You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Justice for Women: Judge David Lanier Case

Listen
Media Options
Listen

Four years ago, Judge David Lanier was convicted of brutally raping or sexually assaulting five women behind the walls of his brown- bricked and white-pillared West Tennessee courthouse. Dubbed a “sexual predator in a judge’s robe,” Lanier was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

But, unusually, Lanier was tried on a Reconstruction-era federal statute that originally was used to protect the rights of blacks against brutal local government officials. But a federal appeals court threw out the conviction, saying it was never intended to protect women from sexual assaults. Today, as the case goes before the Supreme Court, we discuss some of the unique political and legal issues surrounding this story.

Related Story

StoryNov 24, 2021“Furious and Disgusted”: Teen Survivor Speaks Out After Wealthy White Serial Rapist Gets Probation
The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top