News & Commentary

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.

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.

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I met Mary Graham last Saturday at a meeting of Mothers Standing in the Gap, a group of women in Jacksonville who come together to support one another through their sons’ incarceration. Like mothers everywhere, they do everything they can for their sons, with little concern for themselves.

When the U.N. Human Rights Committee reviews U.S. compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) this October, the review will tackle many of the human rights violations plaguing Florida. Last week the committee released its list of issues, which will form the basis for the U.S. review, and demanded answers to questions regarding U.S. laws and policies in areas such as juvenile solitary confinement, felon disfranchisement, and discriminatory enforcement of criminal law.

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Right now, two sheriff's offices in Florida are participating in a program that has led to racial profiling and created fear in minority communities. This program goes beyond the infamous Arizona anti-immigrant law, not just involving local law enforcement officers in asking about immigration status, but actually deputizing these officers to perform immigration enforcement functions on behalf of the federal government. But like the Arizona law, this program is ripe for abuse.

By Brian Pacheco, GLAAD's Spanish-Language Media Strategist
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Last week, GLAAD’s Director of Spanish-Language Media, Monica Trasandes, Carolina González, Public Information Officer for ACLU of Florida, and I facilitated a webinar about LGBT issues for local South Florida advocates and community members, who took the opportunity to ask important questions. The result? Dozens became more informed about LGBT issues, and were now equipped to share the information they learned with their peers and loved ones. Working with Hispanic and Latino community members around the country is my absolute favorite part of the work that I do. As a Latino, it warms my heart to hear stories of Hispanic/Latino families accepting their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender family members, and it breaks my heart to hear stories of rejection. But more and more I hear about beautiful, emotionally moving stories of families coming around and loving and accepting their LGBT family members for who they are.