Law

Lawsuit Seeks Disciplinary History Of Eric Garner Killer

February 27, 2015 Barbara Ross and Dareh Gregorian, www.nydailynews.com Resist! Eric Garner, Law, NYPD, police brutality

The Civilian Complaint Review Board should reveal the disciplinary history of the police officer who put Eric Garner in an apparent chokehold, court papers say. The Legal Aid Society has filed suit to force the CCRB to turn over information it might have about Daniel Pantaleo, the officer whose takedown of Garner led to his death on Staten Island last year. “Our city needs to know if the systems of police oversight failed to prevent Garner's death by failing to deter an officer with a history of excessive force,” the Manhattan Supeme Court suit says. The CCRB has denied the Legal Aid Society’s requests for the info, saying it’s prevented from doing so for legal and privacy reasons.

Police Reform Activists Oppose Proposal To Hire 1,000 NYPD Cops

February 27, 2015 Erin Durkin, www.nydailynews.com Resist! Law, New York City (NYC), NYPD

Police reform activists slammed on Thursday a push by the City Council and Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito to add 1,000 new cops to the NYPD. Mark-Viverito has made a headcount hike a top priority and plans to include it in the Council’s budget proposal, though it was left out of Mayor de Blasio’s latest plan. “We don’t think that the largest police force in the country needs another thousand cops,” said Monica Novoa of the Coalition to End Broken Windows, among groups that rallied outside City Hall Thursday. “We don’t need more officers implementing broken windows policing.” She said she was puzzled to see Mark-Viverito, a leading progressive, pushing the $90 million a year plan.

Wisconsin Lawmakers Pass Right-To-Work As Thousands Protest

February 27, 2015 Dave Jamieson, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Labor Rights, Labor Unions, Law, Wisconsin

Spelling more trouble for organized labor in the U.S., Republican legislators in the Wisconsin state Senate approved a right-to-work bill here on Wednesday, sending the measure to a GOP-controlled Assembly where it's also expected to pass. Republican leaders chose to fast-track the bill in what's known as an extraordinary legislative session, allowing for less debate than usual. Debate over the bill drew an estimated 2,000 protesters to the state Capitol on both Tuesday and Wednesday, reminiscent of the passionate labor demonstrations surrounding Act 10 in 2011, though vastly smaller in scope. As with that earlier legislation, which stripped most collective bargaining rights from public-sector employees, vocal opposition from the state's unions wasn't enough to stop the right-to-work bill in its tracks.

Assange Appeals To Sweden’s Supreme Court Over Arrest Warrant

February 26, 2015 David Crouch, www.theguardian.com Resist! Julian Assange, Law, Sweden

Julian Assange is taking his appeal to Sweden’s highest court in a final attempt to persuade a Swedish judge that the arrest warrant against him should be lifted. His lawyers will ask Sweden’s supreme court on Wednesday to agree that the “severe limitations” on Assange’s freedoms since he claimed asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012 to escape extradition to Sweden are unreasonable and disproportionate to the case. In August 2010, the WikiLeaks founder and campaigning journalist was accused by two women of rape and sexual molestation, but he has not been charged because the prosecutor insists she is unable to interview him about the allegations. Prosecutor Marianne Ny has declined invitations by Assange to do so in London, where he has taken refuge in the embassy to avoid a perceived threat of extradition to the US for publishing military secrets. Assange denies all the charges.

103 Year Old Civil Rights Icon, Lessons From The Movement

February 25, 2015 Sasha Bronner, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Civil Rights, History, Law, Racial Justice

Amelia Boynton Robinson was nearly beaten to death in 1965 during the first march in Selma, Alabama, led by Martin Luther King Jr. She was 53 years old at the time. A graphic photo of Boynton Robinson, severely beaten and collapsed, spread around the world and became an iconic image of the civil rights era. Boynton Robinson survived the brutality and chaos of the time and is alive today to talk about it, at 103 years old. One of the nation's oldest civil rights activists, she remains an essential figure of the movement. She was one of the first people to urge King to travel to Selma in the first place, and was also the first woman and first African-American to ever run for Congress in Alabama. “Thank god I learned that color makes no difference,” Boynton Robinson said Friday at a private luncheon at the Soho House in West Hollywood, California. “My parents [were] an example for what they wanted their children to be.”

Chicago Police Detain Americans At Abuse-Laden ‘Black Site’

February 25, 2015 Spencer Ackerman, www.theguardian.com Educate! Chicago, Law, police brutality, Wars and Militarism

Jacob Church learned about Homan Square the hard way. On May 16 2012, he and 11 others were taken there after police infiltrated their protest against the Nato summit. Church says officers cuffed him to a bench for an estimated 17 hours, intermittently interrogating him without reading his Miranda rights to remain silent. It would take another three hours – and an unusual lawyer visit through a wire cage – before he was finally charged with terrorism-related offenses at the nearby 11th district station, where he was made to sign papers, fingerprinted and photographed. In preparation for the Nato protest, Church, who is from Florida, had written a phone number for the National Lawyers Guild on his arm as a precautionary measure. Once taken to Homan Square, Church asked explicitly to call his lawyers, and said he was denied.

Court Dismisses Occupy Wall Street’s Brooklyn Bridge Lawsuit

February 25, 2015 Matt Sledge, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Law, New York City (NYC), Occupy

In a surprising about-face, a federal appeals court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by Occupy Wall Street demonstrators against the New York City Police Department over mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge. Many of the more than 700 marchers arrested said they were essentially tricked onto the iconic span by police in October 2011. Last August, three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit allowed the demonstrators' false-arrest lawsuit to proceed. But they reversed themselves in another ruling Monday. When the hundreds of demonstrators approached the bridge during a march on Oct. 1, 2011, NYPD officers on the scene retreated -- a move that demonstrators say they took as implicit permission to enter the bridge's main deck. The mass arrests, which came in the early days of Occupy Wall Street's monthslong protest against corporate greed, served as an important rallying cry for the movement.

Property Rights Become The Focus Of Pipeline Lawsuit

February 23, 2015 Lauren Berg, www.richmond.com Resist! Dominion, Environment, Law, Pipeline

Following a previous lawsuit just a few weeks ago, a second decision on property rights and how they affect the planned Atlantic Coast Pipeline is in the hands of a federal judge. On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Urbanski heard arguments in Harrisonburg from both sides in a dispute over whether a utility company’s workers have the right to survey someone’s land. Churchville resident William Little II filed a two-part lawsuit against Dominion Resources, arguing that the gas company would be trespassing on his property if it came to do a survey of his land for the proposed pipeline route. He also argued that a Virginia statute related to natural gas companies should be declared unconstitutional.

Texas Prison Riot: 2,800 Inmates Moved From ‘Uninhabitable’ Facility

February 23, 2015 RT, www.rt.com Resist! Immigration, Law, Mass Incarceration, Prison, Privatization, Texas

After 2,000 inmates, mostly immigrants, took over a Texas prison in a riot over poor medical services, federal authorities have decided to relocate all the detainees from the now “uninhabitable” correctional facility. The riot at the Willacy County Correctional Center erupted on Friday afternoon, when prisoners refused to eat breakfast or report for work to protest medical services at the facility. The prison was practically run over by the inmates, who continue to hold down the fort. It still remains unclear what medical service issues had upset the inmates. Only around 800 to 900 inmates have refused to riot in a facility that holds some 2,900 people, most of whom are immigrants with criminal record.

Seneca Lake Sentencing . . . Postponed Again

February 21, 2015 Faith Meckley, www.theithacan.org Resist! Environment, Law, New York (NY), Seneca Lake

On Dec. 3 of last year, a tall 24-year-old Cornell University graduate with wild, curly blond hair was called up to the bench of Judge Raymond Berry in the Town of Reading. Kelsey Erickson was being accused of committing a violation trespass on Nov. 17 at the main gates of Crestwood Midstream, a gas storage company looking to store massive amounts of explosive gas in unstable salt caverns beneath the shores of Seneca Lake. To this accusation, Erickson pleaded guilty. Judge Berry asked zir* to pay a fine of $250, and ze refused. He looked up from the papers sitting on the desk in front of him and stared at zir for a long moment down his nose over his glasses. From my seat in the audience, my posture tensed and my energy bristled. Judge Berry obviously had no idea who Kelsey Erickson was. Kelsey Erickson, who walked 26 miles with a 50+ pound backpack in the midst of a Nebraska summer rather than use the March’s gas-guzzling U-Haul.

The Bad Cop Database

February 20, 2015 Leon Neyfakh, www.slate.com Organize! Accountability, Criminal Justice, Law, police brutality

At a time when police departments around the country are being criticized for a lack of a transparency, the arrival of Legal Aid’s database represents a bold attempt to systematically track officers with a history of civil rights violations and other kinds of misbehavior, and thereby force judges, prosecutors, and juries to take the officers’ past actions into consideration when adjudicating cases. If a defense attorney can successfully call into question the credibility of an arresting officer, she might be able to convince a judge to let a defendant out of jail without bail, or maybe even to dismiss the case entirely. Information about an officer’s past misconduct can also serve as a bargaining chip during plea negotiations with prosecutors.

Colorado Residents Suing To Halt Rec Marijuana Sales

February 20, 2015 Ricardo Baca, www.thecannabist.co Educate! Colorado, Commerce, Law, Marijuana

Two federal lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court in Colorado on Thursday morning against the state’s politicians, public servants and businesses aim to “end the sale of recreational marijuana in this state,” according to attorney David H. Thompson, who represents the plaintiffs in both cases. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper is among the defendants named in the lawsuits, which focus on property owners’ rights under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (aka RICO), a federal statute meant to eliminate “the infiltration of organized crime and racketeering into legitimate organizations operating in interstate commerce,” according to the Justice Department.

Could A Community Bill Of Rights Stop A Pipeline?

February 19, 2015 Jes Burns, www.opb.org Strategize! Community, Environment, Fracking, Law, Oregon

Southern Oregon communities along a proposed natural gas pipeline route are looking for creative ways to stop the project. Douglas and Coos County residents hope a Community Bill of Rights will give them a legal avenue to assert local control. The pipeline for the proposed Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas export terminal in Coos Bay would run through the property of Stacey McLaughlin. She doesn’t want it there. And speaking out before government officials has been less than satisfying. “It feels like a waste of my time,” she said. So McLaughlin is organizing her Douglas County neighbors to enact a community bill of rights. It would give cities and counties the legal grounds to say no to projects that violate local values.

Bad News On Fracking: Ohio Court Says Local Bans Not Allowed

February 19, 2015 Bob Downing, www.ohio.com Educate! Energy, Environment, Fracking, Law, Ohio

By a 4-3 vote, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that local drilling and zoning ordinances in Munroe Falls cannot be enforced because they conflict with the state law regulating oil and natural gas wells. The decision takes local control of drilling away from communities and supports the state as the continued main overseer of drilling. The court ruled that a Munroe Falls’ zoning ordinance and four local laws governing oil and gas drilling are not an appropriate exercise of the city’s home rule powers. Munroe Falls had obtained a court order stopping Beck Energy Corp. from drilling until the company had complied with local laws. Beck Energy, based in Ravenna Township, is “obviously very pleased and very happy with the decision,” company Vice President David Beck said.

Oil Train Derailment Shows Need For Action

February 18, 2015 Center for Biological Diversity, www.biologicaldiversity.org Resist! Environment, Law, Oil Spill, Oil Trains, Social Change

An oil train transporting highly volatile crude oil derailed and caught fire today in Fayette County, W.V., spewing burning oil into the Kanawha River and setting a house ablaze, forcing the evacuation of two nearby communities and threatening municipal drinking water supplies. The accident, which follows a similar derailment and explosion in Timmins, Ontario on Saturday, is the latest in a string of fiery accidents involving oil trains in Canada and the United States in recent years following a 40-fold increase in crude oil transport by rail since 2008 that has been marked by no upgrade in federal safety requirements.

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