‘Zero tolerance’ policy on border swells federal caseloads

July 13, 2018 By
Metropolitan Correctional Center in San Diego. Photo Credit: Nehrams2020 [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Metropolitan Correctional Center in San Diego. Photo Credit: Nehrams2020 [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

A Trump administration policy to criminally prosecute illegal border crossings has created a renewed backlog in the federal justice system in the Southwest.

“Failures to bring new arrestees to court in a timely manner has been an issue off and on for years in San Diego and Imperial counties, and federal defense attorneys say that it has only magnified in the past couple months as the Trump administration has vowed to criminally prosecute all illegal border crossings under a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy,”reported Kristina Davis of The Los Angeles Times.

“Since mid-April, when U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the new policy, public defenders in San Diego have filed 138 habeas corpus petitions, a civil remedy that in Latin translates to ‘produce the body.’ That’s compared to 13 filed during the same time frame last year, according to court records,” Davis reported.

As a result, more people arrested at the border spend longer periods of time in Border Patrol facilities rather than getting booked into the federal prison system, particularly the Metropolitan Correctional Center in San Diego, according to the report.

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California courts react to #MeToo Movement with rule changes

July 9, 2018 By
Photo Credit: Rob Kall from Bucks County, PA, USA (#womensmarch2018 Philly Philadelphia #MeToo) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Photo Credit: Rob Kall from Bucks County, PA, USA (#womensmarch2018 Philly Philadelphia #MeToo) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

The #MeToo Movement swept California courts this spring, as the judiciary adopted rule changes requiring the disclosure of financial agreements related to complaints of sexual harassment and discrimination.

On May 24, the California courts website reported, “The Judicial Council at its business meeting today revised the rules of court to clarify that any settlement agreements involving judicial officers for which public funds were spent in payment of the settlement must be disclosed if requested, including agreements related to complaints of sexual harassment and discrimination. In April, Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye convened a workgroup to study and recommend changes to the rules of court to ensure that all levels of the state court system respond to these types of public records requests.”

The revised rule allows redaction of names of complainants and witnesses, however.

The Recorder at law.com reports, “The Judicial Council approved the amendments to Rule of Court 10.500 with little discussion and none of the previous criticism from some judges that the mandate was too broad.”

The rule change went into effect June 1.

“The chief justice’s call for changes was in response to records requested by The Recorder and other media outlets that showed the judiciary paid $600,000 since 2011 to investigate and settle harassment claims against court employees and judges. Judiciary branch lawyers declined to name the judges involved or the allegations, citing broad protections for investigations of and claims concerning judges in Rule 10.500.”

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Supreme Court agrees to hear civil forfeiture challenge

July 2, 2018 By
U.S. Supreme Court in Washington. Photo Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite as reported by Forbes, 2/1/18.

U.S. Supreme Court in Washington. Photo Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite as reported by Forbes, 2/1/18.

Billions of dollars in government revenue and one of the most contentious constitutional questions of the present day are at stake in a pending U.S. Supreme Court case over civil forfeiture.

“For the first time in over 20 years, the U.S. Supreme Court will have the opportunity to review the constitutionality of civil forfeiture laws, which allow the government to confiscate cash, cars, and even homes,” Forbes reported.

Civil forfeiture laws allowed local and state jurisdictions to reap millions of dollars: “from 2001 to 2014, the Justice Department and the Treasury Department’s forfeiture funds took in almost $29 billion,” Forbes reported.

The court has granted a cert petition from Tyson Timbs, “who was forced to forfeit his $40,000 Land Rover in civil court to the State of Indiana, after he pled guilty to selling less than $200 worth of drugs,” the Forbes article reported.

Timbs prevailed in lower courts, but last fall the Indiana Supreme Court ruled against him. “The Excessive Fines Clause does not bar the State from forfeiting Defendant’s vehicle,” the court ruled, “because the United States Supreme Court has not held that the Clause applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Now, the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to weigh in.

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Records: Booted Tulare County, CA judge focus of $120,000 sex harassment case

June 22, 2018 By

The sexual harassment case against a Tulare County judge who was ousted from the bench is documented in a five-page settlement document released as a result of newly revised rules of disclosure in California’s judiciary.

The Recorder at law.com reported on June 12, “California’s judiciary paid a Tulare County Superior Court clerk $120,000 in 2016 to settle claims that a judge — now removed from the bench — harassed her over several months in 2013.”

The Recorder noted, “The payment was made to Priscilla Campos Tovar, a Tulare court clerk who alleged that Judge Valeriano Saucedo attempted to pressure the married woman into a romantic relationship by sending her frequent text messages and numerous gifts, including a family trip to Disneyland, cash and a car. Saucedo argued he was only trying to act as a mentor to Tovar. The Commission on Judicial Performance ordered Saucedo removed from the bench in December 2015, calling his conduct ‘so completely at odds with the core qualities and role of a judge that no amount of mitigation can redeem the seriousness of the wrongdoing.’”

On May 24, the California Judicial Council revised the rules of court “to clarify that any settlement agreements involving judicial officers for which public funds were spent in payment of the settlement must be disclosed if requested, including agreements related to complaints of sexual harassment and discrimination,” the state’s judicial website reported.

The Recorder reported, “The Tulare court settlement is one of three involving judges around the state dating back to 2010. Lawyers for the Judicial Council acknowledged in March that the judiciary had paid $296,000 to settle three complaints against judges, although it declined to identify the judges or say whether they remained on the bench.”

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Alameda County court provides links — with redactions — to settlements

June 18, 2018 By
Justice Marsha Slough, Associate Justice of the California Fourth District Court of Appeal, led the workgroup tasked with amending the rules of court to clarify that any settlement agreements involving judicial officers are publicly disclosable. Photo credit: California Courts website

Justice Marsha Slough, Associate Justice of the California Fourth District Court of Appeal, led the workgroup tasked with amending the rules of court to clarify that any settlement agreements involving judicial officers are publicly disclosable. Photo credit: California Courts website

The Alameda County Superior Court in California agreed to pay an employee $175,000 in a 2017 settlement. In another instance, in 2016, the court settled for $26,600 to resolve a charge of harassment.

These and other public records are available at a page on the Alameda County Superior Court website. This is the product of a rule change in the California judiciary on May 24, when the California Judicial Council revised the rules of court “to clarify that any settlement agreements involving judicial officers for which public funds were spent in payment of the settlement must be disclosed if requested, including agreements related to complaints of sexual harassment and discrimination,” the state’s judicial website reported.

The Recorder at law.com reported on June 8, “Two weeks after California’s judiciary leaders ordered more transparency in disclosing taxpayer-funded settlements of judicial wrongdoing, most courts have offered the same response: We don’t have anything to report.”

Two appellate courts — the Second and the Sixth — and more than half of the trial courts told the publication that they had no responsive records to release.

“One court, however, took a different tack,” the Recorder reported. “Alameda County Superior Court unveiled a page on its website Friday that contains links to what court officials said are all ‘documents reflecting the resolution of claims or litigation — from Jan. 1, 2010, to the present, involving the court, its employees, and/or its judicial officers.’”

The Recorder acknowledged that the blacked-out portions of the documents often left questions. “The redactions and limited information in the documents makes it unclear if the court ever paid an employee to settle claims of sexual harassment or other misconduct by a judicial officer,” the publication reported.

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Judge seeks funding information in opioid-manufacturer lawsuits

June 6, 2018 By
Photo Credit: By richiec from Chicago, USA [CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Photo Credit: By richiec from Chicago, USA [CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

A U.S. District judge wants information about the funders behind hundreds of lawsuits against manufacturers and distributors of opioids.

“The judge overseeing more than 600 lawsuits targeting opioid makers is demanding local governments’ lawyers turn over information about any litigation-funding agreements and provide assurance that lenders won’t gain control over legal strategy or settlements,” Bloomberg reported.

U.S. District Judge Dan Polster in Cleveland issued the order on May 7, “saying he wants to ensure the agreements don’t create conflicts of interest by affecting plaintiffs lawyers’ judgments in pursuing cases against opioid makers, such as Purdue Pharma LLP and Johnson & Johnson, and distributors such as McKesson Corp. and Cardinal Health Inc.”

Bloomberg explained, “He wants to know details of any lending arrangements, and he requested sworn statements from the lawyers and lenders that there won’t be any conflicts of interest and that the lenders won’t have control over strategy, advocacy or settlement decisions.”

On April 11, Reuters reported that Polster was pushing for a settlement and pursuing an aggressive schedule “that would have the first trial take place in March 2019.”

Reuters noted, “The lawsuits accuse the drugmakers of deceptively marketing opioids and allege that drug distributors ignored red flags indicating the painkillers were being diverted for improper uses. In 2016, 42,000 people died from opioid overdoses, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

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Fusion GPS faces RICO lawsuit from human rights activist

May 30, 2018 By
Photo from the Human Rights Foundation as reported in The Daily Caller on 5/22/18.

Photo from the Human Rights Foundation as reported in The Daily Caller on 5/22/18.

A self-described whistleblower is using a racketeering law, usually affiliated with prosecution of the Mafia, to sue two founders of Fusion GPS in a civil suit claiming a conspiracy of retaliation.

“A prominent human rights activist is suing two of the founders of Fusion GPS and several Venezuelan businessmen under a statute usually associated with the Mafia,” reports The Daily Caller, a conservative American news and opinion website. “Thor Halvorssen, the president of the Human Rights Foundation, claims that Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, two former Wall Street Journal reporters who founded Fusion, engaged in a conspiracy to retaliate against him for blowing the whistle on one of Fusion’s clients, a Venezuelan power plant company called Derwick Associates.”

Halvorssen filed his lawsuit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) statute.

The Daily Caller reports, “Mostly linked to organized crime cases, RICO can also be used in civil cases against legitimate businesses. Halvorssen’s case rests on the theory that Derwick and Fusion GPS engaged in a conspiracy to intimidate a whistleblower, which Halvorssen considers himself to be because he has provided information about an alleged Derwick bribery scheme to federal authorities. …”  

Politico reported on a separate Fusion GPS controversy in January, in which Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson urged lawmakers “to look into what he said were ties between President Donald Trump and Russian money laundering.”

Fusion GPS leapt into headlines because of the firm’s dossier, compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.

According to The Daily Caller, “Halvorssen’s suit does not mention Fusion GPS’s most infamous project: the Steele dossier.”

Halvorssen’s suit claims the two Fusion founders were hired to produce a dossier and a media campaign “to depict Halvorrsen as a pedophile, heroin addict, and embezzler of the Foundation’s money.”

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Bolivian ex-heads of state convicted in U.S. civil trial

May 25, 2018 By
Photo Credit: AP Photo / Dado Galdieri as reported by The Nation 4/27/18.

Photo Credit: AP Photo / Dado Galdieri as reported by The Nation 4/27/18.

An April 3 guilty verdict in a civil trial in Florida marked something unique in case law: “The case marks the first time that an ex-head of state was forced to face his accusers in a US court for human-rights abuses,” reports The Nation.

“The events in the case took place 15 years ago and thousands of miles away from the US district federal courtroom in downtown Fort Lauderdale where the trial played out,” The Nation recounts. “For three weeks in March, the families of people killed by the Bolivian military during a 2003 country-wide uprising testified against former president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and his minister of defense Carlos Sánchez Berzaín.”

The landmark human-rights case stemmed from the U.S. Torture Victims Protection Act, “one of the broadest human-rights laws in the world,” The Nation explains. “The TVPA created the ability to bring cases of extrajudicial killings and torture against foreign officials when the potential remedies are exhausted in a plaintiff’s home country.”

In 2011, Bolivia’s Supreme Court found five former military officials and two former cabinet ministers guilty for their role in the 2003 killings. “After a two-and-a-half-year trial, the generals received 10- to 15-year prison sentences, and the ministers three years a piece,” the article explains.

“Sánchez de Lozada and Sánchez Berzaín were indicted in that case as well, but because at the time Bolivian law prohibited trials in absentia and both were residents in the US, neither was tried. US support for the two men was made explicit in 2007, when Sánchez Berzaín was granted political asylum.”

The 2003 killings happened in the midst of political protests against a natural gas pipeline project. “The coalition government of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, popularly known as Goni, who had won his second term with the help of US Democratic Party election consultants, declared a state of siege and militarized El Alto and surrounding areas,” the article recounts. “Once the dust settled, around 60 people had been killed and over 400 wounded. …”

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Internet freedom in peril from new anti-sex trafficking law

May 21, 2018 By
Photo credit: Vox online article, April 18, 2018, Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Photo credit: Vox online article, April 18, 2018, Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images

A new law that combats sex trafficking could indanger Internet freedom, according to the online news site, Vox.

A flurry of litigation could ensue if the warnings are true.

“The next big battle over internet freedom is here,” warns Vox in its April 23 article. “This month, Washington lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a narrow bill that seeks to crack down on sex trafficking online. To most, it seemed like a no-brainer: Sex trafficking is obviously bad. The law, however, changed Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, a 20-year-old communications law that is the basis of the free internet as we know it.”

The new legislation, signed into law on April 11 by President Trump, “opens more avenues for victims of online sex trafficking to legally pursue websites that facilitate trafficking by amending Section 230, making it easier for federal and state prosecutors and private citizens to go after platforms whose sites have been used by traffickers. …” reports Vox.

“The law creates an exception to Section 230 that means platforms would be responsible for third-party content related to sex trafficking or conduct that ‘promotes or facilitates prostitution.’”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, “the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world,” described Section 230 as crucial to Internet freedom.

“Section 230 says that ‘no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider’ (47 U.S.C. § 230). In other words, online intermediaries that host or republish speech are protected against a range of laws that might otherwise be used to hold them legally responsible for what others say and do. The protected intermediaries include not only regular Internet Service Providers (ISPs), but also a range of ‘interactive computer service providers,’ including basically any online service that publishes third-party content.”

The foundation continues, “This legal and policy framework has allowed for YouTube and Vimeo users to upload their own videos, Amazon and Yelp to offer countless user reviews, craigslist to host classified ads, and Facebook and Twitter to offer social networking to hundreds of millions of Internet users.

Section 230, according to Vox, faces more threats than the new anti-sex trafficking law, “but also in light of increased scrutiny on Facebook and the advent of platforms such as Airbnb and Yelp, where third-party content is the business model.”

 

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Gynecological mesh is making legal headlines

May 14, 2018 By
Caption should be: Photo from CBS 60 Minutes story, 5/13/18.

Photo from CBS 60 Minutes story, 5/13/18.

A strip of plastic called gynecological mesh is making legal headlines. According to CBS’ 60 Minutes, “The manufacturers and several medical societies say the implant is safe. But more than 100,000 women are suing. And together, they make up the largest multi-district litigation since asbestos. “

One of the largest manufacturers of the gynecological mesh is Boston Scientific, which has attracted 48,000 lawsuits, which claim that its mesh “can inflict life-altering pain and injury.” Read more…

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