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US Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta in Action

By Rediff News Bureau
August 03, 2022 18:54 IST

IMAGE: US Attorney General Merrick Garland looks on as Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta speaks at the news conference at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC, August 2, 2022. All photographs: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
 

Vanita Gupta shot into prominence when she won the release of 38 wrongly-accused African Americans in Tulia, Texas, while working with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's Legal Defense and Education Fund in 2004. Her legal team found that the defendants had been framed and evidence tampered with by the predominantly white Tulia police.

Not only were all of the defendants pardoned in 2003 by then Texas governor Rick Perry, but Gupta also negotiated a $5 million settlement for the defendants for wrongful incarceration and other false indictments.

In 2004, she was the first winner of the India Abroad Publisher's Special Award for Outstanding Achievement, the newspaper then owned and published by Rediff.com.

In April 2021, the United States Senate confirmed Vanita Gupta as America's associate attorney general, making her the first person of color to occupy the third highest position at the US Department of Justice.

IMAGE: Gupta awaits her turn to tell reporters about the DoJ lawsuit.

 

On Tuesday, August 2, 2022. Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta and Attorney General Merrick Garland addressed a news conference at Department of Justice to announce that the DoJ has filed a lawsuit seeking to block Idaho's new restrictive abortion law.

Photographs curated by Manisha Kotian/Rediff.com
Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com

Rediff News Bureau

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