Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Northeastern University School of Law Year End Report 2009
The diverse community that has grown In 2009, CRRJ expanded its programs up around efforts to obtain reconciliation in four areas: legal support for civil and justice for unresolved civil rights-era rights-era crime victims and for harms had something to celebrate at the wrongfully accused persons; research end of 2009. Before its December support for legislators and other recess, Congress appropriated funds for policymakers; scholarly research; and the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights public outreach. Crime Act, which will stimulate activities on all fronts as this movement seeks to outpace the clock. Student Practice
Since its launch in 2007, CRRJ has worked closely with lawmakers, lawyers, civil rights-era crime victims, activists, researchers and journalists to assess and develop a range of approaches to redress civil rights -era harms, including criminal prosecution, truth and reconciliation CRRJ Students deliver their report, “Redressing the proceedings, Harms of the Civil Rights Era and legislative remedies. On the research Working under the supervision of NUSL front, CRRJ is faculty and CRRJ Fellow Janeen Blake, developing students from Northeastern University Rita Bender and Myrlie Evers- reliable data School of Law and Wellesley College Williams at CRRJ Conference with which to participated in CRRJ activities during analyze events the entire year. Students participated in of anti-civil rights violence, and studying litigation workshops, field internships, the history and current significance of and conducted independent research. such violence. Students at Northeastern attend a
weekly class, which is conducted like a involved in the events leading up to the law firm meeting, to discuss CRRJ killings, and that these local officials litigation and current assignments. At covered up their activities during the Wellesley students also met weekly to extensive federal investigation of the discuss their research projects. crime. We allege that a history of Instruction covers a broad range of racialized dual law enforcement policies substantive subjects and practice in the County was the moving force issues. behind the deaths of these two 19 year old teenagers. To our knowledge, this In 2009 each CRRJ law student handled civil case is the first of its kind in the litigation assignments, a cold case from country to challenge law enforcement our Reconstructing Cases of Racial participation in a civil rights-era Klan Violence (RCRV) project, and a killing. Moore v. Franklin County legislative or policy matter. The law provides an opportunity for scholars and students built and maintained the lawyers collaboratively to present website and offered public programs to evidence on the commonly known but the University community on civil rights clandestine relationship between local and restorative justice issues. The law enforcement and violent racial Wellesley students created a database extremists during this period. The case on civil rights era violence in Southwest is scheduled for trial in August 2010 in Mississippi. Jackson.
Legal Support for Victims of Civil Rights Era Crimes
In 2009 CRRJ, with co-counsel David Kelston, Robert McDuff, and Charles Ogletree, litigated Moore and Dee v. Franklin County, CA 3:09cv236TSL, pending in the District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. This Civil Rights Act case seeks damages for the families of Charles Moore and Henry Thomas Moore reflecting on the life of his brother, Hezekiah Dee, two young African- Charles Moore at CRRJ Conference American men who were killed by the Ku Klux Klan in May 1964 in Franklin County, Mississippi. We claim that ╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬ Franklin County officials, including the sheriff and his deputy, were actively
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Legislative and Policy Initiatives The Till Bill
Access to Federal Records
In 2009, CRRJ drafted legislation to provide open access to federal civil rights-era documents. Such documents are critical for the work of independent researchers, and they are often preemptively closed because of law enforcement needs or the inefficiencies of the FOIA system. Congress has in the past, as with the Kennedy Attorney General Holder, Professors M. Burnham & P. Johnson, July 2009 assassination records, made records of great public interest more readily available. CRRJ is working closely with CRRJ is consulting with officials from the Civil Rights Cold Case Project, the FBI, the Justice Department’s which is edited by Hank Klibanoff, on Criminal Section of the Civil Rights this initiative. In March 2009 Professor Division, and the Community Relations Burnham joined a group of journalists Service to ensure effective and historians at a meeting with implementation of the Emmett Till Representative John Lewis, who Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, which supports the concept. provides funds to accelerate the prosecution of cold cases. In July 2009, with others in the civil rights legal community, including Professor Paula Johnson of Syracuse Law School’s Cold Case Initiative, Margaret Burnham consulted with United States Attorney Eric Holder to discuss implementation of the Till Bill. After Congress funded the law in December 2009, CRRJ assisted Alvin Sykes and other civil rights strategists to enhance community input Hank Klibanoff addresses Northeastern in the federal government’s planning University on Cold Cases, October 2009 regarding implementation of the law.
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History and Law: insufficient; or (3) the harms were Reconstructing Cases of Racial serious but not fatal. Violence There are many hundreds of cases
across the South that stand ready for The central challenge facing this new investigation and, where possible, movement is time: four or five decades resolution. Even if there is no have passed since these harms prosecutorial opportunity, uncovering occurred. As the participants in these the background and facts of these cases events age and pass on, their evidence, can enhance restorative justice and stories, and the opportunity for truth- historical accuracy. These cases telling is lost with them. In our require a coordinated, multifaceted and experience, victims and their interdisciplinary approach, drawing on descendents are anxious to discuss the skills of lawyers, historians, social their experiences, particularly when they scientists and journalists. Without that, know that their accounts will be the victims - usually ordinary people with preserved for history and could provide limited resources - and their a basis for genuine truth and experiences will remain absent from the reconciliation. It will take time for the civil rights narratives. Emmett Till Bill to show results. Private investigations have proven to be an In 2009, CRRJ took on several such enormously effective avenue for cases. These three are typical of our reconstructing these cases, but our work: resources are limited.
Adlena Hamlett & Birdia Kegler In 2009, CRRJ collaborated with law Charleston, Mississippi enforcement authorities, journalists and advocates to reach all possible victims. CRRJ represented the families of civil It is well established, however, that law rights activists Adlena Hamlett and enforcement’s role, while critical, is also Birdia Kegler, who died under limited. CRRJ seeks to reconstruct suspicious circumstances in January these civil rights era cases even where 1965. The two women were in an auto criminal prosecution is not an option. accident upon their return to their homes Such cases arise when: (1) judicial in the Mississippi Delta after attending a prosecutions led to wrongful acquittals meeting of the U.S. Civil Rights (as in the Emmett Till case); (2) the case Commission in Jackson. They died cannot be prosecuted because the immediately from their injuries. Both perpetrators are not available or the women were active in the Delta Civil evidence currently on hand is Rights Movement. Long-standing suspicions that the women were run off
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the road by persons seeking to do them their loved ones were civil rights harm led to the inclusion of the case on heroines but not martyred murder the FBI’s Civil Rights Era Crimes list. victims. Family members asked CRRJ to look into the case in 2008. In March 2009 CRRJ’s Tayo Belle, a 2L student, John Earl Reese travelled to Mississippi to investigate. Mayflower, Texas Ms. Belle met with the family members of Hamlett and Kegler and interviewed former civil rights workers who knew the John Earl Reese was 16 years old women, including CRRJ Board when, in October 1955, he was shot and Chairperson Hollis Watkins. killed at a café in a small town in East Texas. Whites were protesting the integration of some Texas schools, and had been shooting randomly across the black neighborhood. Reese and his cousins, two young women, were shot by two men driving by the café. The men later told the court they
CRRJ Chair Hollis Watkins and Tayo Belle, “wanted Jackson, Mississippi, Mar. 09 to keep the n-rs and Shortly after Ms. Belle’s trip, CRRJ whites interviewed a witness - a former civil from rights worker - who was on the scene at going to the time of the car crash in 1965. Now school retired and a resident of Washington, together. D.C., the witness had never been Joyce Nelson-Crockett at the gravesite of John Earl Reese, Dec. 09 questioned about the crash before. His statement to CRRJ and to the FBI this At the trial of on e of the shooters, past March established that there was defense counsel asked the jury to “call it no foul play involved in the crash; it was a bad day and let the boy go on in life.” purely accidental. The result of this The jury found the shooter guilty of interview was that CRRJ concluded its murder but the judge released him on representation, and left the Hamlett and probation. Kegler families with peace of mind that
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of homicides and other severe civil CRRJ represents one of the women rights era violence; (b) provide or who was shot with Reese but survived. refer victims to legal services, where Now 67 years old, she has never had an appropriate; (c) create an archive of opportunity to tell her story to the public. original materials; (d) work with CRRJ student Kaylie Simon obtained communities to develop truth-telling trial materials and located older instruments based on the cases; and residents who still remember the killing. (e) make public (and searchable) the This case cannot be the subject of a results of our research. fresh prosecution because it was tried to verdict. Although it does not qualify for legal action, CRRJ’s work resulted in Scholarly Research FBI attention, which in turn led to an investigative journalist’s report about the case. This was the first time the case had received any media attention in East Texas since the 1950s.
Mattie Green Ringgold, Georgia
Mattie Green, a thirty-two year old mother of six, was killed in Ringgold, Georgia when a bomb was set off at her home on May 19, 1960. Twenty-five sticks of dynamite were set under the Greens’ home. The blast killed Mrs. Green and injured her husband and son. Professor Athena Mutua, Buffalo Law School, at CRRJ panel, HLS ‘07 Everyone suspected nightrighters – probably the “Dixie Klan,” but, despite On considering the issues raised by the governor’s offer of a $5,000 reward CRRJ’s 2007 conference on cold cases, for information leading to the arrest of Athena Mutua, University of Buffalo, the perpetrators no arrests were ever authored an article critiquing what she made. CRRJ student Rashida argues is the exclusionary premise of Richardson is assisting Mrs. Green’s the movement. Margaret Burnham’s daughter, who was 10 years old when 2009 draft article, Recasting Anti-Civil her mother was killed. Rights Violence is open for comment. CRRJ Collaborators Daniel Kryder The goals here are to: (a) create a full (Brandeis) and David Cunningham, and comprehensive history of cases
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(Brandeis), and former co-director Geoff efforts to redress civil rights era crimes Ward (Irvine) are conducting research and compiles information about for the Mississippi Truth Project, which executive pardons and truth they helped launch under the auspices commissions. In the upcoming period of CRRJ. Kryder’s work on anti-civil CRRJ will enhance the content and rights law enforcement, focusing on the expand the outreach of the website by Clarksdale, Ms. police department, is providing an opportunity for the public to forthcoming in his book Civil Blood: offer information relative to the Case White Police and Black Protesters in profiles. Currently a selective list Modern America. Kryder, Cunningham, heavily focused on Mississippi, the Case and Burnham presented their work at Watch will become more the roundtable, Facing the Anti-Civil comprehensive. The site will include a Rights Movement, at the 2009 meeting brief bank accessible to attorneys of the Southern Political Science working in the field. CRRJ will redesign Association. Collaborator Melissa the website to include a site map, Nobles’ (MIT) essay on prosecuting search engine, additional pages on human rights violations is forthcoming. remediation, and to render the site more appealing and easier to use.
Public Outreach CRRJ Staff and Board The CRRJ website, launched in 2007, provides documents, news, and analysis We welcome Attorney Janeen Blake, relating to civil rights-era crimes to an NUSL ‘09 and CRRJ alumnus, to the audience of lawyers, journalists, full-time staff. Janeen will join the law advocacy groups, and policymakers. firm of DLA Piper in 2011. The web site covers cold cases, current research, news, and policy issues on Margaret Burnham, Professor of Law the subject of remedial justice in the CRRJ Director United States. Janeen Blake Civil Rights and Restorative Justice The centerpiece of the website is the Fellow Case Watch, which provides Bonnie Kanter descriptions of the facts underlying the CRRJ Administrative Director court proceedings, analysis of the legal proceedings, the political and historical Our board has provided critical advice context of the case, and links to media and support in 2009. reports and related resources. The site monitors federal and state legislative CRRJ thanks the NUSL Clinic staff for its support. 7
Financial Support
In 2009, CRRJ’s work was supported by grants from the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Cristina E. Callan Fund, and by the Northeastern University School of Law and individual contributions. The important work of CRRJ is made possible with the generous support of individual donors.
The Philadelphia Coalition, with guests Rita Bender and Susan Glisson, dedicates a memorial to James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner at Mt Zion Methodist Church, Longdale, Neshoba County, Mississippi Mar. 2008 8
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