Tag: trial

Brittney Griner’s Russia Trial Resonates With Queer Black Women And Nonbinary People
LGBTQ

Brittney Griner’s Russia Trial Resonates With Queer Black Women And Nonbinary People

A Russian judge on Thursday sentenced WNBA star and Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner to nine years in a penal colony for drug possession and smuggling, in addition to a $1 million ruble fine, after being held for months in what the U.S. government has classified as a “wrongful detainment.” Griner’s case, which was first reported in March, has been followed closely by queer Black women and nonbinary activists, who told The 19th that her plight is personal to them. The WNBA star is one of the most famous, and most visible, Black lesbians in the world — and her case highlights the racial disparities that Black women are subjected to. “What she’s experiencing isn’t foreign to us,” said Victoria Kirby York, deputy executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition. The William...
The Release Of WNBA Star Brittney Griner Still Uncertain As Her Trial Begins In A Russian Court
IN OTHER NEWS, POLITICS, SPORTS

The Release Of WNBA Star Brittney Griner Still Uncertain As Her Trial Begins In A Russian Court

Although a Russian court ruled that WNBA star Brittney Griner’s detention may be extended for six more months, her trial on alleged drug charges begins on July 1, 2022, and gives her supporters a glimmer of hope that her release is still possible. Since her arrest on Feb. 17, Griner has been locked up in a Russian prison. She was charged with drug smuggling after Russian officials allegedly found vape cartridges containing oil derived from cannabis in her luggage. She faces up to 10 years in prison. It’s a stark contrast to her life as a millionaire athlete playing in professional basketball leagues in both the United States and, for the past seven years, Russia, where she earns nearly four times as much as her nearly US$282,000 annual WNBA salary. Speculation on the reason for Griner’s...
The Heard v. Depp Trial – An Opportunity To Discuss The Nuances Of Intimate Partner Violence Not Just A Media Spectacle
CELEBRITY NEWS, TOP FOUR

The Heard v. Depp Trial – An Opportunity To Discuss The Nuances Of Intimate Partner Violence Not Just A Media Spectacle

Strip away the celebrity intrigue and media frenzy, and the high-profile court battle between actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard involves issues painfully familiar to many women and men across America. The civil defamation case, which ended on June 1, 2022 with a jury ruling largely in favor of Depp, centered around discussion of intimate partner violence. IPV is experienced by an estimated 6.6 million women and 5.8 million men each year in the U.S. Depp filed the libel lawsuit against Heard after she wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post describing her experience as a “public figure representing domestic violence.” A jury found that Heard had defamed Depp and awarded the American actor in excess of US$10 million in damages. Meanwhile Heard was awarded $2 million in a counterclaim after ...
The Johnny Depp Libel Trial Explained
CELEBRITY MAIN NEWS

The Johnny Depp Libel Trial Explained

On November 2 2020, London’s High Court handed down its hotly anticipated judgment in the high-profile libel case brought by Hollywood actor Johnny Depp over a newspaper article which labelled him a “wife-beater”. In his 585-paragraph ruling the presiding judge, Mr Justice Nicol, dismissed the actor’s claim, holding in essence that the words used in The Sun’s report were legally acceptable. Depp brought a libel action against The Sun’s publisher (and the newspaper’s executive editor Dan Wootton) in respect of an 2018 article which was first published online under the headline: “GONE POTTY: How can JK Rowling be ‘genuinely happy’ casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?” The story asserted that Depp was violent towards his ex-wife Amber Heard during their relations...
CULTURE

As Ghislaine Maxwell’s Sex Trafficking Trial Begins – What To Know

Originally published by The 19th The sex trafficking trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend and alleged accomplice of wealthy investor and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, begins in New York on Monday. Maxwell, 59, faces six charges related to her involvement helping Epstein “recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse victims” for at least a decade, according to the indictment against her. If convicted, she could face more than 40 years in prison. The trial of the well-connected British socialite has gotten a lot of media attention given the circles in which she and Epstein traveled. They were both photographed socializing at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort; Maxwell attended the wedding of former President Bill Clinton’s daughter. Here is what we know about Maxwel...
How Media Freedom Led To Conviction In His Killer’s Trial – The Other George Floyd Story
IN OTHER NEWS

How Media Freedom Led To Conviction In His Killer’s Trial – The Other George Floyd Story

When 17-year-old Darnella Frazier started recording video of Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin murdering George Floyd, she initiated a series of historic events that led to Chauvin’s conviction. But for all the discussion of technology following her actions – how cellphones enable video recording of police abuse and how social media encourages instantaneous mass distribution – the key factor in George Floyd’s name becoming globally famous may not be Frazier’s cellphone. It may not even be social media. It was the culture and tradition of U.S. civil liberties and media freedom that played an essential role in protecting Frazier’s ability to record and retain possession of the video, and the capability of commercial corporations to publish it. Had the same events transpired in China, Sa...
Experts React To Guilty Verdict For Derek Chauvin – Why This Trial Was Different
VIDEO REELS

Experts React To Guilty Verdict For Derek Chauvin – Why This Trial Was Different

Scholars analyze the guilty verdicts handed down to former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the 2020 murder of George Floyd. Outside the courthouse, crowds cheered and church bells sounded – a collective release in a city scarred by police killings. Minnesota’s attorney general, whose office led the prosecution, said he would not call the verdict “justice, however” because “justice implies restoration” – but he would call it “accountability.” Race was not an issue in trial Alexis Karteron, Rutgers University - Newark Derek Chauvin’s criminal trial is over, but the work to ensure that no one endures a tragic death like George Floyd’s is just getting started. It is fair to say that race was on the minds of millions of protesters who took to the streets last year to express their...
Halting the Oxford vaccine trial doesn’t mean it’s not safe – it shows they’re following the right process
HEALTH & WELLNESS

Halting the Oxford vaccine trial doesn’t mean it’s not safe – it shows they’re following the right process

Only days after the federal government announced a A$1.7 billion vaccine deal to roll out COVID-19 vaccines to Australians in 2021, one of the two candidates has halted its phase 3 trials after a participant became ill. The AZD1222 vaccine, considered one of the frontrunners in the global race for a COVID-19 vaccine, was developed by the University of Oxford and has been undergoing testing with British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. Melbourne-based biotechnology company CSL has committed to producing and supplying more than 30 million doses of the vaccine to Australians if it’s found to be safe and effective. But this pause in the trials doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not safe. Rather, it indicates the testing is progressing as it should, with due consideration of safety. Wh...
IN OTHER NEWS

Laquan McDonald: Black teen remembered as white cop goes on trial

Community holds vigil for McDonald as murder trial continues for white officer Jason Van Dyke over 2014 killing. Protesters, including Pastor Ira Acree, second from left, Rev Marshall Hatch, centre, and Eric Russell of Tree of Life Justice League, march towards the Cook County Courthouse in Chicago, Illinois at a vigil for Laquan McDonald [Jason Patinkin/Al Jazeera] Chicago, Illinois - Activists and their supporters marched to the door of Chicago's Cook County Courthouse on Tuesday night to mark what would have been the 21st birthday of Laquan McDonald, the black teen shot dead in 2014 by white police officer Jason Van Dyke, who is now on trial for first-degree murder. Chanting "Slave catchers, KKK, killer cops of today", and singing a mournful rendition of "Happy Birthday", the two doz...
What will the #MeToo movement mean for Cosby’s next trial?
Journalism

What will the #MeToo movement mean for Cosby’s next trial?

Jurors couldn’t agree the first time around whether to accept a woman’s story that “America’s Dad,” Bill Cosby, sexually assaulted her over a decade ago. Now he faces a retrial in less than 90 days in a vastly different cultural climate, one in which powerful men from Hollywood to the U.S. Senate are being toppled by allegations of sexual misconduct. The jury in Cosby’s case was deadlocked on charges he drugged and molested a woman in 2004, and the judge declared a mistrial in June. But that was before the revelations about movie producer Harvey Weinstein and the #MeToo movement burst into the public sphere. The shift is clearly on Cosby’s mind. He quipped to a reporter after shaking her hand Wednesday outside a Philadelphia restaurant: “Please don’t put me on MeToo.” Legal experts say ...