NLG CHICAGO

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NLG Report on New Marijuana Laws

In Wake of New Marijuana Laws, NLG Report Contrasts Legalization Strategies and Obstacles

Traci Yoder
Senior Researcher, National Lawyers Guild
traci@nlg.org
(212) 679-5100, ext. 12
New York

In November 2012, Washington and Colorado became the first states—and the first jurisdictions in the world—to legalize the possession, use, and regulated distribution of marijuana. Although Attorney General Eric Holder promised in March 2013 to announce a Department of Justice policy to address the state initiatives, the White House has yet to take a position. This shifting legal terrain is the subject of “High Crimes: Strategies to Further Marijuana Legalization Initiatives,” a new report by the National Lawyers Guild (NLG).

The NLG report analyzes the legalization process under way in the states, suggests strategies to further marijuana legalization initiatives, and highlights current obstacles to ending prohibition. Among the NLG recommendations: reframe drug use as a public health issue rather than a criminal justice problem, challenge the punitive international drug policy framework, support states’ rights to regulate marijuana use, and reclassify marijuana to allow for medical research.

“High Crimes” also calls attention to the role of law enforcement agencies and private prison industry interventions in the field of US drug policy. “It is crucial to examine who profits from the continued prohibition of marijuana,” said NLG Senior Researcher Traci Yoder, the report’s author. “The increasing militarization of police forces is funded through property and financial seizures during drug arrests.  Continued profit making by private corrections corporations is contingent upon ever-increasing rates of incarceration.”

As the nation waits for a response from the White House, the NLG joins other organizations and individuals in calling for the end to marijuana prohibition. “Marijuana legalization will create new jobs, generate millions of dollars in tax revenue, and allow law enforcement to focus on serious crimes,” said Brian Vicente, NLG member and one of the primary authors of Colorado’s legalization amendment. “It would be a travesty if the Obama administration used its power to impose marijuana prohibition upon a state whose people have declared, through the democratic process, that they want it to end.”

The report, “High Crimes: Strategies to Further Marijuana Legalization Initiatives,” can be accessed on the NLG website at www.nlg.org.
The National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has members in every state.

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Anti-Eviction Campaign, Ben Austen, and Edward Voci to speak at Loyola

Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign

Join in a discussion with J.R. Fleming, Toussaint Losier, and other Anti-Eviction Campaign activists, attorney Edward Voci, and Ben Austen, author of the NYT article,

“The Death and Life of Chicago*”

*http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/magazine/how-chicagos-housing-crisis-ignited-a-new-form-of- activism.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Chicago has a shortage of 120,000 units of affordable housing and some 100,000 people sleeping in shelters or on the street each year. J.R. Fleming calls this a moral crisis rather than a housing crisis. Please come and explore the intersection of issues of homelessness, lack of affordable housing, and the mortgage foreclosure crisis in Chicago.

  • Loyola School of Law, 25 E Pearson(near the Chicago Red Line stop), Rm 1303 (13th floor)

  • Tuesday, June 25th, 5:30 – 6:45 p.m.

  • Refreshments will be served (though you need not RSVP to attend, if you email emlynr@gmail.com no later than noon on Monday, June 24th, we’d appreciate it)

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Jan Susler of NLG presents to UN on Puerto Rico

Jan Susler of NLG International Committee presents to UN Decolonization Committee on Puerto Rico

Jan Susler, co-chair of the National Lawyers Guild International Committee’s Puerto Rico Subcommittee, presented a paper on Monday, June 17 to the United Nations Decolonization Committee during its annual hearing on the status of Puerto Rico.

Susler’s comprehensive presentation addresses Puerto Rico’s ongoing colonial status, federal intervention and repression in Puerto Rico, other challenges to civil and human rights in Puerto Rico, the economy, the environment, the death penalty, Vieques and the role of the military, and the ongoing confinement of Puerto Rican political prisoners in US jails.

Susler’s presentation concludes with recommendations that the General Assembly pass a resolution calling upon the US government to:
* immediately cease the brutality, criminalization and harassment of, and attacks on, the Puerto Rican Independence Movement and all those who exercise their fundamental rights to expression and association;
* immediately release Puerto Rican political prisoners Oscar López Rivera, who has served more than 32 years in U.S. custody, and Norberto González Claudio;
* identify and hold criminally liable all those responsible for the assassination of Filiberto Ojeda Ríos (2005), Santiago Mari Pesquera (1976), Carlos Muñiz Varela (1979), and other militants of the Puerto Rican independence movement; * withdraw the FBI, the U.S. court, and all other U.S. police, repressive and military forces and agencies from Puerto Rico;
* withdraw from Vieques, formally return legal property of the land to the people of Vieques, cease detonating unexploded ordnance, completely clean up the pollution left by the U.S. Navy’s 60 year occupation through the use of proven, environmentally friendly clean-up methods, foster and support a sustainable economy, and compensate the people of Vieques for the damage to their health done to them by the same;
* cease and desist from the application of the death penalty in Puerto Rico;
* formally commit to negotiate in good faith with the people of Puerto Rico a solution to the colonial condition; and recognize the proposals that emanate from a Constitutional Assembly, initiated by the people of Puerto Rico, such as that called for by the Puerto Rico Bar Association, as the true expression of the aspirations of the people of Puerto Rico, and respond to them accordingly.

The National Lawyers Guild will be holding its 76th annual Law for the People convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico October 23-27, the Guild’s first international convention. The Puerto Rico subcommittee that Susler co-chairs with Judith Berkan and Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan is working with a team of Puerto Rican lawyers, law students and legal workers to host the Convention.

Click here to download presentation: Presentation to UN Decolonization Committee on Puerto Rico

For more info: http://www.nlginternational.org/news/article.php?nid=536

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Legal Observers at IYJL Action

On Tuesday, May 14, Chicago NLG Legal Observers were present at an Immigrant Youth Justice League (IYJL) action at the Broadview Detention Facility in Broadview, Illinois to protest the record high deportations under President Obama and inaction from Illinois elected officials. A group of seven undocumented immigrants from Illinois conducted a sit-in to block the entrance to the Detention Facility.

For more information on the action and the IYJL, visit:
http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=00dcbd39570969a013c8e903c&id=0350ee98a0
http://www.iyjl.org/

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Winning Case Analysis & Dynamic Witness Examination – Practice and Ethics

 

 

 

Join us for a fantastic NPAP CLE seminar with Criminal Defense Attorney James McComas. Rick Friedman calls Jim McComas “the best criminal defense lawyer I’ve ever known, one of the best trial lawyers I’ve ever known, brilliant, creative, innovative and fearless.” 

 

 

 

Jim will be tailoring his approach to police misconduct cases; he will be assisted by NPAP President Michael Haddad. 

 

 

 

This seminar was approved by the Illinois MCLE Board for 10.5 general credit hours.  

 

An application for 2 ethics credits is pending.

 

Register here: http://nlg-npap.org/civicrm/event/info?id=12&reset=1

 

 

 

You will learn:

 

 

 

— To take your Cross-Exam method out of the last century, and learn how to make this weapon into an even more effective, powerful tool.

 

 

 

— How to transform your Cross-Exams into consistently outcome determining events, without taking any excessive risks.

This remarkable 1 1/2 day CLE includes:

 

  • A complete presentation of Case Analysis & Dynamic Cross Exam (Friday)
  • Demonstrations of Dynamic Cross Exam (Friday)
  • Group discussion by all participants and presenters, and preparation of Dynamic Cross & Direct Exams in a specific case (Saturday morning)
  • Multiple cross examinations of police officers and a defense police practices expert

The result?  You will be ready and able to examine witnesses in a new, hugely effective way.  You will be on the cutting edge of advocacy and your clients will benefit right away as you join the vanguard of Dynamic Lawyers for the People.

 
This is Jim’s second seminar with NPAP.  Rick Friedman and Jim McComas were part of our last highly praised NPAP seminar held on February 15 in New Orleans.

WHEN:  May 17th, 8:45 AM through May 18th, 12:00 PM

LOCATION:  Inn of Chicago / 162 East Ohio Street / Chicago, IL 60611
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Hotel Information: NPAP has set aside a limited number of rooms for a discounted rate of $169 (single & double occupancy) at the Inn of Chicago, where the seminar will be held. Please call (212) 630 9939 or email director.npap@nlg.org  Executive Director Brigitt Keller to make a reservation for a room at the Inn of Chicago. Please make your reservation as soon as possible.

Contact

637 S. Dearborn St., 3rd Floor
Chicago, IL 60605

chicago[@]nlg.org