Thread by @equalityAlec

Thread: Seven years ago, Christy Dawn Varden became the first person since the rise of mass incarceration to win a federal lawsuit challenging the U.S. money bail system on equal protection and due process grounds. Her story is tragic, but important.

Like so many women separated from their children because they can't pay money bail, Christy was distraught. Like so many people in U.S. jails, when she was crying uncontrollably, Christy was strapped to a restraint chair and repeatedly Tased until she stopped screaming.

With scars all over her body from the prongs of the Taser, Christy filed a federal civil rights lawsuit from her jail cell. She knew it was wrong to be in a cage separated from her kids because she couldn't pay a few hundred dollars. She was accused of shoplifting from Walmart.

Christy's choice to fight the system caging her for her poverty is one of the greatest acts of courage I have witnessed in my legal career.

Christy did not live long enough to see us win her case. She did not live to see how many other cases she inspired. She died because of the unspeakable physical brutality of our jails and the indifference of our society to poverty and decent medical care.

But Christy's mom continued the fight on her behalf until our case ended the use of cash bail for minor misdemeanors in the municipal court in her Alabama town.

What happened to Christy is still happening to about 400,000 human beings every night in the U.S. Only the U.S. and the Philippines allow the for-profit commercial money bail industry. Our team @CivRightsCorps is still fighting this issue in case after case across the country.

You can watch a video about some of our work to end the unjust, profitable cash bail system here:

https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1189527175965413376

I wrote about Christy and why the punishment bureaucracy creates injustices like cash bail in my book Usual Cruelty, as well as why most current "reforms" are actually designed to fail. All royalties go to @essie4justice, which organizes women with incarcerated loved ones.

And the amazing @thenewpress will give thousands of free copies to any teacher or professor, and free copies to any program that sends books to people in prison. DM me if you want to teach the book in high school, college, law school, etc. or if you send books to prisoners.