Cases

L.A. Times Takes Issues With Denying Immigrants Phone Access

June 16, 2016 By CCM Staff

Protestors at the Metropolitan Detention Center during one of several May Day marches in Los Angeles, California. (David McNew/Getty Image

The Los Angeles Times, in an editorial, is heralding a decision to increase phone access to people facing immigration hearings. Among other issues, the LAT notes that part of the problem is that the government contracts detention of those people to private firms, which have their own policies. The newspaper also notes that lack of phone access equates to lack of legal representation, which is a key factor in deciding who gets to stay and who has to go.

The editorial notes that “… a legal settlement this week should help remove one obstacle facing detainees: their lack of access to telephones. In a case filed in a San Francisco federal court, detainees represented by the ACLU and other civil rights groups argued that the conditions of their detention in four California facilities interfered with their right to find counsel, to gather evidence on their own behalf and to receive a fair hearing when they make their cases in court. How were those rights being impeded? Through policies that severely limited their use of telephones.”

In another point, the Times says that “… part of the problem is the immigration detention system itself, which relies primarily on contracts between the federal government and the county jails or private companies that house detainees as well as other prisoners. Those facilities have their own rules about inmate access to telephones that also apply to immigration detainees even though the latter have not been charged with or found guilty of crimes.”

Read the editorial here: Why should immigration detainees be denied access to telephones?

Filed Under: Cases, Community Tagged With: ACLU, immigration court, immigration detention center, immigration rights

Central California Justice Among The Nation’s Most Rationed Court

June 15, 2016 By CCM Staff

Eastern California is home to some of the nation’s most fertile agricultural regions, but it’s also growing a reputation as the nation’s slowest federal court district. Bakersfieldnow, the online home of ABC’s Eyewitness News in the area, explains in a new report that “… the problem area is the Eastern District of the 9th Circuit Court that serves much of the eastern half of the state, from Bakersfield to the Oregon border.

The story is illustrated with the story of Wesley Morris, a gun-store owner involved in a lawsuit against the state. The plaintiffs, affiliated with the Calguns Foundation, are “… bringing a first amendment challenge to an old state law that regulates handgun advertising.”
Morris’ group filed their case in 2014. It’s not scheduled for trial until 2017. And the news report says that “… a three year wait for a civil case is not uncommon in the Valley. It’s the average, according to federal data obtained by Eyewitness News via public record request. Nationwide, the average civil case takes 26.8 months to finish. In the Eastern District of our circuit court, the average is 37.8 months.”

Read about the rationing here:
http://bakersfieldnow.com/news/investigations/central-valleys-federal-justice-system-among-slowest-in-the-nation

Filed Under: Cases, National Tagged With: Calguns Foundation, court rationing, federal court, First Amendment

Court Upholds FCC’s ‘Net Neutrality’ Rules

June 14, 2016 By CCM Staff

In the photo taken June 19, 2015, the entrance to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) building in Washington.
(Photo: Andrew Harnik, AP)

A three-member U.S. Court of Appeals panel has ruled 2-1 to uphold the FCC’s rules regulating ‘net neutrality.”

USA Today explains that “… those Open Internet rules, or net neutrality rules, were crafted to prohibit Internet service providers (ISPs), mainly large cable or telephone companies, from blocking and slowing the transmission of content and from the practice of “paid prioritization,” paying an ISP for faster delivery of content.”

The offered a comment from the FCC leadership: “Today’s ruling is a victory for consumers and innovators who deserve unfettered access to the entire web, and it ensures the internet remains a platform for unparalleled innovation, free expression and economic growth,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who cast one of the three commission votes to pass the rules. “After a decade of debate and legal battles, today’s ruling affirms the Commission’s ability to enforce the strongest possible internet protections – both on fixed and mobile networks – that will ensure the internet remains open, now and in the future.”

Read more about the significant court case here:

Federal court upholds FCC’s net neutrality rules

Filed Under: Cases Tagged With: FCC, federal appeals court, federal court, net neutrality, Tom Wheeler

Judge Delays San Francisco Sugar Warnings

June 9, 2016 By CCM Staff

The San Francisco board of supervisors has approved an ordinance that would require warning labels to be placed on advertisements for soda and sugary drinks to alert consumers of the risk of obesity, diabetes and tooth decay. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

The city of San Francisco’s efforts to require health warning for soda and other sugar-added beverages, closely watching because of implications for similar warnings in other places, has been placed on hold by a federal judge. The delay, in effect, grants the beverage industry some more time pending the appeals process. The measure was set to go into effect July 25.

The Wall Street Journals explains that San Francisco seeks to “… require that billboards and other public advertisements include the language: ‘WARNING: Drinking beverages with added sugar(s) contributes to obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay. This is a message from the City and County of San Francisco.'”

The WSJ also notes that “… the American Beverage Association filed a civil complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California last July, arguing that the requirement violates free-speech rights under the First Amendment. The California Retailers Association and California State Outdoor Advertising Association joined the complaint.”

Filed Under: Cases, Community Tagged With: American Beverage Association, beverage industry, California, San Francisco, Wall Street Journal

‘Stairway to Lawsuit’ As Led Zeppelin Defends Iconic Song

June 6, 2016 By CCM Staff

Led Zeppelin, from left, John Paul Jones, John Bonham, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, in 1973. Credit Hulton Archive/Getty Images

You know they will have to play Stairway to Heaven in court, very likely over and over again. But, in a case that experts say might further evolve copyright law, Led Zeppelin is defending creation of the iconic song. The New York Times, in a page one story no less, says that “… the case focuses on the famous opening of “Stairway to Heaven,” in which an acoustic guitar plays arpeggiated chords in a descending pattern. That part, the suit contends, copied Spirit’s “Taurus,” released in 1968. In the suit’s complaint, Francis Malofiy, the lead lawyer representing the plaintiff, said that Led Zeppelin’s members heard Spirit’s song when the bands crossed paths on the road early in their careers.”

The guy with Spirit who, it is claimed, actually created the signature riff didn’t bring a lawsuit in his lifetime. But in recent years, courts have ruled that such challenges can happen long after a copyright is established by creation, and the musicians’ estate brought the lawsuit, which has been famously making its way through the California justice system for years. Now, it’s expected to be a headliner all summer.

Read the Times’ take here: Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’ to Be Scrutinized in Court in Copyright Case

Filed Under: Cases, Community Tagged With: copyright law, Led Zeppelin

One Nation? It’s All Regional When It Comes To Staying In U.S.A.

June 2, 2016 By CCM Staff

The Associated Press, using the Freedom of Information Act, is reporting that “… youngsters whose applications are handled by the U.S. government’s regional offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles are far more likely to win approval from asylum officers than those applying in Chicago or Houston…” and the report also explains that “… the figures offer a snapshot of how the government is handling the huge surge over the past two years in the number of Central American children arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border unaccompanied by adults. Tens of thousands of youngsters — many of them fleeing gang violence in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — have overflowed U.S. shelters and further clogged the nation’s overwhelmed immigration courts.”

The AP backgrounds that “… under federal law, these children can apply to remain in the country in a process that involves an interview with an asylum officer from one of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ eight regional offices. To win their cases, they must show that they have been persecuted or are in danger of persecution.” The report notes that “.. overall, 37 percent were granted asylum, but the rate varied dramatically from 86 percent at the San Francisco office, which handles applications for a swath of the Pacific Northwest, to 15 percent in Chicago, which covers 15 states from Ohio to Idaho.”

Read how much geography is destiny here: AP Exclusive: Children’s Asylum Approvals Vary by US Region

Filed Under: Border Kids, Cases, National Tagged With: Border Kids, immigration courts, immigration services

Atlanta Is Worst For Avoiding Deportation

May 26, 2016 By CCM Staff

STEVE EBERHARDT FOR THE HUFFINGTON POST
Kimberly Pineda Chavez and her mother, Lourdes, came to the U.S. from Honduras.

Elise Foley, the Huffington Post’s immigration reporter, has a devastating story about Atlanta being the “worst” for immigrants hoping to avoid deportation. She notes that “… more than a third of the people detained under what the government calls Operation Border Guardian were from the Atlanta area, more than any other ICE jurisdiction.

There’s a reason for this. Immigration law doesn’t vary from state to state or court to court. But immigrants’ odds do, and by the numbers, Atlanta is one of the worst places in the country to be an undocumented immigrant hoping to avoid deportation. Justice Department-appointed judges in that court denied asylum 98 percent of the time in the 2015 fiscal year, the highest rate of any immigration court that heard more than five cases. Eighty-eight percent of cases that went before Atlanta immigration courts ended with a removal order. That’s way over the national average: In the country as a whole, immigration judges denied about 52 percent of asylum claims, and 69 percent of cases resulted in a deportation order.”

She also backgrounds that “…Atlanta immigration judges have been accused of bullying children, badgering domestic violence victims and setting standards for relief and asylum that lawyers say are next to impossible to meet. Given Atlanta immigration judges’ reluctance to grant asylum, some immigrants who fear returning to their native countries don’t even pursue it.”
Read the story here: Here’s Why Atlanta Is One Of The Worst Places To Be An Undocumented Immigrant

Filed Under: Border Kids, Cases, Community Tagged With: Border Kids, immigration courts, undocumented workers

Fracking Brings Lawsuit Over National Forest Access

May 23, 2016 By CCM Staff

Five environmental groups are suing the federal government in hopes of stopping leasing some 20,000 acres of the Santa Fe National Forest for fracking, the process of extracting natural gas by applying pressure via water injection. The injections shatter rock formations and free the gas. In the new lawsuit, the Courthouse News website backgrounds that “… the U.S. Bureau of Land Management created 13 new mineral leases in the national forest in October 2014, without required environmental impact studies and without considering the harmful effects of fracking… in doing so, the BLM, the Forest Service, and the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, the groups say.”

The groups bringing the lawsuit are the WildEarth Guardians, Amigos Bravos, Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment, and the Sierra Club. Read more here:

CNS – Greens Fight Fracking in National Forest

Filed Under: Cases, Community Tagged With: federal government, Fracking, Sierra Club, U.S. Bureau of land Management

Silver Gets More Time Before Serving Federal Jail Sentence

May 19, 2016 By CCM Staff

Former Democratic New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver exits Manhattan Federal District Court after being sentenced to 12 years on corruption related charges, Tuesday, May 3, 2016. Photo Credit: Bryan R. Smith / Bryan R. Smith

The federal judge who sentenced former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to 12 years in prison has granted the 72-year-old two more months of freedom before he begin to serve time. The delay comes because the U.S. Supreme Court is taking up the case of a convicted Virginia governor and one of the issues is what constitutes an “official act.”

The judge also set up a five-week briefing schedule after the Supreme Court rules in former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s challenge to his corruption conviction. That time will allow her to decide if Silver is entitled to bail pending appeal because a reversal is likely.

Read the story via NY Newsday here:
Silver’s prison surrender delayed by 2 months

Filed Under: Cases, Community Tagged With: New York Assembly, Sheldon Silver, US Supreme Court

Colorado City Settles ‘Debtors Prison’ Case

May 5, 2016 By CCM Staff

Nicole Beemsterboer/NPR

You can add Colorado Springs, Colo., to the list of American cities learning that turning “civil” cases like traffic tickets into jail-time cases might be illegal. National Public Radio did a deep-dive into the situation this week, offering the context that “… debtors’ prisons have long been illegal in the United States. But many courts across the country still send people to jail when they can’t pay their court fines. Last year, the Justice Department stepped in to stop the practice in Ferguson, Mo. And now, in a first, a U.S. city will pay out thousands of dollars to people who were wrongly sent to jail.”

The NPR story said that Colorado Springs and the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado announced “… a settlement that will end the practice of jailing people too poor to pay their court fines. The city will even give payouts to people who were incorrectly sent to jail. Last year, the ACLU of Colorado discovered nearly 800 cases where people had gone to jail in Colorado Springs when they couldn’t pay their tickets for minor violations. Most of the people were homeless — and they were ticketed for things such as panhandling or sleeping in a park overnight. The settlement calls for people to receive $125 for each day they were in jail. One man featured in the story, illegally jailed after being fined for holding up a sign at roadside, will receive some $11,000.

NPR quoted ACLU attorney Mark Silverstein explaining that “… putting people in jail when they can’t pay their fines — without giving them alternative options such as community service — has been ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court” and also cited their previous work on the issue: An NPR investigative series in 2014 found the practice is widespread across the country. “The law is supposed to treat us equally,” Silverstein says. “So when people with means can simply pay a fine and move on and then the poor get sentenced to jail, because they’re poor, that’s a two-tiered system of justice that violates the principle of equal protection of the laws.”

That previous NPR investigation, which is truly alarming, noted that “… one of the first instances NPR found of fees charged to criminal defendants was in 1965 when California required payments to reimburse crime victims. By the 1980s, states started billing criminal defendants to reimburse taxpayers. Michigan, in 1984, passed the first law to charge inmates for some of the costs of their incarceration. By 1990, Texas reported that fees from offenders made up more than half the budget of the state’s probation agencies.” California now can charge people for their jail stays, public defender costs and other fees, as can 48 other states.

Read the Colorado Springs story here:

Colorado Springs Will Stop Jailing People Too Poor To Pay Court Fines

Filed Under: Cases, Community Tagged With: ACLU, American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, Colorado courts, debtor prisons, Justice Department, U.S. Supreme Court