Cynthia Godsoe Puts U.S. Conspiracy Law under the Microscope

Cynthia Godsoe (’99), Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, contributed a blog essay to the Harvard Law Review calling out conspiracy as a “coercive force” and “potent weapon against communities who … resist the (white, middle-class, capitalist, individualistic) American norm, as well as a powerful means of enforcing both cultural and geographic racialized boundaries” (“Criminalizing Community, Policing Space: Conspiracy, Young Thug & the ‘Stop Cop City’ Protestors,” Aug. 28). Using two current conspiracy cases – those of rapper/community philanthropist Young Thug and the “Stop Cop City” protestors – as examples, Cynthia highlighted the ways conspiracy law is set up to criminalize community and mutual aid and encourage prosecutorial overreach. “Like so many aspects of the modern carceral state, conspiracy’s history is entangled with slavery, including the use of forced cooperation, informants, and even torture to produce evidence.”
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