News & Commentary

By Eduardo Gonzalez, former director of the U.S. Marshals Service.

I have worked as a law enforcement professional for 34 years, rising through the ranks from patrolman to deputy director in the Miami-Dade Police Department during a 27-year career. Later, it was my privilege to return to my hometown of Tampa when I was selected to serve as its police chief. Finally, I was given the opportunity to serve at the national level as director of the U.S. Marshals Service for the past five-and-a-half years of my career.

There isn’t anyone I’ve worked with in law enforcement who would disagree that the single most important asset local police have in protecting public safety is the trust and cooperation of the community they are sworn to protect.

On Tuesday, September 17th, we celebrate the 226th birthday of our Constitution. But what precisely should we celebrate?

The founders of this country created a remarkable document. It is the legal and political framework for our democracy. But it was a deeply flawed document.

Because strict legal limits on the power of government are needed in a majoritarian democracy, principles protecting individual liberty were codified in a Bill of Rights, which was not part of the Constitution as it was drafted on September 17, 1787, nor was it part of the Constitution submitted to the 13 states for ratification.

So when we celebrate the Constitution, we celebrate not only those who created the Constitution during the summer of 1787, but also those who had a broader vision of liberty and fought to improve it.

ACLU of Florida’s Field Coordinator Nikki Fisher is attending the 50th Anniversary March on Washington. She will be blogging her experiences for ACLUFL.org

This past weekend, I traveled to Washington DC to commemorate the 50th Anniversary on the March on Washington. Friends and colleagues have been asking me how I would describe the trip. The best explanation: I have been on cloud nine since Saturday. The energy, inspiration, and enthusiasm of the crowd were indescribable. The diversity of messages, of people, of generations, and sex, race, religion and everything else all involved in thefight for justice in the United States was inspiring. Seeing the continued struggle of all Americans coming together on Washington is something I will never forget.

Note: This blog post originally appeared on the National ACLU Blog of Rights. That post can be found here.
By Anna Arceneaux, Staff Attorney, ACLU Capital Punishment Project

(Update: John Ferguson was executed at 6:17 PM E.T. on Monday, August 5th)

Unless the United States Supreme Court intervenes in the next few days, Florida will execute John Ferguson on August 5, despite a well-documented history of his psychosis spanning over 40 years.

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Note: This blog post originally appeared on the National ACLU Blog of Rights. That post can be found here.

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project

Last week down in Florida, 14-year-old Tremaine McMillian was playing in the water with a friend at the beach when a Miami-Dade police officer approached him to ask what he was doing, misinterpreting their play for a fight. Tremaine walked away from the officers, carrying his new puppy in his arms. After observing his allegedly "dehumanizing stares" and clenched fists, the officer used his ATV to chase Tremaine down and throw him to the ground in a chokehold so intense that the teenager wet himself during the incident. It was his mother who caught part of the incident on camera.

On Saturday, more than a thousand Floridians gathered at Jose Marti Park in Little Havana, to march for a fair and inclusive immigration reform with a path to citizenship for the 11 million aspiring citizens.

ACLU of Florida staff, including myself, participated in the march. We expressed our concerns about how our broken immigration system is rife with severe civil rights and civil liberties problems, and that reform is long overdue. There are about 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country and there is currently no effective way for these aspiring citizens to become citizens. As we move forward to fix this broken system, we must do so in a way that honors our country’s promise of equality to all.

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