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NBC reporter John Evans, left, and bystander, Dan Morril, beaten by police at the Democratic convention, Chicago, 1968 .
Photo by Tony Kelly ©

A  Lot Of Hope and  A Little Despair
Stories from the Drug Policy Reform Conference in New Orleans.

Opener
Sweet Surprise
Final Day


 

Justice Reform Network Editor, Tony Kelly


 

 

 

Welcome.
The Justice Reform Network is dedicated to the proposition that bringing justice to its people is the highest measure of the civilization of a nation or a society.


There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
(Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar)

There is also such a tide in the affairs of nations. America’s founding fathers, carried on the high tide of Europe’s age of enlightenment, wrote the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Aware that tides change, they did their best to use the law to anchor our ship at the high tide mark.
      The bad news is that several decades ago, a low tide in the affairs of this nation left reason behind and began the massive sentencing and imprisonment of African-Americans for non-violent crimes involving drug possession. The policy has been implemented at an exorbitant cost in dollars and a greater cost in human tragedy.
      Further bad news has been the concerted attack on the legal structures the founding fathers put in place to guarantee the rights of citizens.
      The good news is that the low tide mark has passed and a tide of reason is beginning to come in.
      Now is a moment to be seized by persons of reason and good will. With the tide changing the time is right to reform the law, to advance and anchor our ship for the common good.
      It is the a purpose of this website is to demonstrate the unity of vast numbers of Americans who believe:
• That the law must be both rational and fair.
• That there is work to be done to make the American concept of justice a just one, one that can again be a beacon to the world.

Let’s join in this work. The tide is with us.
–Tony Kelly


 

A Lot Of Hope and A Little Despair; Stories From
The 2007 International Drug Policy Reform Conference in New Orleans

Women and men, old and young, suits and blue jeans, from all over the U. S. and around the world gathered in New Orleans’ still beautiful French Quarter last week to kick off The 2007 International Drug Policy Reform Conference...
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Additional Stories from The 2007 International Drug Policy Reform Conference in New Orleans
• New Orleans Conference; Sweet Surprise
New Orleans Conference; Final Day


 

 

 

Magna Carta Nova

     The DNA exonerations have pulled back the robes of justice to reveal a criminal justice system so dysfunctional that its actions are often more immoral and criminal than those attributed to the persons it prosecutes.
      The finality of DNA evidence has forced the government to free innocent persons and in so doing has exposed the entire criminal justice system as corrupt and ineffective....
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INCENTIVE FOR INJUSTICE
How would we describe a society that determined justice by putting parties to a criminal dispute, one of whom might be small and weak the other massive and armed, into a ring to fight to determine who was right–and actually believed that guilt would be determined by who lost?
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GROUP ASKS NEW INVESTIGATION
OF CHICAGO POLICE TORTURE

CHICAGO, April 24, 2007

A report by a team of over one hundred and fifty Chicago lawyers,
researchers, educators, and religious and civic organizations has requested a new investigation of the handling of the Jon Burge police torture scandal.

Speaking on behalf of the coalition at a press conference at Northwestern University’s Bluhm Legal Clinic, Locke Bowman, legal director of the MacArthur Justice Center, called upon Congress, the U.S. Department of Justice, the United Nations, and the Cook County Board to open new investigations of Chicago police torture under former police Lt. Jon Burge.
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