Edward C. Lawson

Edward C. Lawson is an African American civil rights activist, who was the plaintiff in the case of "Kolender v. Lawson" (461 U.S. 352, 1983) in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that a statute authorizing a police officer to arrest a citizen merely for refusing to present identification was unconstitutionally vague.

Civil rights case

In 1975, Lawson, on his own, which is known as pro se, took a civil rights case through the California state courts, and into Federal Court and after a period of eight years in 1983 the U.S. Supreme Court decided in his favor and overturned the California I.D. law and thereby invalidating all similar identification laws for the entire United States of America. Over a period of 18 months, Lawson had been stopped as a pedestrian, or as a diner in a cafe, and asked for I.D. more than 15 times by police. He was detained for minutes, or hours, and sometimes he was arrested and taken to jail and then to court. He brought a legal action against the San Diego police chief, and eventually the police appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court where Lawson won, and the California I.D. law was overturned upholding the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in "Lawson v. Kolender," 658 F.2d 1362 (9th Cir. 1981). This case is of historical importance not only because it represented the end of "stop and ID laws" for the entire United States, but additionally it is one of the unique examples of an ordinary citizen successfully representing himself all the way through the U.S. Supreme Court. Lawson received political support at the time from prominent Black leaders including Jesse Jackson, activist/comedian Dick Gregory, U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters D-Los Angeles, U.S. Congressman John Conyers D-Detroit, and others.

In 1983, Carl Stern, the CBS Evening News U.S. Supreme Court reporter commented that this case was the most reported U.S. Supreme Court case that year. Stern was referring to front page newspaper articles in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Miami Herald, The Los Angeles Times as well as articles in Newsweek Magazine, Time Magazine, Fortune Magazine, The Village Voice and other news publications. And additionally Lawson made repeated appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Phil Donahue Show, Larry King Live, Crossfire (TV series), The Ricki Lake Show, The Today Show, and Good Morning America.

Lawson's Supreme Court brief was accompanied by amici curiae briefs from the ACLU, the National Lawyers Guild, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and others.

Harvard University law professor Lawrence Tribe commented during an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show television program that this case was the last time that the U.S. Supreme Court had decided favorably to a defendant in a civil rights case of this magnitude.

1921 Tulsa race riot

By way of his grandmother, Lundy Bohanan, Edward C. Lawson is a direct descendant of a survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot and massacre in Oklahoma.

External links

* [http://edwardlawson.com/ Edward C. Lawson -- official website]

* [http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=461&invol=352 "Kolender v. Lawson," 461 U.S. 352 (1983)]

* [http://www.cnn.com/US/9908/03/tulsa.riots.probe/ 1921 Tulsa Race Riot -- CNN]

* [http://www.library.okstate.edu/hss/chaney/tulsa-race-riots.htm 1921 Tulsa Race Riot -- OSU Library]