Paul Butler

On March 13, 2020, three plainclothes Louisville Metro Police Department officers entered Breonna Taylor's apartment. Minutes later, Taylor was dead, shot eight times by the police officers. For the past five months, protesters from around the world have called for justice for Breonna Taylor. Today we present a vision of what that justice might look like. Paul Butler is one of the nation’s most frequently consulted scholars on issues of race and criminal justice. He is a former prosecutor and a frequent guest on TV news programs. He is currently a professor at Georgetown Law and serves as Consulting Editor...

Paul Butler is a Consulting Editor to CRIME STORY. He is also a Professor at Georgetown Law, a frequent contributor to MSNBC and the author of Chokehold: Policing Black Men. You can find his contributions to CRIME STORY here. THUGS! That is the word the President of the United States used to describe a group of mostly black protesters in Minneapolis. The protests began after a Minneapolis Police Department officer killed George Floyd, an unarmed black man, by using his knee to pin Mr. Floyd’s neck down to the ground.  “Very fine people” was Trump’s description of white nationalist and neo-Nazis...

For people of color who want to left alone by the cops, the public health emergency represents the best of times and, potentially, the worst of times.   The silver lining in the coronavirus cloud is that it has altered policing in urban areas.  The rough treatment that many minority group members routinely experience – random stops and frisks, arbitrary arrests, excessive force- is on the wane.  The police are chilling out not because their regular methods are unconstitutional or bad for their relationship with the community, although both of those are true.  Cops are keeping their hands off people...

Jussie Smollett is the target of new charges, but his case is no longer mainly about him. Who is really on trial are progressive prosecutors, like Kim Foxx, the Chicago State’s Attorney, whose office made the decision to drop the original charges brought against Smollett. What is really on trial is whether African Americans – as elected prosecutors and as criminal defendants – are entitled to equal justice under the law.   This week, Smollett was charged with six counts of disorderly conduct, for allegedly lying about being the victim of a hate crime. Smollett is the gay African American actor...

Jussie Smollett is the target of new charges, but his case is no longer mainly about him. Who is really on trial are progressive prosecutors, like Kim Foxx, the Chicago State’s Attorney, whose office made the decision to drop the original charges brought against Smollett. What is really on trial is whether African Americans – as elected prosecutors and as criminal defendants – are entitled to equal justice under the law.   This week Smollett was charged with six counts of disorderly conduct, for allegedly lying about being the victim of a hate crime. Smollett is the gay African American actor...

Black protest – especially against police violence – scares some people. The Attorney General of the United States, for example, does not think the police should be criticized.  Last week William Barr issued a  threat:  if certain communities don’t start showing the police “support and respect” they “might find themselves without the police protection they need.”   In an earlier speech to the Fraternal Order of Police, Barr claimed “the anti-police narrative is fanning disrespect for the law.” This is, of course, a lie. The movement for black lives is about holding the police accountable, to the communities they serve, and to the law. The movement’s platform calls...