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The 21st Century-Making the Connection! MARCH 1999 MBC Wolverine OBSERVER 3
Charles
H. Houston:
A Tribute
By Tonya McAlpine
MBC LEGAL STUDIES MAJOR
Charles Hamilton Houston
is someone to whom we owe a
great tribute. He was a
unique black pioneer who
fought hard for African-
Americans to enjoy the same
constitutional rights as
whites.
Born in the late 1890’s,
during the period in which
the Supreme Court in “Plessy
v. Ferguson” established the
“separate but equal” doctrine.
Houston chose not to become
a victim of segregation, but
committed his life to tearing
down laws that justified it.
Though born into a deeply
segregated America, Houston
was blessed with talent, vi
sion and determination. He
was encouraged and inspired
by his parents who saw to it
that he attended the best
schools available. He excelled
at the prestigious Amherst
College and Harvard Law
School, always graduating at
the top of his class. After a
tour of duty in America’s seg
regated Army, Houston be-
Charles H. Houston
Death Penalty
required courts to hold a dis
parity hearing to determine if
race was a factor before a
death penalty could be im
posed. Bright observes that
today, “African-Americans
and other minorities continue
to be excluded as judges, ju
rors, prosecutors, lawyers and
law enforcement officials in
the criminal justice system.
Although African-
Americans make up only 12%
of the population, they make
up nearly 80% of the U.S. jail
and prison inmates. With the
growing black prison popula
tion—as a result of manda
tory “three strikes” sentenc
ing programs—convicted fel
ons also lose their right to
vote. This in turn makes
them ineligible to serve on ju
ries, as most jurors are chosen
from fists of registered voters.
(See Marc Mauer’s article on
“disenfranchisement”). The
American death penalty sys
tem is the “least affected by
the Civil Rights Movement
that brought changes to many
other institutions in the last
40 years. The U.S. Supreme
Court’s decision in McClesky
“upheld racial disparities in
death penalty cases that
would not be allowed in any
other area of American fife
such as housing, employment
and education.”
As politicians continue to
rally around “get tough on
crime” programs, as the
American job market contin
ues to be reduced by down
sizing, as skilled workers are
replaced by electronic tech
nology, and as America builds
more and more prisons and
jails, what fate will befall Af
rican-Americans as a dispro
portionate number of them
are sentenced to death?
Juanita B. Hodges is a
MBC senior from Florida.
came convinced that the task
of securing constitutional
rights for black Americans
and “fighting for men who
could not strike back” should
not be left up to white law
yers. He took on the major
task of developing Howard
University Law School as a
laboratory for black lawyers
trained in civil rights litiga
tion. One of the students he
recruited and trained there
was Thurgood Marshall.
Marshall later followed Hous
ton as General Counsel of the
NAACP and after Houston’s
death he successfully argued
the landmark Brown v. Board
of Education before the U.S.
Supreme Court in 1954. This
case overturned the “separate
but equal” doctrine of “Plessy”
which had been the law of the
land for 50 years. Marshall
went on to become the first
African-American justice of
the U. S. Supreme Court.
According to the late Judge
A. Leon Higginbotham, one of
Houston’s protegees, and for
mer Chief Judge of the
United States Court of Ap
peals for the Third Circuit,
“without “Brown” there would
have been no civil rights
movement, no civil rights act,
and no voting rights act.
Without Houston, there
would have been no “Brown.”
Tonya McAlpine is a senior
at MBC from St. Louis.
She is the External Vice
President ofMBC’s SGA,
Chair ofMBC’s Student
Senate, and Captain of the
Legal Studies Department
Mock Trial Team.
BLACK
HISTORY
CONTINUED
Fate of
Crack Mothers
and Babies
By Terri L. McCoy
MBC LEGAL STUDIES MAJOR
According to Dorothy Rob
erts’ article “Punishing Drug
Addicts Who Have Babies:
Women of Color, Equality and
the Right of Privacy,” in the
May 1991 issue of the
“Harvard Law Review,” said
“women increasingly face
criminal charges for giving
birth to infants who test posi
tive for drugs. Most of the
women prosecuted are poor,
black and addicted to crack
cocaine.” Is this matter a
family issue? A public policy
issue? Or a criminal offense?
Should crack addicted preg
nant women’s parental rights
be terminated, or should re
habilitation services be pro
vided? And who is deciding
the fate of African-American
children and their mothers
who are eight times more
likely than white women to go
to prison for their conditions,
even though a greater per
centage of white women are
arrested for the same reasons
but not incarcerated?
Studies have shown that Af
rican-American women in
particular, are, when com
pared with white women
“over-arrested, over-indicted,
under-defended and over
sentenced.” When crack ad
dicted pregnant women are
arrested there are no voca
tional or rehabilitative serv
ices in jails and prisons to
help mothers do better when
they are released. Each state
has jurisdiction over matters
related to family and criminal
law, and the issue of how to
handle crack addicted preg
nant women who pass crack
on to unborn children through
their umbilical cord has been
addressed in the courts of
Florida, Texas and South
Carolina. The criminalization
of substance abuse, and the
advent of mandatory sen
tences for non-violent drug
related offenses is one of the
reasons for an escalating
growth in the African-
American female prison
population. During the past
ten years, the number of
women incarcerated in
America has increased 300%;
80 percent of these women
are mothers of two or three
minor children, and sole cus
todian of their children at the
time of arrest. The over
whelming majority of these
women are African-American
who were unemployed or un
deremployed at the time of
arrest. Offenses that used to
get probation are now draw
ing prison time, and sen
tences are harsher.
Many mothers do not know
what their rights are regard
ing the custody of their chil
dren while they are incarcer
ated. Courts may conclude
that a mother’s lack of contact
with her minor children while
she is incarcerated be inter
preted as abandonment. If
considered abandoned, chil
dren of crack addicted moth
ers are placed in foster care or
put up for adoption and a
natural mother’s parental
rights are forever terminated.
In “Santosky v. Kramer, the
United States Supreme Court
discusses the serious conse
quences of termination of pa
rental rights. “Termination
denies the natural parents
physical custody as well as
the rights ever to visit, com
municate with, or regain cus
tody of the child.”
The courts of Florida (see
Jennifer Clarice Johnson v.
State of Florida, and the
courts of South Carolina,
Cornelia Whitner v. State of
South Carolina) have ad
dressed these issues. This
critical issue has also been
examined by courts in at least
30 states. Except for South
Carolina, courts have ruled
consistently that criminal
prosecutions of predominately
black, crack addicted, preg
nant women was unconstitu
tional as a violation of the
equal protection clause of the
Constitution. The unconstitu-
tionafity argument was suc
cessful because it has been
determined.that pregnant
white women who are drug
and alcohol users, or who are
addicted to medically pre
scribed recreational or pre
scription drugs are not simi
larly criminalized.
Since 1989, law enforce
ment officials in South Caro
lina have targeted a particu
lar class of pregnant women
at public hospitals who test
positive for illegal drug use,
mostly crack cocaine. Afri
can-American women who
went to public hospitals for
prenatal care or to deliver ba
bies have been arrested for
passing drugs to their babies
through the umbilical cord.
Some have been taken away
in chains and shackles, while
still bleeding from delivery.
As a consequence, women
who must rely on public
health care while pregnant
are shying away from seeking
prenatal care for fear of ar
rest.
The Supreme Court in
“Santosky” goes to say that
“the fundamental liberty in
terest of natural parents in
the care, custody and man
agement of their child does
not evaporate simply because
they have not been model
parents, or have lost tempo
rary custody of their child to
the state...even when blood
relationships are strained,
parents retain a vital interest
in preventing the irretriev
able destruction of their fam
ily fife.” We are left to won
der whether the situation of
crack addicted pregnant
women who give birth to
crack addicted children will
be treated as a public health
problem or as a problem for
the police.
Terri L. McCoy is a senior
from Augusta, GA.
fWtiW/V'f testw
■
the Model United Nations Team
competing in Cambridge, England.