Steven Donziger

Supreme Court Liberals Help Turn Judges Into Prosecutors

April 16, 2023 Eve Ottenberg, CounterPunch.org. Educate! Judicial Abuse, Legal System, Steven Donziger, Supreme Court

So the truth is out: the three so-called liberals on the supreme court are phonies. More precisely, they, like most of their conservative brethren, are corporate hacks. We learned this a couple of weeks ago, when the high court ruled against Steven Donziger, a climate-activist attorney, long persecuted and then literally prosecuted by Chevron. In a pro-corporate decision about as subtle as a heart attack, seven of the nine justices declined to hear Donziger’s appeal of a criminal contempt decision involving his representation of Indigenous Ecuadorians against Chevron. Two far-right justices dissented.

Supreme Court Orders DOJ To Explain Why It Let Chevron Prosecute Me

October 19, 2022 Steven Donziger, Donziger On Justice. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Joe Biden, Steven Donziger, Supreme Court

The US Supreme Court – whose conservative justices I've criticized as of late – has ordered President Biden's Department of Justice to explain why it allowed an oil company (Chevron) to prosecute and detain me in the first and only private prosecution in US history. This is a good news for our campaign to hold Chevron accountable for its mass industrial poisoning of Ecuador’s Amazon and for the legal effort to enforce the $9.5 billion pollution judgement against the company won by Indigenous peoples whom I helped represent. Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland for almost two years have ignored repeated requests from my lawyers to take back my private prosecution from Chevron and uphold the decision by the federal prosecutor in Manhattan not to pursue Judge Kaplan's unfounded contempt charges against me.

Steven Donziger Walks Free After 993 Days Of ‘Completely Unjust’ Detention

April 27, 2022 Jake Johnson, Common Dreams. Educate! Chevron, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Human Rights, Steven Donziger

Human rights lawyer Steven Donziger walked free Monday after 993 days of detention stemming from his decades-long legal fight with Chevron, which deployed its vast resources in a campaign to destroy Donziger after he won a $9.5 billion settlement against the fossil fuel giant over its pollution of the Amazon rainforest. "It's over. Just left with release papers in hand," Donziger wrote on Twitter. "Completely unjust that I spent even one day in this Kafkaesque situation. Not looking back. Onward." Donziger's case has attracted global attention and outrage, with the United Nations high commissioner on human rights calling his prolonged detention a violation of international law.

100+ Groups Urge Biden To Pardon Steven Donziger

March 15, 2022 Brett Wilkins, Commondreams. Resist! Chevron, Ecuador, Joe Biden, Legal System, Steven Donziger

More than 100 environmental and human rights groups on Tuesday sent a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden urging him to pardon Steven Donziger, the attorney under house arrest for refusing to hand over privileged client information in a high-profile environmental case. In the letter, the groups decry the prosecution of Donziger—who has been jailed in his home and federal prison since 2019—as "retaliation for his work in defense of the rights of Indigenous peoples in Ecuador who were victims of Chevron Corporation's oil dumping." Donziger represented tens of thousands of Ecuadorian farmers and Indigenous people in a class-action lawsuit against Chevron that resulted in a multibillion-dollar judgment—which the fossil fuel giant has never paid—for its subsidiary Texaco's dumping of more than 16 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into rivers and pits in the Amazon rainforest.

Trial Monitors Condemn Judges For Attacks On Donziger

January 26, 2022 IMPETUS, Popular Resistance. Resist! Human Rights, International Law, Legal System, Steven Donziger

This executive summary presents an overview of key findings of a international group of legal scholars and practitioners who conducted impartial monitoring of the case of United States v. Steven Donziger, No. 19-CR-561 (LAP); 11-CIV-691 (LAK). This summary sets a brief background, the principle findings of the monitoring group and the Panel's recommendations. The summary contains no footnotes; references to relevant sections of the fully-footnoted report are provided. The Panel has determined that the conduct of judges and prosecutors in Steven Donziger's case has led to numerous and serious violations of his rights with respect to liberty, arbitrary detention and fair trials under international human rights law, in particular Articles 9 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by the United States in 1992.

Steven Donziger’s First Letter From Prison

November 20, 2021 Steven Donziger, Popular Resistance. Resist! Chevron, Legal System, Prisoner rights, Steven Donziger

I am finally able to write directly from inside the belly of the beast: the federal prison in Danbury, CT. I am now on day 23 of my incarceration, and the experience has been nothing short of mind-blowing. I am living with another person in a 54 sq ft cell; next door is a 37-year-old man, one of the kindest people I have ever met. He was sentenced to a 35-year term for gang violence when he was 19. Three people in my unit of 80 or so men are lifers and have over 30 years in the system. The length of the sentences for various crimes is astounding. We are unique as a country for the extraordinarily punitive nature of our criminal justice system. And it sickens me to see it from the inside. All of us here are simply raw material for a business built largely on money and politics that has virtually nothing to do with rehabilitation (although there are staff here working miracles against all odds to help inmates adjust to the outside).

‘Every Turn In This Case Has Been Another Brick Wall’

November 3, 2021 Janine Jackson, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. Educate! Chevron, Corporatism, Legal System, Steven Donziger

Janine Jackson: I will introduce our guest essentially the same way I did in May 2017: When we talk about environmental justice, the emphasis is usually on the first word. That might be what comes to mind when you think about Chevron, formerly Texaco, dumping some 16 billion gallons of toxic oil waste into the land and water of Indigenous and farmer communities in Ecuador. But when, having poisoned those communities, Chevron refuses to clean it up, and instead embarks on a decades-long effort to intimidate and silence anyone who tries to call attention to the disaster they created and profited from—well, then, it’s clear that it’s a story about justice, as well as years of cross-national organizing and solidarity.

On Contact: The Anonymous Executioners Of The Corporate State

October 10, 2021 Chris Hedges, RT. Resistance Report Chevron, Court abuse, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Steven Donziger

On the show, Chris Hedges discusses the ongoing persecution of human rights lawyer Steven Donziger. Judge Loretta Preska, an adviser to the conservative Federalist Society, to which Chevron is a major donor, sentenced the human rights attorney and Chevron nemesis Stephen Donziger to six months in prison on October 1 for misdemeanor contempt of court after he had spent 787 days under house arrest in New York. Preska’s caustic outbursts – she said at the sentencing, “It seems that only the proverbial two-by-four between the eyes will instill in him any respect for the law” – capped a judicial farce worthy of the antics of the presiding judges at the major show trials of the Great Purges in the Soviet Union or the Nazi judge Roland Freisler, who once shouted at a defendant “You really are a lousy piece of trash!”

The Anonymous Executioners Of The Corporate State

October 7, 2021 Chris Hedges, ScheerPost.com. Educate! Chevron, Corporatism, Legal System, Steven Donziger

Judge Loretta Preska, an adviser to the conservative Federalist Society, to which Chevron is a major donor, sentenced human rights attorney and Chevron nemesis Steven Donziger to six months in prison Friday for misdemeanor contempt of court after he had already spent 787 days under house arrest in New York. Preska’s caustic outbursts — she said at the sentencing, “It seems that only the proverbial two-by-four between the eyes will instill in him any respect for the law” — capped a judicial farce worthy of the antics of Vasiliy Vasilievich, the presiding judge at the major show trials of the Great Purges in the Soviet Union, and the Nazi judge Roland Freisler who once shouted at a defendant, “You really are a lousy piece of trash!”

Six-Month Sentence For Lawyer Who Took On Chevron Denounced

October 4, 2021 Julia Conley, Commondreams. Educate! Chevron, Legal System, Retaliation, Steven Donziger

The sentence, delivered by U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in New York City, represents "an international outrage," tweeted journalist Emma Vigeland following its announcement. Donziger's sentence came a day after the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said it was "appalled" by the U.S. legal system's treatment of the former environmental lawyer and demanded the U.S. government "remedy the situation of Mr. Steven Donziger without delay and bring it in conformity with the relevant international norms" by immediately releasing him. Donziger represented a group of farmers and Indigenous people in the Lago Agrio region of Ecuador in the 1990s in a lawsuit against Texaco—since acquired by Chevron—in which the company was accused of contaminating soil and water with its "deliberate dumping of billions of gallons of cancer-causing waste into the Amazon."

UN Finds Steven Donziger’s House Arrest Violates International Law

October 1, 2021 Dharna Noor, Gizmodo. Educate! Court abuse, Legal System, Steven Donziger, United Nations

The world’s top human rights legal body just offered a crucial show of support for Steven Donziger, the attorney who won a landmark multibillion-dollar case against an oil giant over pollution in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest. The ruling came on the eve of his sentencing in a criminal trial. On Wednesday, the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights ruled that Donziger’s home detention is illegal under international law and called on the U.S. to release him. Donziger will have spent an unprecedented 787 days on house arrest as of Friday in what is one of the most winding and wild court cases that spans multiple countries and involves Chevron and thousands of Indigenous people in the Amazon.

Donziger Slams Criminal Contempt Ruling

July 30, 2021 Jake Johnson, Common Dreams. Educate! Chevron, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Human Rights, Steven Donziger

Human rights lawyer Steven Donziger said Monday that he is a victim of an "obvious travesty of justice" and vowed to appeal after a judge found him guilty on six counts of criminal contempt of court. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska marks the latest development in a case that stems from Donziger's role in securing a historic, multibillion-dollar settlement against Chevron over the oil giant's devastating pollution of the Ecuadorian Amazon.

NYT Ignores Two-Year House Arrest Of Lawyer Who Took On Big Oil

July 5, 2021 James Baratta, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting Educate! Ecuador, Law, New York Times (NYT), Steven Donziger

Steven R. Donziger—the human rights attorney who in 2011 won a $9.5 billion legal victory in Ecuador over the Chevron Corporation for the dumping of roughly 16 billion gallons of toxic waste in the Ecuadorian Amazon—has been under house arrest for 696 days. This unprecedented legal situation is happening in New York City, the hometown of the New York Times—but the paper of record has yet to report on Donziger’s arrest.

On Contact: Corporate Tyranny And Steven Donziger

May 30, 2021 Chris Hedges, RT. Resistance Report Chevron, Corporate Power, Ecuador, Steven Donziger

On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to Steven Donziger, the human rights environmental justice attorney, about the grim reality when we confront the real centers of power. Donziger has been fighting polluting American oil companies for nearly three decades on behalf of indigenous communities and peasant farmers in Ecuador, and has been under house arrest in Manhattan for nearly two years. He went on trial in federal court in New York two weeks ago on contempt of court charges, which could see him jailed for six months, for appealing the demand to hand over his computer, cellphone, and other electronic devices to the court, a violation, he argues, of attorney-client privilege. No attorney without a criminal record in federal court has ever before been detained pretrial for a misdemeanor offense.

The Judicial Persecution Of Steven Donziger

April 12, 2021 Eve Ottenberg, Counterpunch. Educate! Chevron, Court abuse, Legal System, Steven Donziger

For some, call them criminal justice ingenues, it may be hard to believe this is happening in the United States, that our famed judiciary has sunk this low. But in the U.S., a judge acts as prosecutor and jury on behalf of a giant oil company, Chevron, as it destroys the life and career of human rights lawyer Steven Donziger. His crime? Daring to win a judgment against Chevron in an Ecuadorian court. For those less enchanted with the U.S. justice system, this is no surprise. But there it is. This judicial travesty is occurring in New York state. And the Chevron friendly judges – first Lewis A. Kaplan and his hand-picked appointee judge Loretta Preska, and now the U.S. court of appeals for the second circuit in a March opinion – keep ruling for the company, as they cage Donziger with house arrest, 600 days so far and counting.

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