. The two sides made very strong cases as State was up first. State's opening argument was that slavery as a whole was unconstitutional and that Mann was not only a murder but did not have the right treat his property in the way that he did. Unfortunately for them, slavery is not directly denounced by the constitution, the slave did not die, and according to the law of property Mann can pretty much do what he wants to his own personal property. Mann's argument was simple in that they said common slavery was legal in North Carolina and that a runaway slave was to be returned by any means necessary. Unfortunately according to the laws at the time Mann had done nothing wrong and was not forced to pay a fine.
 

FBI vs Apple

The Federal Bureau of Investigations has filed a court order to Apple Inc to have a code written to unlock an iPhone so they can have full and complete access to it. It should be said that this isn't just some random iPhone, this one in particular belonged to the San Bernadino attacker Syed Rizwan Farook. This is all part of their, rightfully, thorough investigation of the terrorist attack. Apple is in return filed for a motion to dismiss this court order claiming among other things that this is a violation of the first amendment. Apple's legal council, in short, stated that if their client writes this code it could put hundreds of millions of phones at risk of being accessed or monitored remotely. This is an interesting topic for me, as I come from a family of law enforcement and fully understand how important it is to be as thorough as in these types of situations. However, writing this code is tampering with a power that has yet to be tapped into yet. If this code were to leak or if the government decided to take liberty with it, the results could be catastrophic. Like in many of my other blogs, the question is where do we draw the line?

How much access is too much access? In this CNBC article, the author clearly believes Apple has a strong case. Their argument has won in cases like this before but, it seems especially in recent history that "national security" trumps everything else.

Antonin Scalia 1936-2016

On February 13, 2016 Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia passed away while staying at a ranch house in Shafter, Texas. Scalia served as a Justice for 30 years and was known as a man of his faith who stuck to what he believed in. "Scalia was known as a consistent and principle defender of free speech rights."(Liptak). Scalia was well known and even sometimes infamous for his stance on free speech, as some argued he only defended speech he agreed with. If Scalia will be remembered for anything it is how strongly opinionated he is, mostly tying back to his religious roots. This article also points how the other justices vote when it came to free speech cases and organized by speech that was backed by conservative claim vs liberal claims. Clearly there is a bias in the high court as to what free speech should be free.

Scalia's death raised many other questions as well. When appointing the next justice, should religious beliefs be taken into consideration. This due to the fact many believed that Scalia's decisions were based solely off his christian morals and beliefs. So, the question is how can you eliminate bias in the Supreme court without having justices voting for things they don't believe in. If justices are making decisions based on their political beliefs or their religious views than the system is flawed. There is no denying Justice Scalia had a an incredible impact on the judicial system and did some really great things but going forward I would like to see someone a little more even keeled replace him and hopefully find some balance in the Supreme Court.
 

Freedom of the Press Doesn't Come Free

Freedom of the Press is a well debated topic especially in recent news. Where do we draw the line? At what point does the media take it too far? In 2015, some anti-abortion activist made a documentary about planned parenthood that clearly crossed the line. David Daleidan and Sandra Merritt were the pro-life activist who discretely filmed their interaction with a planned parenthood in Texas. The whole point of their documentary was to prove that Planned Parenthood was selling fetal parts or tissues for profit. They also found government documents that related to the point they were trying to make and altered them to bolster their claim of wrong doing. Daleidan and Merritt failed epically as it was proven that Planned Parenthood does not sell fetal parts as both have been indicted for altering government documents and attempting to purchase fetal tissue. You may say well case closed, this was one singular example and this is not something that happens often but you would be wrong. In this case, yes they were not main stream media, but they are acting in similar ways as some large media giants.

Modern Media either swings left or right and they will do whatever necessary to push their liberal or conservative agenda. Which includes making wild, fact-less claims as well as in some cases just flat out lying. This was the case with world famous NBC reporter Brian Williams. So how is this really any different than Daleidan and Merrit's documentary? The First Amendment protects the media through freedom of press but there has to be some other form of regulation. News is so instantaneous and accessible it is even more crucial that every piece of information put out be reputable, and of course there will always be the TMZ's of the world, but we can't have the self proclaimed reputable news sources making wild accusations and lies. How can the First Amendment protect a modern media that can lie to the nation without consequence?

College Protest and the Freedom of Press

If you watch the news, own a smart phone, or read the paper you know that protests have been a common occurrences on college campuses around the country. These are due to a plethora of different causes but probably the most well known was the student protest that took place at the University of Missouri. On November 9th students and faculty gathered to protest the lack of action being taken against apparent racist acts from students on campus. The protest was well intended and had a just cause but due to mob mentality took a turn for the worst. As you can imagine at any sort of event like this, the media was on scene and documenting everything. If you really want your voice to be heard then it only makes sense that you want to be recorded. But needless to say one of the faculty members in the crowd wasn't having it. An assistant communication professor named Melissa Click decided she along with many others did not want to be filmed. One of the media members on site was a journalist for the student news paper named Mark Scheirbecker. He was filming the crowd when Professor Click approached him, pushed him, attempted to take his camera, and proceeded to insight other students to forcibly remove him from the square where they were protesting. This was documented in the Atlantic news site.
 Scheirbecker correctly claimed that as she is an employee of the state as she was violating his first amendment right to freedom of press. Not only that, now he is pushing to have her charged with assault. She has since been fired and an investigation has been opened into her alleged assault.

Her argument was that she was worried if media members like Scheirbecker filmed her protesting, she could lose her job. How ironic that it was because of this fear that she ended up crossing a line and losing her job anyway. It should be said though that if you believe in a cause strongly enough to abandon your responsibilities to go protest you should be willing to run the risk of losing your job. The other argument was the safety of the students as well as media members. These protests were sometimes as large as 5,000 or more members. If something were to happen and violence broke out both parties could be in danger. This is a fair argument but there must be a compromise in finding a balance in the safety of everyone and still not violating their freedom of press.