Beyond protesting: How do we stop savage inequities?
8th June 2020 · 0 Comments
By C.C. Campbell-Rock
Contributing Writer
As worldwide protests over the murder of George Floyd by indicted fired cops continue, civil rights leaders and Black-run legal organizations, Black elected officials and social justice activists are devising strategies to stop the brutality/murder by cop syndrome that has been going on for at least two centuries.
Some observers are questioning whether we need a new Bill of Rights.
The first 10 amendments to the Constitution make up the Bill of Rights. James Madison wrote the amendments, which list specific prohibitions on governmental power, in response to calls from several states for greater constitutional protection for individual liberties. For example, the founders saw the ability to speak and worship freely as a natural right protected by the First Amendment. Congress is prohibited from making laws establishing religion or abridging freedom of speech. The Fourth Amendment safeguards citizens’ right to be free from unreasonable government intrusion in their homes through the requirement of a warrant.
A review of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution shows clearly that the rights of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, both of who were killed in May, and Ahmaud Arbery, who was killed in February, were violated; as were the rights of the thousands of other Blacks who lost their lives at the hands of savage murderers, many of whom worn a badge and a gun.
Carl Galmon, a lifelong voting rights and civil rights activist, told The Louisiana Weekly, “We don’t need a new Bill of Rights. We need somebody to enforce the Constitution of America. It sure in the hell ain’t Barr. He cares nothing about the Constitution. As you look at the criminal justice system, as related to civil rights, the cops who killed George Floyd should have been charged with First Degree murder. The judicial system is corrupt. It serves white people. It’s designed to jail Black and brown people in prison,”
“The problem is not so much with the present Bill of Rights, but the interpretation of those amendments by the conservative judges and justices. For instance, the drafters of the 1st Amendment envisioned a complete separation of church and state. However, as interpreted by these conservative jurists, the church has become an arm of the state, .e.g., financing religious institutions and organizations with state funds. Also, the idea that someone could use his/her alleged religious beliefs to deprive someone of certain fundamental items as housing, employment, familial service, etc. is repugnant to the impetus behind the First Amendment., Civil Rights Attorney Ron Wilson explains.
“The Second Amendment was never intended to allow someone to possess a grenade launcher or military style weapons. Another good example would be the due process clause set forth in the Fifth Amendment, which prevents the government from depriving one of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The conservative jurists have interpreted that requirement out of the amendment. So, essentially what we need are judges who will interpret the Bill of Rights consistent with the purpose behind them,” he adds.
“The Supreme Court has essentially given police and other public officials immunity when their conduct has come into question in lawsuits. University of Chicago law professor William Baude found that in thirty cases over the last several cases the Supreme Court only found officials liable in two cases. That translates into near zero accountability,” says Law Professor Bill Quigley.
Marc Morial, NUL president and CEO, has been calling for criminal justice reform for years. In January 2019, in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the nomination of William Pelham Barr, Morial said, “For the past two years, the Justice Department has been led by an Attorney General (Sessions) intent on restricting civil and human rights at every turn. From rolling back voting rights enforcement to reverting to failed and harmful criminal justice policies…The nation needs an Attorney General who will dramatically change course and enforce federal civil rights laws with vigor and independence. Based on his alarming record, we are convinced that William Barr will not do so.”
If the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Attorney General are shielding the blue line from prosecution and accountability when they unarmed Black people, when the protests end, what is the remedy for stopping the savage injustices and murder by cops, which Blacks are subjected?
Morial, last week, told reporters that “systemic” changes could help give confidence in Floyd’s case and future police-conduct issues. The recent spate of murders is ‘a recognition that the changes we need are systemic, which means changes in law, changes in policy with respect to policing, with respect to the accountability of police officers.”
“A governor like [Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz] could appoint a special prosecutor and create a special investigatory unit that takes the investigation and prosecution of police misconduct, particularly the killings of individuals by the police out of the hands of local DAs so that there’s some integrity and some confidence in the process,” Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., the chair of the caucus, told ABC News.
“The Black Caucus needs to step up and speak out more,” Galmon advises. Last week, Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif, and the chair of the CBC told ABC News that the Congressional Black Caucus is at work on a package of policing reforms the House could advance later this month in response to the death of George Floyd.”
Senator Cory Booker laid out policies and legislation that, hopefully, a bi-partisan group of legislators will pass.
Prefacing his comments, Booker said, “I can’t legislate people to love me, but I can pass laws to stop you from lynching me. I can’t change people’s hearts, but I legislate against the heartless.”
Booker suggests changing federal policing accountability laws, enforcement of Section 242 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, which makes it a crime for a person acting under color of any law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, changes to qualified immunity laws,” and other things the CBC has been fighting for, for years.
“This is a moment of struggle that none of us should relent on until we see criminal justice reform,” Booker concluded.
This article originally published in the June 8, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
