Criminal Justice and the 1967 Detroit 'Riot'

Forty years ago the kindling of segregation, racism, and poverty burst into the flame of urban rioting in Detroit, Los Angeles, Newark, and other U.S. cities. The following essay is excerpted from a report by Professor Emeritus Yale Kamisar filed with the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (the Kerner Commission) regarding the disorders that took place in Detroit July 23-28, 1967. The report provided significant material and was the subject of one article in the series of pieces on the anniversary of the disturbances that appeared las summer in The Michigan Citizen of Detroit. Immediately after the disturbances ended, Kamisar urged the Michigan Law Review to do a comprehensive study of the administration of justice, or lack of it, during the Detroit civil disorders.

When the editors of the Review agreed to undertake the project, Kamisar coordinated his findings with their study. Thus, he refers to students' findings at various places in his report. The Law Review's comprehensive study appears in 66 Michigan Law Review, 1544-1630 (1968). Aftrican Americans were referred to as Negroes at the time of the report and study, and this usage has been retrained in this excerpt.