SPLC fights to keep children out of juvenile detention, other confined settings during pandemic
Confined to a juvenile residential facility as the COVID-19 pandemic spread, Denise, 17, tried to stay at least 6 feet away from others, but it was a difficult task. Staff members in the remote residential facility for children in south Alabama did not wear masks or require the children to wear them. Nor did they enforce any of the social distancing guidelines recommended by the CDC. Denise slept in a cabin with nine other girls and a staff person who supervised them. She was exposed to staff, doctors and therapists who came and went from the facility but were not tested for COVID-19.
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Transgender woman endures transphobic abuse in immigrant prison during pandemic
Karime, a transgender woman being held in immigration detention, is forced to share a packed dorm room with 45 men who sleep in cots less than 3 feet apart. If someone gets sick, medical attention can take up to four days to arrive. She also must share two showers and two bathrooms with the men, some of whom make unwanted sexual advances and threaten to beat her up. She has little faith that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will protect her from the men or the coronavirus, which recently killed two immigrant prison guards in the same state. Along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, we recently filed a federal class action lawsuit that aims to win the release of people like her who are being needlessly detained by ICE.
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How being a passenger almost put a man behind bars for life in Alabama
When Roberto Cruz dozed off in the passenger seat of a car on June 23, 2003, he had no idea that he would end up in Alabama, let alone sentenced to life without parole there. But that’s what happened to Cruz, whose story is an example of how Alabama’s overly harsh habitual offender law has needlessly filled the state’s prisons with people serving life sentences, contributing to an aging prison population that is now at heightened risk of death amid the COVID-19 pandemic. What’s more, a review of Cruz’s case raises the more basic – and perennial – question of whether a fair trial was conducted in an Alabama courtroom.
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News You Should Know

Facebook violence curbs thwarted by groups using code words (Bloomberg)

U.S. citizens with immigrant spouses sue to get coronavirus checks they were denied (NBC News)

ICE in the age of COVID-19 (Rolling Stone)

Revealed: major anti-lockdown group’s links to America’s far right (The Guardian)

Father and son charged in the killing of black Georgia jogger, Ahmaud Arbery, after footage sparked outrage (Washington Post)

Judge signals support for restoring FL voting rights of former felons (Public News Service)