The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday issued a number of blockbuster rulings that have implications for everything from President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order to the future of LGBTQ books in schools. The justices punted a major Voting Rights Act case until next term, allowing time for further argument in the fall. In the […]
Courts
Posted inCourts, Criminal Justice, Juvenile Justice
Track Meet Turns Tragic: Karmelo Anthony Indicted on Murder Charge
A Collin County, Texas, grand jury indicted Karmelo Anthony on Tuesday for the first-degree murder of Austin Metcalf, according to multiple news reports. What began as a dispute over a seat at a high school track meet on April 2 at a school that neither of the boys — then 17 — attended, ended in […]
Posted inCourts, Maternal Health, Politics & Policy
Hospitals Are Drug Testing Mothers Without Consent, Fueling Family Separations
By junior year of high school, Desseray Wright was already a mother and didn’t expect to become pregnant again so soon. The Bronx, New York, teen was juggling raising a toddler and dreaming about becoming a lawyer. Sometimes, she would hang out with her friends and occasionally smoked weed. Then one day, despite still getting […]
Posted inCourts, Criminal Justice
Diddy Faces Trial Amid Abuse Claims and Years of Industry Silence
The video begins with a barefoot woman walking fast toward the elevator lobby of a Los Angeles hotel. Within seconds, she is yanked violently by a man with a bath towel around his waist, who grabs her by the back of her neck and throws her to the ground before kicking and dragging her. Hip-hop […]
Posted inCourts, Politics & Policy
Biden Appoints 40 Black Women as Federal Judges, Breaking Record
Capital B is a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to reporting on the issues that shape Black life in America. Our commitment to keeping this journalism free and accessible to all relies on your support. If you believe in our mission to inform and uplift Black communities, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. Thank you! President-elect […]
Posted inCourts, Criminal Justice, Incarceration
Brittany Martin, Convicted for Protesting Police Brutality, Is Home at Last
She’s home. Brittany Martin, the South Carolina woman who spent nearly four years in prison after being arrested at a George Floyd protest in June 2020, has been released. Martin, 36, had been separated from her five children and husband for nearly 1,000 days before her release on Wednesday morning. She was transferred from the […]
Posted inCourts, Elections, LGBTQ
Why Judicial Elections Matter
It was a moment in a Detroit courtroom that went viral. A judge ordered that a 15-year-old girl be handcuffed and dressed in a prison uniform. Her offense? She fell asleep in his courtroom during a class trip. The incident was caught on the cameras in state District Court Judge Kenneth J. King’s courtroom, the […]
Posted inCourts, Housing, Policing, Politics & Policy
Black Unhoused Communities Targeted After Supreme Court Ruling
LOS ANGELES – On a dirt pocket between a sidewalk and freeway in the Wilmington neighborhood in South Los Angeles, roughly half a dozen people lived in tents for most of the summer. But by 7 a.m. on Sept. 24, three police SUVs and a bright orange truck lined the street next to the freeway […]
Posted inCourts, Gun Violence, Public Safety
‘Ghost Guns,’ Black Communities, and the Case That Could Alter a Crisis
Two years ago, 16-year-old Angellyh Yambo was leaving her favorite bodega in the Bronx borough of New York City when she was struck and killed by a stray bullet. That bullet came from a 9 mm pistol that lacked a serial number, which most guns have. But this wasn’t a traditional firearm. It was a […]
Posted inCourts, Politics & Policy
How Presidential Elections Can Change the Judicial Landscape
Donald Trump left the White House after having appointed more than 200 judges to the federal bench and three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, securing a Republican supermajority. These lifetime appointments, and the decisions in historic court cases that have followed, have influenced countless legal precedents and policies.. In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court […]