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In Mississippi, in the 1960s, when segregation was king, racism the status quo, and bigotry the law, it was young people who rose up and challenged the system. In racially segregated and economically depressed Neshoba County, Mississippi, it was the local black youth and northern volunteers who challenged racism and led the fight for freedom and justice. Because of the sacrifices made by many people, most of the obvious signs of racism and bigotry have been eliminated. To achieve the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, many marched, demonstrated, and suffered brutal beatings. And some died. For three Civil rights workers, who died, Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman, people still continue the struggle for justice. The State of Mississippi has never filed criminal murder charges against any of the men involved in the murders. After careful review of the available evidence, including the 2,900 pages of the transcript from the 1967 federal trial, a list of exhibits found in the appendix to the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and two signed confessions, it is evident that an organization known as the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission was complicit in the murders of the three civil rights workers.

The article focuses on the right to counsel, which represents an unfulfilled constitutional right in the U.S. It is noted that the crisis in the nation's misdemeanor courts is summarized by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in the report Minor Crimes, Massive Waste. It is mentioned that little has been done across the country to enforce compliance and enforce the quality of counsel.

This article briefly explores how the U.S. Supreme Court has altered the interpretation of the Constitution and then examines strategies for civil rights litigation in the wake of the Court's new approach to federalism. The Supreme Court's "federalism" decisions threaten the very existence of federal civil rights and the ability of people to enforce these rights. These decisions do not simply alter substantive standards of liability, impose heightened burdens of proof or interpose additional procedural obstacles. Nor are the constitutional interpretations susceptible to legislative solutions. Identifying the means of restoring federal rights and the U.S. Congress's powers is simple. The more complex task is educating Congress and the public about these constitutional transformations, the profound impact they are having on the American form of government and the necessity of acting at once to revive federal guarantees and the authority of Congress. In order to achieve successes in civil rights litigation, to exploit available avenues and to avoid unnecessary opportunities for erosion in the law, strategic thinking is absolutely necessary. Thoughtful consideration of the cases to be brought, the statement and characterization of claims and the context in which they are presented are all necessary.

This article celebrates two crucial anniversaries: the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, and the fortieth anniversary of the adoption of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The two events bookend nearly a decade of unprecedented activity in the modern civil rights era. In many ways, the Brown decision led to the creation and passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The social and legal changes that took place from Reconstruction to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act contextualize both the achievements and the still-unfulfilled promises of the Act. In 1866 the nation's first Civil Rights Act declared all persons entitled to equal protection of state, territorial, and federal laws. Criminal enforcement was the only way to implement these rights. In 1871 civil enforcement remedies were added to the legislation, making it possible to bring suit against a person who violated one's civil rights. But the success of these measures, if any, was stifled in the South, where so-called Black Codes quickly hardened into Jim Crow restrictions, remaining largely unchanged for years until Brown. In 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed long-standing precedent and declared separate but equal public schools unconstitutional. However, in the very next year, the Court held that the implementation of equality could proceed only with deliberate speed.

This article discusses the impact of rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court on American citizens. As federalism has taken center stage in U.S. Supreme Court battles, the justices have emphasized with increasing frequency the familiar justifications for the constitutionally mandated division of power between national and state government. Over the last decade of the 1990's, the Court has steadily reduced the ability of individual citizens to force a state into court to answer for its conduct. This initiative began with the Court's expansive interpretation of the 11th Amendment, which provides that the judicial power of the U.S. shall not be construed to extend to certain specified types of individual lawsuits. In the second axis of expansion, the Court further impinged on congressional power to create private remedies. Acting in the name of federalism, the Court has thus abstracted sovereign immunity into a free-floating constitutional principle. The upshot of this jurisprudence is clear. Private citizens have lost the ability to enforce a wide range of federal rights by collecting damages from an infringing state government or officer.

This article presents information on the book "The Antagonists: Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter and Civil Liberties in Modern America." "The Antagonists" has as its main thrust those Supreme Court decisions concerning the Bill of Rights, and compares at this level the judicial opinions of Black and Frankfurter. The theme of this book, comparing and contrasting the civil liberties judicial decisions and philosophies of Black and Frankfurter, is catchy and is perhaps the main strength of "The Antagonists." The analysis is extensive and thorough. The book has some faults. Its main weakness, from a research point of view, is the lack of footnoting within the text. The reader must turn to the "Source Notes" located at the end of the text to learn any citations, and some don't appear at all.

This section presents selected lower court rulings in the U.S. that evidence an impact on human and civil rights issues. In the case Chicoine v. Chicoine, the South Dakota Supreme Court, citing a mother's open lesbian behavior, remanded a trial court's order allowing the woman restricted visits with her two children. The justices cited several decisions from other states that hold a parent's sexual behavior does have relevance in deciding the scope and nature of visitation rights. In the case U.S. v. Minsky, a federal appeals court in Cincinnati, Ohio, ruled that a talk between a prosecutor and a judge violated the constitutional rights of a defendant whose attorney was not present. The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit directly affects the state of Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee and is likely to be closely scrutinized by other circuits. In the case, Jane Doe v. George D. Small, a Chicago, Illinois, federal appeals court reversed a trial judge's order banning a Christian display from a public park in Ottawa, Illinois. The Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the ban on the display was too severe and unduly penalized the Jaycees, who sponsored the annual display.