ACLU of Kentucky

Troy Davis is set to be executed today at 7pm for the murder of Georgia police officer Mark MacPhail. This is following an action yesterday by the Georgia board of pardons denying his clemency. Now, only the Supreme Court can halt the execution. 

The story of Troy Davis’s struggle for justice has become infamous. Six of nine witnesses recanted their testimonies; several explained that police coerced them to name Davis as the shooter. Moreover, the murder weapon was never recovered and there is no physical evidence linking Davis to the crime.

The pending execution highlights Kentucky’s own cracked criminal justice system. Kentucky’s most recent pending execution was that of Gregory Wilson, who was scheduled to die in September 2010. Similar to Davis, Wilson’s case was mired with problems.

This story appeared in the September 9, 2011 Edition of the Courier-Journal.

ACLU, C-J ask Conway to declare
University Hospital public

By Patrick Howington

The question of whether University Hospital is a public institution — an issue in the controversial plan to merge the University of Louisville’s main teaching hospital with two other health-care systems — has been placed before Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway.

ACLU of Kentucky and The Courier-Journal have asked Conway to review recent refusals by University Medical Center Inc., which does business as University Hospital, to provide documents they sought under the Kentucky Open Records Act.

UMC turned down both requests on grounds that it is a nonprofit corporation rather than a public agency and therefore isn’t subject to the act.

A Kentucky attorney general’s open-records opinion has the force of law, but can be appealed to circuit court.

Conway’s decision likely would not affect the pending merger, since questions other than open records are involved in officials’ ongoing review of the deal’s legality. Conway and state Auditor Crit Luallen are conducting that review for Gov. Steve Beshear, whose approval of the transaction is needed. 

The ACLU of Kentucky would like to express our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Carl Wedekind, who passed away this morning, July 2, 2011 at the age of 85.

A memorial service for Carl Wedekind will take place on Thursday, July 7 at 2:00pm at the First Unitarian Church, 809 South Fourth Street, Louisville, Kentucky.

Carl’s contributions to the ACLU of Kentucky, and indeed to our wider community, were voluminous.  He was a vigilant advocate for abolishing the death penalty and a defender of civil liberties on all fronts.

At the ACLU, he served in numerous leadership roles including Chair, Vice-Chair, Treasurer, Chair of the Finance Committee, and National Board Representative.  In 2010, he received the Thomas L. Hogan Award – our highest honor – to recognize his contributions to the advancement and preservation of civil liberties.

On that occasion, we asked several peers to share with us a few stories about Carl.  Some of those thoughts are included below.

 Rest in Peace Carl, we are eternally grateful to have known you.

 Many of you have known the roles — leader, mentor, advocate, sage — for which Carl so richly deserves this award.  But I had the rare pleasure of practicing law with Carl, years after he left active practice, in what I think was his last case.  It was 1997, the electrocution of Harold McQueen.  Our affiliate filed state and federal court challenges to that method of execution.  Day after day, I got to watch Carl brush off the rust as we planned strategy, produced pleadings and briefs, and researched and debated complex legal points.  And I saw him experience the emotional extremes familiar to litigators, as we won, then lost on appeal, an injunction blocking the execution.  Carl maintained his spirits, and helped lift ours, that weekend in July, as we churned out (what we knew would be futile) briefs to the full appeals court and U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to block the Monday night execution.    We all benefitted from Carl’s calm maturity and eloquent passion as we waited, unable to do other work, for the painful phone calls from those courts late Monday.  Tom Hogan would be proud of Carl; I sure am.

David Friedman

Today is an exciting day for the ACLU and criminal justice advocates around the country. Following much thought and careful deliberation, the United States Sentencing Commission took another step toward creating fairness in federal sentencing by retroactively applying the new Fair Sentencing Act (FSA) guidelines to individuals sentenced before the law was enacted. This decision will help ensure that over 12,000 people — 85 percent of whom are African-Americans — will have the opportunity to have their sentences for crack cocaine offenses reviewed by a federal judge and possibly reduced.

Read the Full Huffington Post blog here .