by Ed Lyon
For those who have suffered through seemingly endless, slow-moving lines at your state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (“DMV”), only to come up against rude, condescending, petty bureaucrats, there is a brand-new reason to dislike and fear that particular agency. Many DMVs are augmenting their legislative budget allotments ...
by Ed Lyon
Guy Frank first became involved with Louisiana’s criminal justice system in 1975 at age 22. Over the next quarter century, Frank would be arrested 36 times and would be convicted several times for theft and possession of cocaine. He served a three-year prison term at one point ...
by Ed Lyon
Civil asset forfeiture (“CAF”) began as a legal way to take oceangoing vessels from owners who allowed their ships to violate customs regulations, laws, or outright contraband smuggling. After the first declaration of the war on drugs by President Richard Nixon in the 1970s, CAF was expanded ...
by Ed Lyon
Most Americans are probably aware that the U.S. deploys a police force of sorts called the Border Patrol along the country’s Southern border and might be surprised by its growth.
Prior to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center Towers and damaged ...
by Ed Lyon
Despite being the capital of the nation’s largest Red state, Austin, Texas, is as liberally Blue as a city can be, proudly sporting the motto “KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD.” Whether weird or empathetic, Austin has made great strides toward diverting money from its police department to improve law ...
by Ed Lyon
There is evidence of legal systems, considered primitive by some, that have required a false accuser to face the same punishment the falsely accused would have had to suffer had the false accusations resulted in a conviction. What a completely different, fair, and equitable justice system the ...
by Ed Lyon
There is a push throughout the world to equip police with body cams. It seems to be widely believed that this will reduce incidents of police brutality.
However, “[w]hen the police are given the discretion to publicly release favorable body camera footage but withhold negative footage, police ...
by Ed Lyon
Newly hired employees are told not to bring their personal problems, biases, and prejudices to work with them. This admonition is especially appropriate in police departments.
Some officers bring racist or other hateful comments to social media [CLN, October 2019, p. 41]. However, some of ...
by Ed Lyon
After the U.S. Civil War and followingthe 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution that banned slavery, laws designed to disadvantage Black people were passed throughout former Rebel states. Those legislative acts became known as Jim Crow laws. None were fair. Some of the more insidious live ...
by Ed Lyon
A 2018 lawsuit by Milwaukee Bucks player Sterling Brown filed against the city of Milwaukee alleging police used excessive force ended with a $750,000 settlement.
Milwaukee city attorney Tearman Spencer and assistant city attorney Robin A. Pederson sent a letter to the city’s Common Council on November ...
