Blog – Page 19

March 2, 2017 by Admin

Chicago LO Program Featured on CDLB

Thanks to the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin for profiling our NLG Chicago Legal Observer Program in this article! “The [green] hat marked [Sharlyn Grace] as a legal observer for the National Lawyers Guild, an association for progressive attorneys and jurists [and law students and legal workers]. Legal observers monitor and record police activity during protests and demonstrations to see if protesters’ First Amendment rights are being respected.

‘[M]ass mobilizations of people are part of progressive social change, that people having the ability to be safely in the streets, the ability to gather in dissent, is crucial for the sort of social change we want to see. It’s not going to be made by law and policy changes taking place in downtown by policy experts and attorneys,’ said Grace….”

Chicago MDC and LO Programs Support J20 Protests

Our Mass Defense Committee and NLG Chicago Legal Observer Program volunteers were out in force January 20 and 21, 2017 to support people in the streets protesting Trump’s agenda. For future protests and rallies, read and share these tips by Charlene Carruthers of BYP 100 generated by Law for Black Lives, and write down the legal support contacts in your city.

In Chicago, if you have information about someone arrested, remember to please call our hotline at 312-913-0039 and press “0” when the voicemail answers.

We tracked a total of 15 arrested the night of January 20. Eleven people were released that night. Several were in police custody at CPD 18th Dist. (Larrabee & Division), and at least one at CPD 1st Dist. (18th & State).

Of the 3 people who were in custody, 1 had bond court January 21 at 1:30pm at 26th & California and were represented by NLG volunteer attorneys. They were given a $1,600 bond, the other arrestee was released without monetary bond. One other arrestee was held in CPD custody under investigation, but was released w/o monetary bond. Everyone whose name we had was accounted for.

Many thanks to the Chicago Community Bond Fund who posted the $1,600 bond of the final Chicago J20 protestor.

For news on the J20 protests in Washington D.C., check out:

Lawsuit Challenges DC Police Dept’s Unlawful Use of Chemical & “Less Lethal” Weapons, Felony Riot Charges on J20

March 2, 2017 by Admin

NLG Responds to the Commutation of the Sentences of Oscar López Rivera and Chelsea Manning

(Above, L-R: Oscar López Rivera with atty. Jan Susler; Portrait of Chelsea Manning by Alicia Neal.)

The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) is thrilled to learn of the commutations of the sentences of Puerto Rican political prisoner Oscar López Rivera and Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning, a victory due largely to the unwavering efforts of determined activists, organizers and family members. The NLG has long advocated for their release, as well as political prisoners Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Veronza Bowers, Dr. Mutulu Shakur, and others targeted and incarcerated for their political activity. While we were disappointed in the latter’s absence from President Obama’s commutation list, the NLG calls on him to exercise his power to pardon all political prisoners during these final days in office.

“While Chelsea’s freedom is long-overdue, we are gratified that she has been afforded some measure of delayed justice. There is no doubt that the tremendous outpouring of public support and organizing for commuting the sentence contributed to this outcome. Still, we remain critical of a government that seems more intent on prosecuting those who expose war crimes than those who commit them,” said Kathleen Gilberd, Executive Director of the Military Law Task Force of the NLG.

“The release of Oscar López Rivera after 35 years of unjust imprisonment represents a tremendous achievement for the people of Puerto Rico and those across the world who supported the campaign to release this freedom fighter. As the longest held Puerto Rican political prisoner, Oscar will now be able to join his family and community in his beloved homeland,” said López Rivera’s attorney and Guild member Jan Susler.

“The NLG has long supported Oscar’s release, as well as those of all Puerto Rican political prisoners and those who have been persecuted, tortured and killed for believing in, and fighting for, the independence of Puerto Rico. Today, there is an indescribable joy knowing that Oscar will soon be home, and that his freedom was secured by the persistence of the Puerto Rican nation who refused to let this injustice continue,” added NLG President Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan.

March 2, 2017 by Admin

Federal Suit Challenges Chicago Police Use of “Stingray” Spying Devices

Attorneys for long-time National Lawyers Guild legal observer Jerry Boyle filed suit in federal court today to challenge the sweeping use of “Stingray” cell phone spying devices by Chicago Police.

The suit, which aims to be certified as a class action, alleges that the stingray devices are frequently used without warrants or any official guidance, indiscriminately sweeping up cell phone data from innocent people, including attendees at political rallies, demonstrations and other 1st Amendment-protected activities.

Stingrays have the power to obtain identifying information about cell phones, access the content of phone calls and texts made on the phone, reveal website browsing histories, and track a phone’s cumulative movements.

According to the suit, “CPD owns and operates an arsenal of cell site simulators with these intrusive capabilities,” spending over a half million dollars between 2005 and 2010 to obtain them. The devices typically can access cell phones located more than a mile away from them, and capture data from up to 60,000 phones simultaneously.

The suit alleges that the Chicago Police Department’s use of cell site simulators “is secretive and widespread…and [CPD] has long refused to disclose information about its use of cell site simulators to the public and fought attempts to obtain such records in the courts, choosing to conceal its use of the technology.”

“The City does not even maintain any policies or procedures on what its officers may do with the personal information seized from thousands of individual cell phones without a warrant. The City has also, as a matter of practice, refused to train its officers about constitutional issues associated with officers’ use of cell site simulators. In addition, the City has maintained a widespread practice of permitting its police officers to deploy cell site simulators without a warrant specific to each phone that is searched in the process, and has frequently failed to obtain warrants even for the phone of the target in question.”

The suit cites as an example of the illegal surveillance a January 15, 2015 “Reclaim Martin Luther King, Jr. Day” demonstration organized by Black Lives Matter protesters at which Boyle’s and hundreds of others’ cell phones were illegally surveilled.

“The people of Chicago should be able to exercise their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, association, and assembly without being spied upon by police,” said Boyle. “Government spying on its citizens without appropriate judicial oversight is inconsistent with the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.”

“The Chicago Police Department can’t give its officers weapons that have the power to search and seize our most personal information without any instructions about how to use them,” said Craig Futterman, a Clinical Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School and one of the lawyers representing Mr. Boyle. “That’s like giving officers guns and telling them to go get the bad guys, without even teaching them how to shoot. We’ve recently seen how this lack of surveillance oversight has played out at the NSA, where employees abused surveillance tools to spy on their spouses.”

“Any surveillance of political groups is particularly troubling,” said Matt Topic of Loevy & Loevy Attorneys at Law, another of Boyle’s attorneys, “but there is no dispute that even when CPD has a valid basis to track a legitimate suspect, the technology results in a search of every other phone in the area to find the suspect. This is a violation of the Fourth Amendment rights of hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent bystanders every time it is used.”

Defendants named in the suit include former Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy and current Superintendent Eddie Johnson.

Besides Futterman and Topic, Mr. Boyle is also represented by Mike Kanovitz, Ruth Brown and Josh Burday of Loevy & Loevy Attorneys at Law.

Loevy & Loevy is one of the nation’s largest civil rights law firms, and over the past decade has won more multi-million dollar jury verdicts than any other civil rights law firm in the entire country. Last November, Loevy & Loevy successfully obtained the release of the dashcam video of Laquan McDonald’s shooting death at the hands of Chicago police.

The University of Chicago Law School’s Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project is one of the nation’s leading civil rights clinics focusing on issues of criminal justice. The mission of the Law School’s clinical programs is to teach students effective advocacy skills, professional ethics, and the effect of legal institutions on the poor; to examine and apply legal theory while serving as advocates for people typically denied access to justice; and to reform legal education and the legal system to be more responsive to the interests of the poor.

For further reading see:

Cell Phone Surveillance at Peaceful Protest Draws Lawsuit Against Chicago Police

March 2, 2017 by Admin

Chi NLG Supports American Indian Center in saying NoDAPL

Earlier this month, two NLG Chicago Legal Observer Program volunteers were proud to support leaders from the American Indian Center – Chicago and others in saying #noDAPL in Illinois! The pipeline is not yet complete in Illinois. Here is an article about the two arrests that occurred at that protest in Southern Illinois.

You can read more about it, here.

Photo by Adam Blaszkiewicz Photography.

March 2, 2017 by Admin

WPLC Calls for Morton County Prosecutor Resignation and Permission for Out-of-State Lawyers to Represent Water Protectors

December 16, 2016

Contact: Brandy Toelupe, WPLC President: (720) 876-8300 | Btoelupe@tildentoelupe.com
Tasha Moro, NLG Communications Director (212) 679-5100, ext. 15 | communications@nlg.org

MANDAN, ND—Yesterday, the North Dakota Supreme Court issued an order calling for public comments on a petition filed by the Water Protector Legal Collective (WPLC), an initiative of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG). The deadline for comments is set for 4 PM on Friday, December 30.

The WPLC also called for the resignation of Acting Morton County State’s Attorney Ladd Erickson after he filed a motion to hold indigent Water Protectors liable to repay the state for their court appointed lawyers, while belittling and calling the Water Protectors “props” and their movement a “protracted manufactured spectacular.”

On December 14, citing the existing emergency in the South-Central Judicial District, WPLC requested a temporary amendment to state rules that would ease requirements for temporary admission to practice law in the state. Under current rules, out-of-state lawyers must either apply on a case-by-case basis or make a full application from a state whose law license North Dakota recognizes.

“Denying Water Protectors their constitutional rights to counsel is a far more serious barrier to justice than concrete slabs across a highway,” said William Tilton, WPLC lawyer. “We filed to call on the Supreme Court to recognize this judicial emergency and open the courts to qualified criminal lawyers who are standing by to help.”

In August, Gov. Jack Dalrymple declared a state of emergency following the arrests of just 28 Water Protectors. Since then, there have been more than 500 additional arrests. To date, 75 North Dakota lawyers have been assigned 165 cases, but an additional 264 Water Protectors remain without lawyers. At least 113 were denied public defenders.

The petition also states that despite the overwhelming surge in arrests, no emergency funding has been set aside for the public defense system, which struggled to meet demand prior to the protests. Further, there are too few criminal defense lawyers to even represent those who do not qualify for public defenders, due to high caseloads and conflicts of interest.

The out-of-state lawyers are held back by problems under the case-by-case rules. Each must connect with an in-state lawyer, who must also attend all hearings. They have had significant problems finding willing in-state lawyers. The full application process for out-of-state lawyers is also a large burden, requiring weeks of information gathering and expenses of nearly $1,000 each.

In an ironic twist, local media have reported that the shortage of public defenders has also been worsened by the large increase in lucrative oil company legal work, driving many lawyers away from public criminal defense.

In his motion to the trial court judge, Erickson seeks an order on the state agency responsible for indigent defense to account for every hour and dime expended by court-appointed attorneys to assure large judgments against Water Protector defendants. To justify this unprecedented move, Erickson charged: “Each protester attack on our police officers, each riot, and each incidence of private property destruction has been done to create fake news videos used to bring attention, celebrities, both passionate and gullible people, and finally money – all to be focused on multiple issues of national discontent… Most protest criminal defendants are simply props for videos of staged events.”

“State’s Attorney Erickson set out to use the most slanderous words and harmful rhetoric he could muster to defame the Water Protector defendants, their lawyers and supporters, and undermine the legitimacy of the Standing Rock encampment and concern over the DAPL, said Jeff Haas, WPLC lawyer. “Certainly, another objective of Erikson’s motion was to bias prospective Morton County jurors who will be hearing the first Standing Rock jury trial set for Monday, December 19.

For the reasons above, WPLC calls on State’s Attorney Erickson to step down as prosecutor. WPLC calls on the courts to decide whether his prosecutorial conduct has tainted the jury pool and prevented a fair trial to the point that the Water Protectors’ cases must be dismissed.

WPLC urges people to comment, in writing, on the rule amendments that would make it easier for out-of-state lawyers to represent Water Protectors, by 4 PM, Friday, December 30, 2016. Comments may be e-mailed to Penny Miller, Clerk of the Supreme Court, at supclerkofcourt@ndcourts.gov, or addressed to 600 E. Boulevard Ave., Bismarck, ND 58505-0530.

The Water Protector Legal Collective is the National Lawyers Guild legal support team for those engaged in resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. It maintains a 24/7 presence on-site at the Oceti Sakowin camp near Cannon Ball, North Dakota.