Justice Is Everyone's Business

Seeking to Restore Integrity and
Public Trust in Our Justice System
 

Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.
—Benjamin Franklin

Justice Is Everyone's Business supports the liberties, freedoms, and principles articulated in the U.S. Bill of Rights and the Constitution of the State of Oregon.  We support justice based on truth, reconciliation, and restoration rather than punishment and vindictiveness.

Cases

  1. Jan. 22, 2019: The Siege on Summer Street (Salem, Oregon)

Links and Referrals

  1. The Fully Informed Jury Association
  2. Trevor Walraven, a survivor of Oregon's Measure 11
  3. Music for social change
  4. Oregon Justice Resource Center "For a justice system that works for all of us."
  5. Goldwater Institute: Attorneys, too, should have free speech rights.
  6. Partnership for Safety & Justice: "Oregon's leading voice for public safety and criminal justice reform."
  7. Oregon Voices: "The current legal classification of 'sex offender' creates a one-size-fits-all enforcement system … We must replace the current fear-based approach to sex offenses with an evidence-based system that truly serves the public interest."
  8. Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association: "Strength in numbers. Fairness in Justice."
  9. American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon: "Defending Our Rights to Equality, Liberty, and Justice."
  10. Just Outcomes: "Transforming Justice for Victims and Survivors through Victim Assistance and and Restorative Justice Partnerships."
  11. Restorative Justice Coalition of Oregon: "… A coalition of restorative justice practitioners …"
  12. Center for Dialogue & Resolution: "… making our community a better place to live by helping people mediate conflict and peacefully resolve their differences.
  13. The Appeal: "… we produce original journalism about criminal justice that engages the public and holds officials to account.  We focus on the most significant drivers of mass incarceration, which occur at the state and local level …"  See especially, "Left Behind."
  14. The Marshall Project: "The Marshall Project is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system.  We achieve this through award-winning journalism, partnerships with other news outlets and public forums.  In all of our work we strive to educate and enlarge the audience of people who care about the state of criminal justice."
  15. National Center for Constitutional Rights.
  16. Forensic Justice Project.
  17. National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
  18. The Cato Institute.
  19. Institute for Justice
  20. Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
  21. Chasing the Scream: The Opposite of Addiction is Connection. An examination of the history and impact of drug criminalization.
  22. The House I Live In (Documentary): The true cost of America's war on drugs.

Louis Farrakhan: "There really can be no peace without justice. There can be no justice without truth..."

But US law routinely requires defendants, prosecutors, lawyers, and judges to lie under oath in a process called "plea bargaining." Here is how it works in Oregon:

The defendant is promised a lighter sentence if he/she confesses and pleads guilty, and threatened with a heavier sentence if he/she insists on a trial. To accept that "deal," the defendant must sign and swear to a lengthy statement that he/she is confessing on his/her own volition, and no one has promised or threatened anything. Everyone knows the statement is a lie, but the judge and lawyers all must sign the lying statement under oath along with the accused. More on the process here.

Is it any wonder that our system of justice is held in disrespect?