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The police bullying of Sandra Bland

What is clear from the arrest video is that Officer Encinia wanted to assert his dominance over Ms. Bland, even though it was a routine traffic stop for failing to signal. At every opportunity where he could ratchet up the tense encounter or calm it down, he chose to escalate. Ms. Bland was treated like the enemy, rather than a citizen motorist who had committed only the most minor infraction that caused no harm to anyone.

The problem of “laughing while black”

In August, a group of women who all belong to the same book club were enjoying themselves and laughing as the Napa Valley Wine Train rumbled across California’s wine country. But revelry of a certain amplitude is intolerable on this train, apparently, and so they were asked to quiet down. When they failed to do so, they were marched through numerous cars to waiting police officers who escorted them onto buses heading home. One of them was in her eighties. And all but one of the 11 women were black.

Amanda Knox is finally vindicated

After more than 8 years of tortuous legal proceedings in the Italian courts, Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were finally exonerated on March 27, 2015. Over the course of a conviction by a Perugia court in 2009, an acquittal in 2011 (after a first appeals court trial), and then a second conviction in 2014 (after another appellate trial), the pair had spent four years in prison. On Tuesday, September 8, Italy’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, issued a scathing written opinion explaining its March ruling.

Your legal rights to protest, explained

From police brutality to Wall Street excesses to obscene amounts of money in politics, we have much to protest in modern America. Demonstrations helped get women the right to vote, shamed the country into ending Jim Crow segregation laws, and brought about our withdrawal from the Vietnam War. Peaceful protests are a healthy expression of democracy.

Want to participate? Unsure about your rights and when to assert those rights? Please read on.

The 8 weirdest legal stories of summer 2015

Not a lot of data is available on seasonal upticks in lawsuits and/or illegal behavior (when asked for comment, Josh King, Avvo’s general counsel, would only say “crazy lawsuits know no season”) but based on the below examples from the 2015 summer to date, it appears the hot weather might be getting to some people