Paradise, Brandon Archives

“Qualified Immunity and Natural Law” by Brandon Paradise

Aug 17, 2020Canopy ForumEssaysAugust 2020, Criminal Justice, Paradise, Brandon

In defense of his direct-action campaign and breaking of Jim Crow laws, Martin Luther King, Jr. cited Saint Thomas Aquinas’s proposition that “an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law.” In the same way that King and his fellow fighters in the black freedom struggle faced segregation…

“Redemption and Justice in the Guyger Case” by Brandon Paradise

Mar 19, 2020Canopy ForumSeriesCriminal Justice, March 2020, Paradise, Brandon

On September 6, 2018, a 26-year-old black accountant, Botham Jean, was murdered in his own apartment at the hands of a white, off-duty police officer, Amber Guyger. Mistaking Jean’s apartment for her own and believing Jean to be an intruder, Guyger fatally shot Jean in the peace and safety of his own living room. Where…