A South Korean activist holding pictures of U.S. journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling

Jami Floyd
In Session anchor

The families of two American journalists convicted of “hostilities against the Korean nation” and sentenced to hard labor in a North Korean prison camp are speaking out. The families of Euna Lee and Laura Ling say that yesterday’s news from North Korea said that the women had admitted crossing into the country illegally was the first (and only) word they have had about them since last week’s sentencing.

Of course, Americans visiting other countries must follow their laws. If we don’t, we will be subject to their system of justice, no matter how undemocratic it may be. In this case, however, Lee and Ling weren’t in North Korea; they were in China. Even if they did cross the border, they have apologized, publicly, privately and repeatedly.

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Editor’s Note: You can read more Jami Floyd blogs on “In Session.”

Jami Floyd
AC360° contributor and In Session anchor

I just saw Pelham (as in “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3″. It is a remake of one of a 1970s film — one of my favorites during my childhood in New York City. This remake is every bit as good (though entirely different) from the original. The director Tony Scott is a master of action filmmaking and he’s updated this cat-and-mouse game with beautiful color, quick cutting and masterful camera work, not to mention two brilliantly cast marquee stars in Denzel Washington and John Travolta.

Scott’s New York City is beautiful, sleek and clean. If one is to speak honestly, it is more the New York City of our hearts and minds than the city we New Yorkers live in every day. There is only one rat in the entire film and nary a cockroach to be seen. But he captures the spirit of New York and turns it into a visual masterpiece.

At bottom, Pelham is an homage to our city and our beloved subway system; it is a fantastic film.

Yet, I hated it. As a person who rides the subway two, three and sometimes as many as six times a day, I found it entirely stressful and disconcerting. I was at the edge of my seat, but not in a good way. I would not expect everyone — or even every New Yorker — to have this reaction. But I did.

I knew what was coming. The train gets hijacked — or train-jacked. I knew what to expect. But I was unprepared for how very real it was.

The people on that subway car are the same people I see everyday; Denzel, a younger version of my father (the father who took me to see the original Pelham back in 1974); Travolta, every boy I went to St. Joseph’s school with, now middle-aged, still handsome but soft and paunchy.

On the train, there is a little boy, the same age as my little boy, with big brown eyes like my son’s. His mother is powerless to protect him. This was entirely too much for me to enjoy.

To make matters worse, every scene in this Pelham was familiar to me — the platform at Grand Central, Vanderbilt Ave., the 96th Street station, the First Avenue Underpass, Pier 17, South Ferry –all of it. Clearly, Scott not only loves this city but knows it intimately. Any filmmaker is required to cheat, here and there, on his geography; but Scott cheats so infrequently and so masterfully that only a stickler would notice, let alone care.

This is a post 9/11 New York, with a post 9/11 mayor and a post 9/11 sensibility. There were (as there needed to be) allusions to that fact, questions loosely posed about whether the hijackers were “terrorists” and what the word really means.

Of course, this movie could never have been made in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Back then, there was talk that we might never see these kinds of explosive action-packed thrillers again, as if our sensibilities had forever changed.

But they hadn’t. The genre has returned in full force, with this film contributing mightily to it.

We will never forget. But most Americans are ready to move on.

I suppose I am not one of them. I just couldn’t enjoy this movie. And it was surprising. I don’t scare easily. I can confront my fears on the page or on the screen. Good art forces us to do so.

So bring on the space Aliens, dinosaurs born in a test tube or even Jason or Freddy. But terrorism in New York? I am just not there yet.

FBI investigators in front of the bullet-ridden door at the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Jami Floyd
In Session anchor

The shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Museum by a self-described anti-government racist is just the latest example of the rising tide of hate in America. Barack Obama may be the President, but we’d be foolish to we think that racial hatred is a thing of the past. It’s not.

FBI investigators in front of the bullet-ridden door at the Holocaust Memorial Museum

Extremism is undeniable to those who have the courage to look at the facts. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups across America, rising unemployment, anti-immigrant sentiment, and the fact that we have our first African-American president are inspiring a new generation of angry young men — and no small number of women — to extremism and hate.

Today marks the anniversary of the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy Mcveigh; but white supremacism and anti-government hate did not die with him. The militia movement receded from the headlines post 9/11, but it is alive and well.

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Euna Lee, left, and Laura Ling

Jami Floyd
In Session anchor

Two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, have been convicted of “severe crimes” in North Korea. North Korea is not a country known for its fair trials, so we don’t know what these “severe crimes” are; but we do know that the women had previously been charged with “hostile acts” and espionage — which, of course, fuels rising tensions between the U.S. and North Korea and calls for a delicate diplomatic balancing act.

There is the humanitarian issue: trying to get these women out; and there is the political issue: North Korea, its nuclear testing and relationship with the rest of the world.

There are no diplomatic relations between the U.S. and North Korea.

This whole mess with Laura and Euna started when they were filming a documentary on the North Korean border with China.

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If convicted, former state trooper Robert Higbee could spend at least 20 years behind bars.

Jami Floyd
CNN In Session Anchor

Sometimes bad things happen to good people. The death of Jacqueline and Christina Becker was a tragedy. But it was an accident, not a crime.

First there’s police procedure. Robert Higbee did exactly what he was trained to do as a state trooper. He saw someone doing 65 MPH in a 35 MPH zone. To pursue the speeder was his duty, not a choice. Moreover, New Jersey law specifically exempts police officers engaged in the pursuit of suspects from provisions of the vehicle code related to speed.

So that takes us to this particular trooper’s state of mind. Was he reckless?

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Editor’s Note: You can read more Jami Floyd blogs on
“In Session.”

George Tiller

Jami Floyd
AC360° Contributor
In Session Anchor

Dr. George Tiller, one of only a few doctors in the nation who performed abortions late in pregnancy, was shot and killed Sunday — at his church of all places. Whatever you think of abortion, you have to agree that to kill a man at his house of worship on the Sabbath is a cowardly act; and whatever you think of the work he did, Dr. Tiller himself was no coward. He knew this was coming. He’d been shot and nearly killed once before while his clinic had been bombed and he received death threats every day.

The fact that he was killed at church on Sunday adds a cruel irony to a debate that is all about life, death and God. Those who oppose abortion do so because they see it as murder. They are passionate precisely because it is a matter of faith. That’s why the debate can reach a fever pitch.

The bation’s foremost anti-abortion advocacy group, Operation Rescue, was quick to respond to news of the killing. Co-founder Randall Terry said this:

“I stand before you today saying about George Tiller what I said in his life. He was a mass murderer. George Tiller was a mass murderer. He killed tens of thousands of innocent human beings at his own hand…”

Dr. Tiller, however, was not a mass murderer — not under the law. The Supreme Court has said so.
More to the point, this kind of incendiary language does not lead to a healthy debate. It leads to violence.

With the murder of Dr. Tiller, the abortion issue returns to center stage. As we engage in it, please let’s remember, that our words have consequences. The truth is that our differences cannot be resolved by acts of violence.

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Editor’s Note: You can read more Jami Floyd blogs on
“In Session.”

Jami Floyd
AC360° Contributor
In Session Anchor

I clerked for the California Supreme Court so I was uniquely disappointed, but not at all surprised, by the decision of the court this week on gay marriage.

The news got drowned out a bit by the announcement of a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court which is ironic because this whole gay marriage thing could end up there eventually. But for this state supreme court, the whole question boiled down to the will of the people.

Now, in my humble opinion, the California initiative process is a cop-out. It relieves state legislators of the responsibility of making the hard decisions they were sent there to make; and, it leaves the public holding the bag that contains the thorny really tough questions.

That being said, the justices were loath to overturn a decision made by a majority (however slim) of voters.

The gay marriage fight in California is far from over, however. Yes, the court ruled to uphold Proposition 8; but the ruling does not mean the justices agree with the sum, substance or mean spirit of the law. Remember, the same court upheld same sex marriage in May, 2008. The difference from May, 2008 and now? One election cycle.

Prop 8 passed with 52 percent of the vote. But that is hardly the end of the story. Change is still coming, it just comes slowly. Iowa, Maine and Vermont have recently legalized same sex marriage. Massachusetts before that. And already advocates in California are planning to take it back to the voters.

So the court’s ruling on Proposition 8 was a big moment in the evolution of the law in this area; but it by no means ends the debate.

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Jami Floyd
AC360° Contributor and In Session anchor

Judge Sonia Sotomayor with President Barack Obama after announcing her as his Supreme Court nominee

The news is only a day old and, already, I have issues with the coverage.

Issue one: Barack Obama did not pick judge Sotomayor just because she is Puerto Rican or female.

The president picked her, first and foremost, on merit. The woman went to Princeton on scholarships, graduated summa cum laude; she then went on to Yale Law School where she edited the Yale Law Journal. The story of her life journey, including the fact that Sotomayor comes from the projects, only serves to underscore her intellectual prowess, as do her race and gender, since she came up at a time when few women of color went to law school at all. The bottom line: Judge Sotomayor is more qualified than any of the current justices were at the time of their appointments.

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Jami Floyd
AC360° Contributor and In Session anchor

A soldier sits at a grave in Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day

Another Memorial Day has come and gone: Cookouts, baseball games and parades. And that’s okay; but let’s not forget the real purpose of the day: To remember the men and women of our armed services who have died at war.

At Arlington National Cemetery, soldiers, sailors and marines from the U.S. Army Old Guard placed flags at the grave stones there. It took thirteen hundred soldiers three hours to place a flag at each of the more than 300,000 gravestones.

Thousands of visitors paid their respects, not only at Arlington, but at the Long Island National Cemetery, the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, in Honolulu, and of course at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., and all across the country.

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Jami Floyd
In Session Anchor

Laura Ling, far right, with her mother, center, and sister Lisa Ling, left

Roxana Saberi is free. The Iranian government had accused the young reporter of spying but, under international pressure, Iran reduced the eight year prison sentence to two years and suspended it. So she’s coming home and that’s good news.

But there has been no such outcry about Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two other young reporters, behind bars in North Korea. It’s hard to know why some stories take off and others do not. But I do believe that more Americans would care about Laura and Euna if they knew about their plight.

The North Korean government says the women are spies but they are not; they are journalists, and more. Laura is a daughter and a sister. Euna is a mother, with a four-year-old daughter Hannah, who misses her mother terribly.

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Editor’s Note: You can read more Jami Floyd blogs on
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Jami Floyd
AC360° Contributor
In Session Anchor

Last week, I was called for jury duty. No surprise there; but I was surprised at how many friends, family members and even viewers offered suggestions of how i might get out of it. Others offered their sympathies. But no sympathy is necessary because, unlike too many Americans, I actually like jury duty — cherish it, in fact.

I believe in our constitutional system of justice and the jury is at its core. It is an honor and a privilege to serve.

That is why so many Americans fought for the right to do so. African-Americans weren’t permitted to sit on juries until 1867. Women didn’t get the constitutional right to serve until 1975. If you were black or a woman, a jury of your peers really wasn’t.

No one understood this better than Judith Kaye — the first woman to sit as chief judge for the state of New York, and the longest sitting chief ever. Judge Kaye did a whole lot to make jury duty more meaningful — and more pleasant too.

The criminal courts run 24/7 in New York; so imagine my surprise when I got down to the courthouse last week to find the whole process streamlined, with far less waiting around time than in previous years; friendly clerks, downright funny even, who understood that good humor goes a long way in a room full of grumpy New Yorkers.

Most significantly, Judge Kaye did away with automatic exemptions. People groused at first, but the practical effect is wondrous: The pool is much bigger and that means each New Yorker is summoned less often — with six years in between stints, if you serve.

In fact, Judge Kaye called it jury service, not jury duty. She was right. Jury service is one of the few things your country asks of you. And a fair and impartial jury of your peers is what you will ask for, if ever you are seated on the other side of that courtroom.

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Editor’s Note: You can read more Jami Floyd blogs on
“In Session.”

Elizabeth and John Edwards at a campaign event January 1, 2008 in Ames, Iowa.

Jami Floyd
AC360° Contributor
In Session Anchor

The wife of the former senator from North Carolina who ran for president and then got caught cheating on his wife — a woman who is dying of cancer — is in the news. Elizabeth Edwards is the wife. And now she’s written a new book, entitled “Resilience”. She’s everywhere with it: on “Oprah,” the “Today” show, “Good Morning America”. And I’m fine with it. If this woman wants to write a book before she dies, go right ahead.

But not everyone agrees. Other women are criticizing Elizabeth Edwards and her media tour, calling it a “train wreck” and blaming her for blaming the woman who slept with her husband. The other woman, they say, is not to blame — that you can’t really “steal” another woman’s husband. The implication is that she — the other woman — has a right to sleep with whomever she wants; and that Elizabeth Edwards should blame her husband, which of course she should.

But this other woman is not free from blame, not in my view. If his act was despicable, hers was too — maybe more so.

You disrespect women everywhere when you sleep with another woman’s husband. You disrespect the institution of marriage. And if you don’t care about that, you should at least know that you disrespect yourself.

We women should think more of ourselves than to allow a married man to have his way with us and then go back to his wife, which is what most of them do.

Think about that before you jump into bed with a man who has promised to love someone else until death do they part.

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Editor’s Note: You can read more Jami Floyd blogs on
“In Session.”

Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld.

Jami Floyd
AC360° Contributor
In Session Anchor

Last night was a big night for the Innocence Project. The once fledgling organization founded by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld in 1992 has used DNA analysis to secure helf free 237 people. In the process they have systematically identified the causes of, and remedies for wrongful conviction. More than that, they have started a movement across the country, with innocence projects cropping up nationwide.

Last night was a celebration of all they have accomplished, with celebrities like John Grisham and Brook Shields coming out for the cause. Even more meaningful, twelve men and women told their horrific stories of wrongful conviction and bittersweet tales of fighting for, and ultimately winning their freedom.

There were more than 600 people in the room, all supporting the mission. But it’s not enough.

If you do the numbers, there are probably thousands more innocent people in prison; and fighting to win the release of an innocent person is the noblest thing a lawyer can do. If Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld retire tomorrow, they’ve done more good work than most lawyers do in a lifetime. But the heroism of two men is not enough.

For one thing, fighting wrongful conviction costs money. DNA testing costs between $2,000 and $15,000 per case. And that’s just the beginning. We need to spread the truth about wrongful convictions and the fight for exoneration. Most people don’t believe it matters for them. But it does. It could.

You don’t have to be a lawyer to make a difference. Visit the Innocence Project online to find out how you can help free the innocent. Click here to view site.

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Editor’s Note: You can read more Jami Floyd blogs on
“In Session.”

Jami Floyd
AC360° Contributor
In Session Anchor

I like Condoleezza Rice. I met her at the Glamour Awards dinner last fall where she was honored for her work in Africa. It was the Tuesday after the presidential election and she spoke honestly, before a distinctly liberal audience, about what it meant for her, as a child of segregation, to see a black man in the Oval Office. She was graceful, eloquent and yes, even beautiful.

But here’s what she had to say last week, back at her old stomping ground — and mine — Stanford University: “Anything that was legal and was going to make this country safer the President wanted to do. Nothing that was illegal, and nothing that was going to make this country less safe. And I’ll tell you something – unless you were there, in a position of responsibility after September 11th, you can not possibly imagine the dilemmas that you faced in trying to protect Americans.”

With all do respect to the former Secretary of State, she is just wrong on this. No one, not even the President, in a time of war, is above the law. But, while I disagree with Secretary Rice, there is something I find even more troubling in this latest dust up over her remarks: The fact that we were privy to them at all.

The video of her comments hit YouTube, after an informal meeting with students at Roble Hall, a dormitory on campus. When a young man engaged Professor Rice on the issues of torture and presidential powers, she listened respectfully and took up the debate. This is, after all, what teachers and students have done going all the way back to Plato and Socrates.

But now, every conversation a scholar has with students can show up on the internet. What would Socrates have to say about that? I think he’d say that this kind of ambush-video blogging can only hinder the healthy exchange of ideas on campus. And he’d be right.

What will happen to open and honest debate? How will students, like the confident young man who challenged a former Secretary of State, hone their arguments, or perhaps even rethink them?

Simply put, they won’t. The debate won’t happen. The dialogue will stop.

The chilling effect has begun. And we are all the worse for it.

Editor’s Note: You can read more Jami Floyd blogs on
“In Session.”

Jami Floyd
AC360° Contributor
In Session Anchor

By all accounts, President Barack Obama will appoint a woman to the U.S. Supreme Court seat soon to be vacated by Justice David Souter. The short list is made up almost entirely of women: women governors, women judges, women law professors.

In fact, women hold dozens of seats on the nations’ appellate courts, deanships at top law schools, and some of the highest political offices. It is, quite simply, a different landscape than almost 30 years ago when Justice Sandra Day O’Connor became the first woman to serve on the highest court: Two hundred women are federal judges; one hundred sit on state supreme courts; And, one-third of chief justices of those courts are women. Seven governors are women.

But, even if a woman is appointed, let’s not be fooled into thinking that full equality is a reality.

While forty-five percent of law firm associates are women, only 19 percent of partners are women. Just under one-half of the nation’s law students are women, but we leave the profession in numbers far greater than our male counterparts.

The numbers for women of color are more striking: Forty-four percent report being passed over for desirable assignments; nearly half report being subjected to demeaning comments or harassment at their firms.

Change comes, but it comes slowly.

When Justice Thurgood Marshall, the Court’s first African American justice, was appointed in 1967, it did not mean an end to racial discrimination everywhere. Nor will gender inequality evaporate, if Justice Souter is replaced by a woman.

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Jami Floyd
In Session anchor

Mexican police stand guard wearing surgery masks in Mexico City

Conservatives are already starting to blame swine flu cases, here in the US, on Mexican immigrants. Of course, there is no evidence that Mexican immigrants, legal or otherwise, are responsible. But some conservative talking heads don’t care about the facts. The pundit pit is filled with folks who want to use the imminent flu pandemic to pander to the right; but they’d better be careful.

The evidence suggests that this virus started at a factory farm. Oh sure, it’s in Mexico; but it is owned by a U.S. company. There are a million pigs on the farm, at any given time. The conditions are deplorable, with huge lagoons of manure and rotting pig carcasses strewn about and swarms of flies feeding on the mess.

And flies carry influenza.

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Editor’s Note: You can read more Jami Floyd blogs on
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Jami Floyd
AC360° Contributor
In Session Anchor

One hundred days ago, when Barack Obama took office, the country was full of high expectations. Change was afoot in America. Comparisons were made to Kennedy and FDR and, most often, to our greatest president, Lincoln. Even those who had supported his opponent were hopeful that this new young leader would get our country back on track.

One hundred days sure goes by quickly doesn’t it?

Here we are 100 days later and already we’re asking: What has he done for me lately?

Even the president has had to admit that change in Washington comes very slowly: “I can’t just press a button and make the bankers do what it want them to do,” the new President lamented last night at a prime time press conference to mark the occasion, “I can’t just flip a switch and have Congress fall in line.”

Would that he could, but he can’t.

And just think of all he’s had to face since taking office: A major recession; two wars overseas; a justice department delegitimized by its previous occupants; a health care system that has left forty-five million Americans uninsured; not to mention, getting a whole new administration up and running; and now, there’s a flu pandemic.

“The typical President had two or three big problems. We’ve got seven or eight big problems,” the President pointed out.

So, while the one hundred day marker is a useful media tool — it gives us something to talk about — it is unreasonable to expect much change, in a democracy, in so short a period of time.

So, let’s stop counting the days and let the man do the job he was elected to do. As President Obama himself has often said, if we don’t like his performance as President, we can all go to the polls again in four years and elect someone else. Four years. That’s the election cycle. Not 100 days.

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Jami Floyd
In Session

The more things change, the more they stay the same. The Voting Rights Act became law 44 years ago; but it has been repeatedly challenged and repeatedly upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Today, it’s back before the justices with a case focused on the usual suspects: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi, states with a long and ugly history of discrimination at the voting booth. But Section 5, the section of the law specifically at issue, also covers Alaska and parts of California and New York. In fact, there are a total of 16 states that are required to get approval from the Justice Department before they can change any of their statutory voting procedures.

Some of these states are actually asking the justices to uphold the law as a model of civil rights integrity and enforcement.

But, God love ‘em, Georgia and Alabama, states with the most notorious of histories, are fighting the case tooth and nail. They argue that there is no need for a law rooted in the past, a law passed 25 years ago; and they’re pointing to Barack Obama as proof.

But with all due respect to the president, his election is not proof that racial discrimination is a thing of the past, at the polls or anywhere else. In Alabama, for example, voting is still polarized along racial lines; fewer than 11 percent of white voters there supported Obama. Beyond that, there are hundreds of examples — across the country — of elaborate schemes to suppress the black vote, schemes undone by the requirements of the VRA.

All of this will play out once again in the Supreme Court. But this time the arguments will be held before a new, more conservative Court, including a chief who has long expressed his opposition to the VRA.

Let’s hope the majority can help the Court see its way to justice.

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Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins is reviewing DNA cases.

Jami Floyd | Bio
In Session

For more than a decade, innocent people behind bars have been fighting for DNA testing. And at every turn, it seems, prosecutors were there to stop them — denying access to the DNA material, denying the very possibility of a wrongful conviction.

But we know now, hundreds of exonerations later, that mistakes are made; and slowly the tide is changing. Prosecutors, across the country, are beginning to question the strength of their convictions. They should. As the pace of DNA exonerations has increased in recent years, we have been faced with the disturbing truth: Our criminal justice system is broken; and it needs to be fixed.

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