Blog
New Toolkit: Complaints Against School Resource Officers
Emancipate NC has teamed up with Legal Aid, Advancement Project, and the Education Justice Initiative to provide a toolkit to support parents and students impacted by SRO misconduct. Please share this resource with anyone whose rights have been violated by School...
The Assembly Covers “The Smell Test”
Photo Credit Cornell Watson for The Assembly The Assembly quoted an Emancipate NC amicus brief written by Elizabeth Simpson this month in an article detailing the current status of appellate litigation about the odor of cannabis. Defense...
Towards Abolishing Family Policing
On April 19, 2024, Dawn served as a panelist on “Nurturing Freedom Dreams through Abolition” at the University of Miami School of Law, and argued for an end to the systemic policing of families. Moderated by Corey B. Best, the panelists were Allison...
More Second Chances, Please!
By April Barber Scales (Justice League Fellow) and Anthony Willis We have been free — out of prison — for two years. If you had asked us five years ago if we would be where we are now, we would have said no. Both of us were convicted as juveniles (15 and 16 years old)...
Reentry Just Got a Little Smoother
REPS (Recidivism Reduction Education Program Services) launched a hotline on Monday, April 29, 2024, which connects callers with a live agent who can, on the spot, assist with Reentry Resources across the state. Initial operation hours will be 9 a.m. until 5 p.m....
Lawyering From the Heart
Profile by Storey Wertheimer Jatoia Potts had just spent eight months behind bars for an abuse and neglect charge she vehemently denied. Even after she was exonerated and all charges were dismissed, she remained unable to see or contact her children in foster care....
Alternative Crisis Response Is Coming to Raleigh!
On April 16, the City of Raleigh presented the results of a community engagement campaign about Alternative Crisis Response. The results are clear! With thousands of responses, in person and online, residents of Raleigh/Wake County overwhelming want an unarmed crisis...
What is True Safety?
Philip Vance Smith II, an incarcerated Emancipate NC client, wrote about prison overcrowding in North Carolina in the Huffington Post, concluding that safety requires massive releases from prison: In 2002, I was convicted of murder and sentenced to life without...
Verses From Within
Come out to the Verses from Within: Artistic Resilience on Death Row from Creativity to Commutation event on April 21, 2024, from 3:30-5:30 PM for a benefit for the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. There will be...
Defending the Constitution in Family Court
On April 11, Emancipate NC Investigator Margaux Lander and attorneys Christine Umeh and Kaushiki Chowdhury presented about parents’ Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights at the ABA Parent Defense Conference. Every day, parents’...
Community Conversations
On April 11, Raleigh PACT, SOS Agency, and Emancipate NC co-sponsored a Community Conversation on Modern Day Lynching. Dr. Kimberly Muktarian shared the connections between the racial terror of lynchings and the modern racial terror of state-sanctioned police...
Sharing Power Moves Us Forward
Emancipate NC Board member Kristie Puckett and Strategic Director Elizabeth Simpson traveled to Yale Law School to the Arthur Liman Conference on public health and incarceration this month. Elizabeth was a Liman Fellow in North Carolina...
Four Twenty
As 4/20 approaches, Emancipate NC reminds you not to plead guilty to possession of marijuana! Make the State prove their case! If you are near Greenville or Charlotte this weekend, come out for our 4/20 events. Team Emancipate will host Don't Plead to Weed...
Hearing on the NC Racial Justice Act
Last month, a North Carolina Superior Court judge heard testimony on a historic trial under the Racial Justice Act about the history and inherent racial discrimination in the State’s administration of the death penalty. The trial will determine the future...
Judge Blocks Transparency
Last week, two UNC Law students, Morgan Schriner and Jack Salt, argued for public release of the body camera footage of a Raleigh Police Department “Quick Knock” warrant execution on the home of the Abbouds, innocent civilians who were victims of...