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In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court delivered a blow to the rights of federal prisoners, particularly those who may be completely innocent.

This week’s ruling in Jones v. Hendrix establishes a significant hurdle for prisoners seeking to challenge their convictions in court.

The case revolved around Marcus DeAngelo Jones, a federal prisoner convicted in 2000 of possessing a firearm after a felony conviction.

However, in a 2019 case called Rehaif v. United States, the Supreme Court declared that individuals could not be convicted under the felon-in-possession statute unless they were aware of their prior felony conviction at the time of possessing the gun.

Jones argued that he mistakenly believed his previous felony conviction had been expunged when he acquired the firearm, rendering his conviction invalid under Rehaif.

He said because he was unaware of his felony status, federal law did not make his possession of the firearm illegal.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court’s ruling, as outlined in Justice Thomas’s opinion, prevents Jones from challenging his conviction altogether.

The outcome is because of a federal law known as Section 2255, which generally bars federal prisoners from making multiple challenges to their convictions or sentences.

Jones had previously succeeded in petitioning a federal court to vacate a portion of his sentence before the Rehaif decision, which Thomas argued extinguished his sole opportunity to challenge his conviction, even though Jones had no way of knowing that his claim of innocence would become potentially valid after Rehaif.

Although Section 2255 does include exceptions that allow for a second challenge under certain circumstances, Thomas narrowly interprets the provision, stating that the usual process is “inadequate or ineffective” to test the legality of a prisoner’s detention.

In her dissenting opinion, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson criticized Thomas’s restrictive construction and even mocks it by claiming that only a fire or mudslide could provide relief.

Thomas’s majority opinion extends the consequences beyond individuals like Jones, who hope to overturn their convictions due to developments like the Rehaif decision.

Many other individuals who are entirely innocent and wrongfully convicted will also be denied the opportunity for second appeals and remain unjustly imprisoned.

Before Section 2255’s enactment in 1948, federal prisoners had to challenge their convictions in the judicial district where they were incarcerated.

However, the system was impractical and burdensome for federal trial courts near prisons, as they often needed easier access to necessary records, evidence, and witnesses.

Section 2255 addressed this issue by requiring prisoners to bring challenges to the court that initially tried and convicted them, ensuring a more equitable distribution of cases among federal district courts, and providing the court most familiar with the prisoner’s case to hear the habeas suits challenging their confinement.

Although Section 2255 ordinarily restricts prisoners from filing a second habeas challenge if they were previously denied relief, it permits a second challenge if the usual process is “inadequate or ineffective” to test the legality of their detention.

However, Thomas characterized previous decisions allowing prisoners to file second challenges as an “end-run” around the limits set by federal law for habeas petitions.

He interpreted the “inadequate or ineffective” provision so narrowly that very few cases would meet its requirements, leaving prisoners fighting unlawful convictions with limited recourse.

In response, Justice Jackson argued in her dissent that Thomas’s reading of Section 2255 is completely unsupported by the text.

Both justices agreed on the historical purpose of Section 2255, which aimed to relieve the burden on district courts near federal prisons.

However, the statute contains no language that aligned with Thomas’s interpretation of the “inadequate or ineffective” provision.

Jackson asserted that Congress reenacted this exception in 1996, using identical language, and intended it to preserve prisoners’ ability to bring postconviction claims, including those based on statutory innocence, that might have been inadvertently barred by the language adopted in the amendment.

Experts said the outcome of the Jones case revealed not only the complexity of federal habeas law and the procedural challenges prisoners face but also a longstanding philosophical divide within the Supreme Court.

Liberal-leaning justices argued that the criminal justice system should primarily focus on determining a defendant’s actual guilt and provide adequate safeguards for challenging wrongful convictions.

On the other hand, conservative justices, including Thomas, emphasized finality in criminal judgments, even if it meant potentially denying the innocence claims of prisoners.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — The 2023 BET Awards celebrated 50 years of hip-hop with tributes to the genre’s earliest voices, late legends, and new talent during a show packed with spectacular performances that consistently felt like a party.

Sunday’s biggest surprise came when Quavo and Offset, the surviving members of Migos, performed “Bad and Boujee” in front of an image of Takeoff, who died in a shooting last December.

“BET, do it for Take,” the duo shouted near the beginning of their set, as their backdrop switched from the image of a space shuttle to one of Takeoff pointing in the air.

Throughout the show, whether it was Tupac, Notorious B.I.G., Biz Markie or Pop Smoke, performers and emcee Kid Capri paid homage to late hip-hop stars, often by quickly highlighting a taste of their best-known hits. In a show where few awards were given, Capri and BET kept the emphasis on the music.

Busta Rhymes took home the night’s biggest honor, the Lifetime Achievement Award, handed to him by Swizz Beatz. The 12-time Grammy Award nominated rapper, producer, and pioneering hip-hop figure is widely regarded as one of the great MCs, with seven Top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hits to his name.

Diddy, Janet Jackson, Chuck D, Missy Elliot, Pharrell Williams, and Mariah Carey recorded a video tribute to Rhymes.

“Alright, Imma wear it on my sleeve. I do wanna cry,” Rhymes started his speech, as his eyes started to water. He talked about his six children, being kicked out from his hip-hop group Leaders of the New School, and learning how to rebuild by going into studios, sharing a cigar with whoever was in the studio, and “quickly whipping up a 16 bar verse. … By default, I pioneered the feature,” he said. “A lot of greatness from out people in our culture is by default. Because it’s just a magic we have.”

An energetic tribute to Rhymes followed — the MC teamed up with Spliff Star for “Ante Up Remix”, “Scenario,” “Look At Me Now”, “I Know What You Want”, before a long list of A-listers jumped in: Scar Lip with “This Is New York”, Coi Leray with “Players,” BIA with “Beach Ball,” among them. Halfway through the performance, Rhymes shifted gears to celebrate dancehall alongside Dexta Daps “Shabba Madda Pot,” Spice, “So Mi Like It,” Skillibeng, “Whap Whap”, and CuttyRanks’ “A Who Seh Me Dun (Wait Deh Man).”

Throughout the show, old school hip-hop heroes and modern stars mixed it up onstage, performing tracks celebrating rap’s most influential cities and innovation. For Miami, Trick Daddy and Trina rocked through “Nann” and Uncle Luke took on “I Wanna Rock (Doo Doo Brown).” For Atlanta, Jeezy ripped through “They Know”, T.I. hit “24’s,” and Master P did “No Limit Soldiers” into “Make ‘Em Say Ugh.” And for hip-hop’s reggae influence, Jamaica’s Doug E. Fresh and Lil ’Vicious did an acapella version of “Freaks,” Mad Lion performed “Take It Easy,” and PATRA nailed “Romantic Call.”

Capri spun some of Tupac’s “Hail Marry” to tease a crash course on West Coast rap: Warren G’s “Regulate,” Yo-Yo’s “You Can’t Play With My Yo-Yo,” Tyga’s “Rack City”, and E-40’s “Tell Me When To Go.”

An ode to trap started with Capri spinning the late Pop Smoke’s “Dior”, before Chief Keef nailed “Faneto” and Ying Yang Twins did “Wait (The Whisper Song.”)

Audience members, danced, sang along (and a few hopped up on stage) while Capri and MC Lyte keep the hostless show moving. It was a mostly hiccup-free show — save for a hitch during Patti LaBelle’s performance and the show running nearly four hours — particularly noteworthy for an event scheduled in the midst of the ongoing Hollywood writers’ strike.

LaBelle honored the Tina Turner with a performance of the late singer’s hit “The Best,” telling the audience at one point she couldn’t see the words. “I’m trying, y’all!” she said before powering into the chorus.

A masked Lil Uzi Vert opened the show at Los Angeles’ Microsoft Theater before it jumped into a quick history lesson. Capri walked the audience through a medley of the earliest days of New York City ’80s rap culture featuring The Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight,” MC LYTE’s “Cha Cha Cha”, D-NICE’s “Call ME D-Nice” and Big Daddy Kane’s “Raw,” into a partial cover of “Just A Friend,” an homage to the late great Biz Markie.

“I would not be in this business on the stage tonight if it wasn’t for one person,” Big Daddy Kane said introducing the song. “Rest in peace.” He invited audience members to sing along to the song’s infectious chorus.

The coveted best new artist award went to Coco Jones, in a category which featured only female performers.

“For all of my black girls, we do have to fight a little harder to get what we deserve,” she said in her acceptance speech. “But don’t stop fighting even when it doesn’t make sense. And you’re not sure how you’re going to get out of those circumstances. Keep pushing because we are deserving of great things.”

It was followed by a supermarket-themed performance of AP’s pick for club song of the summer, Latto’s “Put It On Da Floor Again,” sans featured artist Cardi B but no less catchy. It ended with a text tribute: “RIP Shawty Lo,” a screen read.

Teyana “Spike Tey” Taylor won video director of the year, which was accepted by her mom Nikki Taylor – like a true matriarch, she interrupted the show to videocall her daughter and let her have the moment.

At the end of his acceptance speech, Rhymes urged the hip-hop community to “stop this narrative that we don’t love each other,” urging veteran musicians and newcomers alike to embrace one another.

It was the perfect mirror for the night: New York rapper Ice Spice ran through abridged versions of “Munch (Feelin’ U),” “Princess Diana” and “In Ha Mood”; Glorilla brought “Lick Or Sum” to the BET stage, and Kali powered through her TikTok hit, “Area Codes.”

In the audience, generations of hip-hop heavy-hitters cheered.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Some of the world’s biggest celebrations of LGBTQ+ pride are set to kick off Sunday, with thousands expected to march in New York, San Francisco and other North American cities in parades that will be part party, part protest.

Entertainers and activists, drag performers and transgender advocates are among the grand marshals in parades embracing a unity message this year, as new laws targeting the LGBTQ+ community take effect in several U.S. states.

The parades and marches are among a range of events the roughly 400 Pride organizations across the U.S. are holding this year, with many offering programs focused specifically on the rights of transgender people.

“The platform will be elevated, and we’ll see communities across the country show their unity and solidarity through these events,” said Ron deHarte, co-president for the U.S. Association of Prides.

Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver and Seattle are scheduled to hold their annual pride parades on Sunday. At the parade in Toronto, Canada, more than 100 groups are expected to march. In New York City, seven-time Grammy winner Christina Aguilera will headline a post-march concert in Brooklyn.

New York’s march is held the last Sunday in June to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York City, where a police raid on a gay bar triggered days of protests.

Over the years, the annual observations have spread to other cities and grown to include bisexual, transgender and queer people, as well as other groups.

About a decade ago, when her 13-year-old child first wanted to be called a boy, Roz Gould Keith sought help but could find little to assist her family navigate their child’s transition. They attended a Pride parade in the Detroit area but saw little transgender representation.

This year, she is heartened by the increased visibility of transgender people at marches and celebrations that have been held across the country this month.

“Ten years ago, when my son asked to go to Motor City Pride, there was nothing for the trans community,” said Keith, the founder and executive director of Stand with Trans, a group formed to support and empower young transgender people and their families.

This year, she said, the event was “jam-packed” with representation of transgender people.

One of the grand marshals of New York City’s parade this year is nonbinary activist AC Dumlao, chief of staff for Athlete Ally, a group that advocates on behalf of LGBTQ+ athletes.

“Uplifting the trans community has always been at the core of our events and programming,” said Dan Dimant, a spokesperson for NYC Pride.

Many of this year’s parades served as calls to action for LGBTQ+ communities to unite against dozens, if not hundreds, of legislative bills now under consideration in statehouses across the country.

Lawmakers in 20 states have moved to ban gender-affirming care for children and at least seven more are considering doing the same, adding increased urgency to coalesce around the transgender community, its advocates say.

“We are under threat. Prides are under threat,” Pride event organizers in New York, San Francisco and San Diego said in a statement joined by about 50 other pride organizations nationwide. “The diverse dangers we are facing as an LGBTQ community and Pride organizers, while differing in nature and intensity, share a common trait: they seek to undermine our love, our identity, our freedom, our safety, and our lives.”

Some parades, including the event in Chicago, are planning to beef up security amid the upheaval.

The Anti-Defamation League and GLAAD, a national LGBTQ+ organization, found 101 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents just in the first three weeks of this month, about twice as many as in the full month of June last year.

Sarah Moore, who analyzes extremism for the two civil rights groups, said many of the June incidents coincide with Pride events.

___

AP writers Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.

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CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — When the International African American Museum opens to the public Tuesday in South Carolina, it becomes a new site of homecoming and pilgrimage for descendants of enslaved Africans whose arrival in the Western Hemisphere begins on the docks of the lowcountry coast.

Overlooking the old wharf in Charleston at which nearly half of the enslaved population first entered North America, the 150,000-square-foot (14,000-square-meter) museum houses exhibits and artifacts exploring how African Americans’ labor, perseverance, resistance and cultures shaped the Carolinas, the nation and the world.

It also includes a genealogy research center to help families trace their ancestors’ journey from point of arrival on the land.

The opening happens at a time when the very idea of Black people’s survival through slavery, racial apartheid and economic oppression being quintessential to the American story is being challenged throughout the U.S. Leaders of the museum said its existence is not a rebuttal to current attempts to suppress history, but rather an invitation to dialogue and discovery.

“Show me a courageous space, show me an open space, show me a space that meets me where I am, and then gets me where I asked to go,” said Dr. Tonya Matthews, the museum’s president and CEO.

“I think that’s the superpower of museums,” she said. “The only thing you need to bring to this museum is your curiosity, and we’ll do the rest.”

The $120 million facility features nine galleries that contain nearly a dozen interactive exhibits of more than 150 historical objects and 30 works of art. One of the museum’s exhibits will rotate two to three times each year.

Upon entering the space, eight large video screens play a looped trailer of a diasporic journey that spans centuries, from cultural roots on the African continent and the horrors of the Middle Passage to the regional and international legacies that spawned out of Africans’ dispersal and migration across lands.

The screens are angled as if to beckon visitors towards large windows and a balcony at the rear of the museum, revealing sprawling views of the Charleston harbor.

One unique feature of the museum is its gallery dedicated to the history and culture of the Gullah Geechee people. Their isolation on rice, indigo and cotton plantations on coastal South Carolina, Georgia and North Florida helped them maintain ties to West African cultural traditions and creole language. A multimedia, chapel-sized “praise house” in the gallery highlights the faith expressions of the Gullah Geechee and shows how those expressions are imprinted on Black American gospel music.

On Saturday, the museum grounds buzzed with excitement as its founders, staff, elected officials and other invited guests dedicated the grounds in spectacular fashion.

The program was emceed by award-winning actress and director Phylicia Rashad and included stirring appearances by poet Nikky Finney and the McIntosh County Shouters, who perform songs passed down by enslaved African Americans.

“Truth sets us free — free to understand, free to respect and free to appreciate the full spectrum of our shared history,” said former Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley, Jr. who is widely credited for the idea to bring the museum to the city.

Planning for the International African American Museum dates back to 2000, when Riley called for its creation in a State of the City address. It took many more years, through setbacks in fundraising and changes in museum leadership, before construction started in 2019.

Originally set to open in 2020, the museum was further delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, as well as by issues in the supply chain of materials needed to complete construction.

Gadsden’s Wharf, a 2.3-acre waterfront plot where it’s estimated that up 45% of enslaved Africans brought to the United States in the late 18th and early 19th centuries walked, sets the tone for how the museum is experienced. The wharf was built by Revolutionary War figure Christopher Gadsden.

The land is now part of an intentionally designed ancestral garden. Black granite walls are erected on the spot of a former storage house, a space where hunched enslaved humans perished awaiting their transport to the slave market. The walls are emblazoned with lines of Maya Angelou’s poem, “And Still I Rise.”

The museum’s main structure does not touch the hallowed grounds on which it is located. Instead, it is hoisted above the wharf by 18 cylindrical columns. Beneath the structure is a shallow fountain tribute to the men, women and children whose bodies were inhumanely shackled together in the bellies of ships in the transatlantic slave trade.

To discourage visitors from walking on the raised outlines of the shackled bodies, a walkway was created through the center of the wharf tribute.

“There’s something incredibly significant about reclaiming a space that was once the landing point, the beginning of a horrific American journey for captured Africans,” said Malika Pryor, the museum’s chief learning and education officer.

Walter Hood, founder and creative director of Hood Design Studios based in Oakland, California, designed the landscape of the museum’s grounds. The designs are inspired by tours of lowcountry and its former plantations, he said. The lush grounds, winding paths and seating areas are meant to be an ethnobotanical garden, forcing visitors to see how the botany of enslaved Africans and their descendants helped shape what still exists today across the Carolinas.

The opening of the Charleston museum adds to a growing array of institutions dedicated to teaching an accurate history of the Black experience in America. Many will have heard of, and perhaps visited, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in the nation’s capital, which opened in 2016.

Lesser known Afrocentric museums and exhibits exist in nearly every region of the country. In Montgomery, Alabama, The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration and the corresponding National Memorial for Peace and Justice highlight slavery, Jim Crow and the history of lynching in America.

Pryor, formerly the educational director of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, said these types of museums focus on the underdiscussed, underengaged parts of the American story.

“This is such an incredibly expansive history, there’s room for 25 more museums that would have opportunities to bring a new curatorial lens to this conversation,” she said.

The museum has launched an initiative to develop relationships with school districts, especially in places where laws limit how public school teachers discuss race and racism in the classroom. In recent years, conservative politicians around the country have banned books in more than 5,000 schools in 32 states. Bans or limits on instruction about slavery and systemic racism have been enacted in at least 16 states since 2021.

Pryor said South Carolina’s ban on the teaching of critical race theory in public schools has not put the museum out of reach for local elementary, middle and high schools that hope to make field trips there.

“Even just the calls and the requests for school group visits, for school group tours, they number easily in the hundreds,” she said. “And we haven’t formally opened our doors yet.”

When the doors are open, all are welcome to reckon with a fuller truth of the Black American story, said Matthews, the museum president.

“If you ask me what we want people to feel when they are in the museum, our answer is something akin to everything,” she said.

“It is the epitome of our journey, the execution of our mission, to honor the untold stories of the African American journey at one of our nation’s most sacred sites.”

___ Aaron Morrison is a New York-based member of AP’s Race and Ethnicity team. Follow him on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/aaronlmorrison.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — The BET Awards return Sunday night, with a performance-filled show that promises to celebrate 50 years of hip-hop.

The show, which takes place at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, will feature a tribute to hip-hop’s most significant moments, as curated by Kid Capri. Patti Labelle will also pay tribute to the late Tina Turner.

The show begins at 8 p.m. EDT and will be broadcast on BET, BET HER and numerous Paramount channels including Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon and VH1. It was also livestream on BET.com

Drake leads the nominations, with seven: He’s up for best male hip-hop artist and male R&B/pop artist, as well as a few shared titles, including best collaboration and viewer’s choice with Future and Tems for their song “Wait for U.” Drake is also nominated for album of the year and best group for his collaboration with 21 Savage, “Her Loss,” and viewer’s choice for their hit “Jimmy Cooks.”

Lizzo and 21 Savage are tied for the second-most noms, with five each.

Busta Rhymes will take home the Lifetime Achievement Award — one of the highest honors at the ceremony, given to Sean “Diddy” Combs at last year’s ceremony. The 12-time Grammy Award nominated rapper, producer, and pioneering hip-hop figure is widely regarded as one of the great MCs, with seven Top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hits to his name.

Bia, Coi Leray, Cutty Ranks, Dexta Daps, M.O.P., Rah Digga, ScarLip, Spice, Supercat, and Swizz Beatz are scheduled to pay tribute to Rhymes.

It’s one of several moments that will honor the legacy of hip-hop, which BET has supported for decades through shows like “Rap City” and “106 & Park.”

Other performers at the 2023 BET Awards include Chief Keef, DJ Unk, E-40, Fast Life Yungstaz & Easton (F.L.Y.), Fat Joe, Soulja Boy, The Sugarhill Gang, Tyga, Ying Yang Twins and Yo-Yo.

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