Chicago Police Settle with Anti-War Activists for $6.2 million

This just in, from the People’s Law Office:

February 9, 2012

A settlement has been reached in the class action law suit Vodak v. City of Chicago, brought against the Chicago Police Department on behalf of over 700 protestors who were falsely arrested during a demonstration against the Iraq war on March 20, 2003. On that date, over 10,000 protestors demonstrated in Chicago against the U.S. invasion of Iraq, marching through downtown streets and up Lake Shore Drive before Chicago Police surrounded, detained and arrested over 700 people.

Last year an important victory was achieved in the case when the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion which strongly criticized the City of Chicago for its treatment of the demonstrators and reinstated the case after it had been dismissed by the District Court.

This opinion, which holds that the City cannot arrest peaceful demonstrators without warning, merely because they do not have a permit, will apply to all future demonstrations.

Now, on the eve of trial, the City has finally agreed to settle this case, agreeing to provide a total of $6.2 Million to compensate the more than 700 class members.

The class is made up of three different sub-classes and the potential compensation each class member receives will depend on which sub-class they are in.
– A-3 sub-class: those who were arrested, charged and had to go to court, will receive up to $15,000
– A-2 sub-class: those arrested and released without being charged, will receive up to $8,750
– A-1 sub-class: those who were held on the street for over 90 minutes, will receive up to $500

In addition, there will be additional payments to persons who are named in the lawsuit as the class representatives and class members who were required to give depositions in the case.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs will also be negotiating with the City and petitioning the court to separately pay their legal fees and the costs of the case. This payment will be in addition to the $6.2 million paid to their clients.

There were also instances of police brutality that night and lawyers working on the case have previously settled a number of excessive force cases totaling over $300,000 in compensation for those who had handcuff injuries, broken bones and wounds requiring stitches.

This case is important not only to the class members and their attorneys, but also for civil liberties, as it scores a significant victory for the right to demonstrate in Chicago. This substantial settlement will send an unequivocal message to the City of Chicago and its police department that they must respect the right to free speech and assembly.

The class action lawsuit has been litigated by a legal team of attorneys and legal workers who are all members of the National Lawyers Guild. People’s Law Office attorneys Janine Hoft, Joey L. Mogul, Sarah Gelsomino and John Stainthorp, along with attorneys Melinda Power and Jim Fennerty, as well as paralegal Brad Thomson of People’s Law Office, have litigated the case for almost nine years.

For more information or updates on the settlement, visit peopleslawoffice.com or follow People’s Law Office on facebook and Twitter.

Media Pools Used to Control, Limit Coverage of Occupy LA Raid

The LAPD sent out a so-called press release tonight announcing that it would be organizing media pools, allowing select reporters access to the public demonstration that is Occupy Los Angeles.

According to occupyla.org blogger Ruth Fowler, who was among the first to report on the media pool:

This media pool drew mainstream media into the inner circle, where they were treated to a display of courteous policing and nonviolence by the police. Even I was impressed by the police. The operation was smooth and efficient and tactical.

But, later, she writes:

No bad treatment of protestors occurred while the mainstream media was watching – it was only at the end that this occurred, when the non pool reporters were separated from the pool media, and the reporters not in the pool were shoved and hit by cops…. The police moved in after us, and kettled the 300 left behind. Seeing this, we ran, as a group, a couple of blocks to get away from them, losing people all along the way. Then suddenly a group of police emerged. We were blocked (kettled) in on Alameda between second and first. The police started running towards us – the group was now about 100 people by this point – and everyone ran into a parking lot to escape. The police ran after them and started beating protestors with batons repeatedly as they were running away trying to escape. I saw about ten police hit protestors…. The violence I witnessed was pretty intense. Those cops were pissed and wanted to hurt people. They were running and beating people who were simply RUNNING away, trying to escape!

Earlier that evening, the LAPD announced that it would organize a “pool media”, as they put it in this tweet/text message:

#LAPD meeting to do lottery to select “pool media” for future #OccupyLA activity. Interested media in pool must have rep attend mtg @ 7:15pm

According to reports from Fowler and LA Weekly, they only let in three print reporters, three photographers, four TV broadcast teams and two radio reporters. The pool had to embed with officers and were prohibited from tweeting or using their cell phones during the raid, reports LA Weekly.

First of all, if you are going to invoke historically rare and extreme press policies, at least get the reference right.

The US military defines “media pools,” which the LAPD used to limit coverage of a demonstration tonight, as follows:

A limited number of news media who represent a larger number of news media organizations for purposes of news gathering and sharing of material during a specified activity. Pooling is typically used when news media support resources cannot accommodate a large number of journalists. The Department of Defense National Media Pool is available for coverage of the earliest stages of a contingency. Additionally, the combatant commanders may also find it necessary to form limited local pools to report on specific missions. See also news media representative; public affairs.
—-Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, US Department of Defense, 2005.

The only other place I have heard of media pools is during executions.

No one asked them to “support” the news media. Particularly during a raid on a peaceful protest. The ACLU has already announced plans to file a lawsuit.

AP: US Government Less Transparent than India, Mexico

The majority of the world’s population–or more than 5 billion people–now live in countries that have freedom of information laws on the books. However, only about half of those countries follow through in a way that conforms with their own regulations, according to a new audit released today by the Associated Press.

“Right-to-know laws reflect a basic belief that information is power and belongs to the public,” Martha Mendoza, author of the report, eloquently states. It’s a hard principle to argue against. That’s why more than 100 countries around the world have put laws on the books to facilitate public access to government-held information. Still, in many countries–including the U.S.–there is a wide gap between policy and practice.

Among the audit’s findings:

Right-to-know laws can work particularly well in newer democracies, because their governments can adopt what has worked elsewhere and discard what hasn’t. In the AP test, new democracies in general responded faster and better than more established ones.
Mexico, for example, gave the AP all the information requested within two months in response to a query filed through a single website. But in the U.S., the AP had to mail letters to six branches of the Justice and Homeland Security departments, email the FBI and follow up with 18 telephone calls. In return came 40 pieces of mail, with useful information only in two spreadsheets, and even then with names blanked out.

And later in the report…

The AP is still waiting on a 10-year-old request to the U.S. State Department for information about a now-defunct Greek terror organization. At the latest check, a staffer said: “The information was sent to a senior reviewer.”

To test so-called ‘right-to-know’ laws, AP reporters sent the same request to more than 100 countries around the world during one week in January 2011. The details of their experiment, and more surprising and important findings, can be found here, on the AP site.

Florida Judge: headlight flashing protected by first amendment right to free speech

A Florida judge ruled yesterday that flashing headlights at oncoming traffic to tip off fellow drivers to an upcoming radar patrol is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution.

The ruling came as part of a lawsuit filed by a ticketed 25-year-old headlight flasher against Seminole County Sheriff Don Eslinger.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, Circuit Judge Alan Dickey ruled that Florida law does not prohibit such actions.

At a hearing Oct. 20, the judge said, “If the goal of the traffic law is to promote safety and not to raise revenue then why wouldn’t we want everyone who sees a law enforcement officer with a radar gun in his hand, blinking his lights to slow down all those other cars?”

Several states, however, consider the practice to interfere with police investigations and, therefore, allow officers to write tickets when they witness such an event.

According to a September article in USA Today, Florida deputies stopped writing tickets for headlight flashing just five days after a similar class-action lawsuit was filed in Tallahassee in August.

The custom of flashing headlights at other drivers is used to convey various messages in the United States, from us-against-them speed-trap warnings to potential problems with one’s vehicle to warnings to get out of the way. Laws about the legality of the practice vary by state.

Federal Judge: Daley Will Remain a Party in Torture Suit

Deposition will be first for former Mayor in Notorious Police Torture Scandal

A federal judge Wednesday reaffirmed her previous decision, clearing the way for former Mayor Richard M. Daley to be sued as part of an ongoing case brought by a victim of police torture.

Michael Tillman spent 23 years in prison after being tortured by Chicago police detectives working under former Cmdr. Jon Burge. A county judge threw out his original conviction, for rape and murder, in January 2010. Prosecutors declined to file new charges, stating that there wasn’t “one iota” of evidence against him. He received a certificate of innocence the following month.

Daley was the Cook County state’s attorney at the time of Tillman’s arrest and alleged confession. U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer’s ruling clears the way for Daley to be deposed for the first time in connection with the notorious torture scandals. The lawsuit alleges that, during his time as mayor, Daley “conspired to suppress evidence of police torture that Plaintiff claims would have been exculpatory.”

In July, Judge Pallymeyer denied a motion to remove Daley from the lawsuit, which also includes former Cmdr. Burge, now in a federal prison. In early October, however, Pallymeyer granted a motion to stay that decision and re-consider. Today’s ruling is a reaffirmation of that original decision.

Michael Tillman, pictured here three months after his release from prison.

The People’s Law Office, which is representing Tillman in the case, will be holding a press conference tomorrow to formally announce the decision.

Michael Tillman was 20, with a 3-year-old daughter and an infant son, when he was brought into the Area 2 police station on Chicago’s South Side for questioning on July 22, 1986. He was released from prison at the age of 43.

Bipartisan Politics Kill Effort to Reform Justice System

Senate Republicans yesterday put an end to a three-year effort by Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) to thoroughly examine the U.S. criminal justice system and develop a series of top-to-bottom reforms.

The National Criminal Justice Commission bill would have created a bipartisan commission of experts charged with reviewing every aspect of the nation’s criminal justice system and offering concrete recommendations for evidence-based reforms. Over the past three years, the proposal had won support from more than 100 organizations from across the political spectrum, from the NAACP to the Fraternal Order of Police.

According to David Rogers of Politico, Senate Republicans argued that the commission would have violated states rights and wasted money:

….Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) took the lead in the GOP’s attacks, describing the commission as “an overreach of gigantic proportions” and “not a priority in these tight budget times.”
“We’re absolutely ignoring the U.S. Constitution if you do this,” said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) in closing…..

The bill called for fourteen-member commission, comprised evenly of Republicans and Democrats, to make non-binding recommendations.

“Today Senate Republicans blocked an important opportunity to make our criminal justice system more fair and effective,” Sen. Webb said following the 57-43 vote. “Their inflammatory arguments defy reasonable explanation and were contradicted by the plain language of our legislation.”

The politically charged climate stands in stark contrast to the support the bill garnered just one-year prior, when the bill sailed through the House with a voice vote.

It also runs against a growing movement taking place in many states, where advocacy groups are reaching across political boundaries to reprioritize their criminal justice spending.

“Criminal justice reform is increasingly not a right or left issue or a conservative or liberal issue,” said Mary Price, general counsel for Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) in a 2010 interview for a story I wrote for The Crime Report , detailing several such efforts, many of which have served to reduce prison populations while simultaneously cutting recidivism and crime rates.

The efforts have been led, in no small part, by conservatives not interested in continuing to pay the price for bloated corrections systems that too often act as “platinum revolving doors,” as one Chicago-area business leader and former Republican aide put it.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, about $74 billion in state and federal money is spent on prisons every year. Yet the failure rate of this system is astounding, with 67.5% of released individuals returning to prison within three years of their release, many of them for committing new crimes and creating new victims.

Libertarian leader and former Reagan adviser Grover Norquist (also interviewed for the above article) says that although cost is a big issue, public safety is also at stake–and should also be a conservative priority.

“At the end of the day,” he said, “(taxpayers) live in the same society that people returning from prison live in,” said Norquist.

Last year, Federal Bureau of Prisons Director Harley Lappin told Congress that either more prisons must be built, or there should be movement towards reducing sentences, and “significantly” increasing community-based alternatives such as home confinement. But, this year, legislators moved in the opposite direction, defunding the Second Chance Act, which authorizes federal grants to help released inmates access services including mentoring, finding housing and jobs, and substance abuse treatment. The Second Chance Act passed in 2008 with bipartisan support.

A unit for the elderly and infirm at Louisiana State Penitentiary, in Angola, La. Photo: Jessica Pupovac

The National Criminal Justice Commission Act was first introduced March 26, 2009. It garnered 39 cosponsors from both parties. On July 28, 2010, it passed the U.S. House of Representatives, with the support of Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), then head of the Judiciary Committee. It died last year for reasons unrelated to the legislation, after being folded into the Omnibus Appropriations Act.

Senator Webb reintroduced the bill on February 8, 2011. It was shot down yesterday, Oct. 20, just three votes short of the supermajority needed for passage. Sens. Blunt (R-Mo.) and Kirk (R-Ill.) voted against the bill, while Sens. Durbin (D-Ill.) and McCaskill (D-Mo.) voted in favor. For a full a list of how each Senator present voted, click here.

For his part, Sen. Webb says that his effort to get Congress to take a serious look at reforming the criminal justice system is not over.

“We will not back down. We will keep fighting for a comprehensive review of the justice system, with the help of the thousands of sheriffs, police, mayors and justice advocates who have joined us in pressing for reform,” he said.

Cook County Votes 10-5 to End ICE Immigration Holds

Cook County commissioners ratified a groundbreaking ordinance today that ends “immigration detainers” put forth by the Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agency.

Most US counties today hold immigrants who are in the country illegally for 2 to 3 days beyond their criminal sentence, while ICE prepares for their deportation. However, ICE does not foot the bill.

“Cook County tax dollars should go to Cook County services, especially at a time when our County is strapped for cash,” Stephen Smith of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, which tabulated the annual cost to the county at $15.7 million.

Felony Franks gets new sign, amid controversey

Beleaguered hot dog stand Felony Franks finally got its sign this morning, according to CBSChicago.com.

It has been just two years since Felony Franks opened its doors on Chicago’s West Side. It took owner Jim Andrews this long, however, to get permission to hang a sign along busy Western Avenue, where the store is located, as the process requires city approval.

Ald. Fioretti (2nd ward) is vehemently opposed to the name of the shop, which he says is in poor taste. Several local residents agree.

Federal Judge: Daley fair game for Torture lawsuits

TILLMAN SUIT COULD PAVE WAY FOR OTHERS

For the first time, a federal judge is allowing former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley to remain part of a lawsuit that would tie him to what has since been dubbed “a pattern of abuse” at the hands of Chicago Police officers under former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge.

Daley is being accused of conspiracy to suppress information about the abuse, much of which took place during his tenure as a “tough on crime” state’s attorney, from 1980 to 1989.

His deposition, which his lawyers are challenging, has been set for Sept. 8.

Although the former mayor was questioned under oath during a 2006 investigation into the Chicago’s now notorious police torture scandal, this would be the first time he is deposed and questioned about his involvement in the cover-up. It would also be the first time for Daley to face attorney Flint Taylor, a leading figure in the ongoing effort to win new trials for Chicago police torture victims and bring the guilty parties to justice.

Burge now sits in federal prison under charges stemming from the abuse, which targeted black and Latino men on Chicago’s South Side.

The landmark July 20 ruling came as part of a complaint brought by Michael Tillman. Tillman was released from prison in January 2010 after spending 23 years in prison for a rape and murder. He was issued a certificate of innocence from the Circuit Court of Cook County the following month.

In 1986, Michael Tillman was arrested in connection with the rape and murder of Betty Howard, a tenant in an apartment building he was working in. He underwent a marathon three-day interrogation administered by Burge’s now infamous “Midnight Crew” at Area 2 Police Headquarters, during which time he was suffocated, beaten and was subjected to a crude form of waterboarding and a mock execution. Eventually, he capitulated and confessed to the crime, which he soon after maintained he did not commit.

As state’s attorney, Daley would have been responsible for bringing official charges against the abusive officers. But Tillman’s lawsuit claims that although he had personal knowledge of the abuse, he deliberately chose to look the other way.

According to research done by the People’s Law Office, which filed Tillman’s complaint and helped earn him his freedom last year, 55 allegations of torture were lodged against Burge and his “Midnight Crew during Daley’s 9-year tenure, which lasted from 1980 to 1989.

The Tillman complaint claims that Daley “conspired to suppress evidence of police torture” that “would have been exculpatory” and that he “refused and failed to investigate a pattern of torture carried out at Area 2 prior to Plaintiff’s arrest,” thereby enabling Tillman’s torture and wrongful conviction.

“Plaintiff’s wrongful prosecution was continued, his exoneration was delayed and his imprisonment lasted far longer than it otherwise would have,” the complaint alleges.

During the 23 years Michael Tillman spent behind bars, he lost touch with his two children, now young adults. He has since reunited with them.

The Burge cases have already cost the city more than $40 million in settlements and legal fees–this in spite of the fact that only 12 of Burge’s approximately 100 alleged victims have been pardoned or given new trials.

There are related six civil lawsuits still pending against Burge and the city of Chicago.

Homicides up 23 percent last year in Mexico as drug war rages

The AP is reporting a drastic rise in the Mexican homicide rate last year, primarily in the towns and cities bordering the United States.

A preliminary report from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography in Mexico, which recorded 24,374 homicides last year. That represents a 23 percent increase from 19,803 in 2009.

The figure represents 22 killings for every 100,000 residents in the country. The United States, in contrast, saw 14,627 murders in 2010, or less than 5 for every 100,000 people, according to preliminary FBI report and US Census Bureau stats.

About 20 million Americans were “current” illicit drug users in 2008, according to a study cited by the U.S. State Department.

Just yesterday, the town mayor and a farm union official were found dead in the northern state of Zacatecas. The two were kidnapped the day prior by gunmen, according to the AP.

*Photo courtesy of Federacion de asociaciones cannabicas, via Flickr