As of today, New Yorkers will be ensured access to a right that all people in the U.S. are entitled to. Which right is that? We all have the “right to counsel,” which in part means that if you are charged with a serious crime but cannot afford an attorney, the government must provide you with a defense attorney free of charge.* The basic
Read moreAs a result of Monday’s Supreme Court decision NOT to take up the issue of same-sex marriage (for now), same-sex marriage is now legal in 30 states, which includes roughly 165 million people, over half the U.S. population. The decision affected 11 states (Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia, Wisconsin, Indiana, Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina), so added to the previous 19 states (and DC) that had
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YOUR RIGHT OF THE DAY: If you are pregnant, you have the right to an abortion up until the time the fetus becomes viable*, and the government may not place significant** restrictions on your ability to do so.1U.S. Constitution, 14th amendment (due process clause); Roe v Wade (1973); Planned Parenthood v Casey (1992) *A fetus is legally considered viable when it
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YOUR RIGHT OF THE DAY: If you are charged with a serious crime, and cannot afford an attorney, the government must provide you with a defense attorney free of charge. 1U.S. Constitution, 6th amendment; Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963); Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U.S. 25 (1972) More specifically, this means low-income people cannot be put in jail without being provided an attorney (usually a “public
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YOUR RIGHT OF THE DAY: After an arrest, if police don’t formally charge you with a crime within a short period of time, they must release you. 1U.S. Constitution, 6th Amendment [Update: Sentence was edited to clarify meaning] You might think there’s no way this kind of thing happens in our society, but in fact officials in the state of Mississippi
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