Courts Budget

VICE News Looking Hard At Migrant Family Lockups

September 30, 2015 By CCM Staff

The VICE media network has made a living off covering stories under-reported by mainstream (or, more accurately, “more mainstream”) media, and it is focusing on American jails this week. Mostly that is going to involve criminal lockups, but the VICE News is reporting on the family lockups facing a federal judge’s order to release families – and how the government is likely to work around that order.

The report notes what other have missed: “With tens of thousands of migrants flooding into Europe in recent months, it’s easy to forget that the US faced its own refugee crisis last summer when scores of children and mothers bolted from Central America amid heightened gang and drug violence. Desperate for a safe haven, the families mounted buses and trains through Mexico and then poured across the Texas border, seeking political asylum.” To that we would add: Last summer? How about now?

VICE gives some context: “… to combat the influx, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched an “aggressive deterrence” strategy last July designed to discourage more people from coming. The solution, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson announced, was to lock up Central American moms and kids as they fought their asylum cases in court. Previously, DHS did not detain such families, but rather allowed them to pay a small bond as an assurance they would show up to their court dates.

The new DHS strategy spawned a massive, long-term family detention system for Central American people seeking asylum in the US. The agency contracted the nation’s two biggest private prison companies to open facilities in southern Texas that hold about 3,000 people combined and cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to operate. Many families have spent seven or eight months in detention while awaiting their day in court.”

Check out what very likely is going to happen next here.

Filed Under: Border Kids, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: asylum, asylum seeker, family detention center, immigration, immigration reform, refugee, Refugee Crisis

Charter Schools Efforts Play Out In Courts

September 29, 2015 By CCM Staff

Dan Walters, the Sacramento Bee columnist who is picked up by other papers statewide, has noted the ongoing school reform battles that usually end up in civil court. In the context of state officials handing off to local jurisdictions, he noted that they “… haven’t succeeded in persuading judges that they can wash their hands of responsibility, most recently in a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of high-risk students, alleging that they hadn’t received the attention state and federal law require.”

“A state cannot abdicate its supervisory responsibilities by ignoring credible evidence of persistent or significant district noncompliance,” Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Chalfant declared in a recent 45-page decision. “If districts fail to provide services and the state has notice of this failure, the state has a duty … to take reasonable action.”

Faced with that, writes Walters, state officials backed down and agreed to monitor what districts are doing for high-risk kids. The writer does not make this point, but the column offers an example of how much civil courts have become policy-setting bodies. Read the story here.

Filed Under: Cases, Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California politics, charter schools, Civil Courts, Los Angeles, school reform

As Government Delays, Civil Lawsuits Set Pot Policies

September 28, 2015 By CCM Staff

As California considers a sweeping regulatory changes in how it handles marijuana use, the civil courts continue to define how laws will actually be applied. A good recent example, covered by NBC in San Diego, involves a “… couple whose home was raided by agents with guns drawn” who has filed a lawsuit against San Diego law enforcement, alleging their rights as medical marijuana patients were violated.

The report points out that “… the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court is the latest example of the ongoing debate over the rights of medical marijuana patients in California – how their treatment is regulated and how, according to their attorney, these type of cases are perceived by law enforcement.” This particular couple had previously arrested and put on trial for marijuana infractions, but found innocent.

Filed Under: Cannabis in the Courts, Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: California, Civil Courts, court, marijuana, medical marijuana, pot

What Should We Call Those Migrant Refugee Immigrants Seeking Asylum?

September 24, 2015 By CCM Staff

Words matter, and the U.S. media has been struggling to settle on what to call all those folks seeking to leave a very bad place in hopes of a better life. Actually, that would not qualify for “refugee” status, which requires a human to be fleeing war zones or natural disasters. Migrant is a wider net, but loses some of the urgency. “Immigration” carries its own weight. Those seeking asylum, with those political overtones, are yet another situation.

The NPR ombudsman offered an on-air outline of how that standards-leading group approaches the wording. The one thing that seems clear is that just leaving a place because it sucks does not gain the benefits of other status.

See the report here: ‘Refugee’ Or ‘Migrant’: How To Refer To Those Fleeing Home

Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: asylum, asylum seeker, Border Kids, immigration, political asylum, refugee, Syria

New Federal Law Targets Civil Pot-Forfeiture Issues

September 22, 2015 By CCM Staff

For anyone who noted the civil forfeiture issues raised by HBO’s John Oliver (and if you have not, stop whatever you’re doing and watch it now), there’s news of a bill that would target the marijuana aspects of the practice, cutting off some funding for the DEA.

On a Forbes Magazine “recommended blog,” Nick Sibilla of the Institute for Justice reports that a bipartisan bill in Congress “… would prevent the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) from using federal forfeiture funds to pay for its Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program. Additionally, the bill would ban transferring property to federal, state or local agencies if that property ‘is used for any purpose pertaining to’ the DEA’s marijuana eradication program.”

The blog adds some context: “Last year, the program was responsible for over 6,300 arrests, eradicating over 4.3 million marijuana plants and seizing $27.3 million in assets. More than half of all plants destroyed were in California, which also accounted for over one-third of seized assets and nearly 40 percent of the arrests.”

Filed Under: Cannabis in the Courts, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: Civil Forfeiture, criminal justice, DEA, Drug Enforcement Agency, John Oliver, justice reform, marijuana

US Increases Cap On Accepting Refugees

September 21, 2015 By CCM Staff

Photo from The New York Times 9/21 article. They report “Migrants in Bregana, Croatia, near the border with Slovenia. Authorities in Slovenia on Sunday were halting migrants at its border with Croatia to the south and allowing them to pass in small groups.”

Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking in Germany, announced that the United States will increase the number of “worldwide” refugees it will accept until it reaches 100,00 per year in 2017. That is up from the current annual cap of 70,000. The move is in reaction to the high-profile crisis involving European migration and there was no conversation about how the than 400,000 pending immigration cases, many of which involve refugee status claims, might be effected.

Read the NYT story here: U.S. Will Accept More Refugees as Crisis Grows

Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: Border Kids, European Refu, immigration, ISIS, Middle East, Refugee Crisis, Syria, Syrian Conflict, Syrian Revolution

Civil Rights Report Blasts Family Detention Centers For Asylum Seekers

September 18, 2015 By CCM Staff

A new report released last week by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, added to the complaints about the U.S. government’s family detention centers that house asylum seekers who entered the country illegally. Reuters is reporting that the group said it found evidence that the federal government “was interfering with the constitutional rights afforded to detained immigrants,” including their access to legal representation.

Reuters offers context: “… a year ago, President Barack Obama responded to a ‘humanitarian crisis’ unfolding on the U.S. southwestern border with Mexico, as tens of thousands of children – some traveling with parents and others alone – arrived from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Among steps he took were a rapid expansion of detention facilities for migrant women and children. It marked a departure from previous practices of largely tracking the immigrants with electronic ankle bracelets and telephone check-ins, which immigration rights groups argued were effective and far less costly.”

Meanwhile, a federal judge in California has ordered the government to close the facilities because they violate a longstanding agreement on how such asylum seekers will be treated. See that story in the L.A. Times here.

Read the Reuters report here.

Filed Under: Border Kids, Community, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: asylum seekers, Border Kids, civil rights, family detention centers, human rights, immigration, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

NYT Notes ‘Border Kid’ Crisis Is Not Over, But Has Moved

September 15, 2015 By CCM Staff

As reported by NPR: Detainees sleep and watch television in a holding cell where hundreds of mostly Central American immigrant children are being processed at a U.S. Customs facility in Nogales, Texas.

The New York Times has an important story about the “Border Kids” who arrived in the country amid headlines last summer. The paper notes that the number of kids has dropped, but the crisis has moved to courts. Meanwhile, a federal judge in California has given the U.S. government mere weeks to shut down several “family detention” centers because they are illegal.

On the court crisis, the NYT backgrounder is that “… about 84,000 children were apprehended at the Southwest border during the 2014 fiscal year and the first six months of the 2015 fiscal year, according to the Border Patrol. Of the 79,088 removal cases initiated by the government, 15,207 children had been ordered deported as of June, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group in Washington.

“While a small percentage of children have been granted asylum, most are seeking relief from deportation by applying for special immigrant juvenile status, federal officials said. And yet, rather than their claims being expedited, 69 percent of the children on the priority docket still have cases pending, statistics show.

“The burden is far more difficult for children if they do not have a lawyer — a right not granted to defendants in immigration courts — especially because of the accelerated time frame the government established for their cases. After being released to a sponsor, usually a relative, they are on the clock: They are required to make their first court appearance within 21 days of the court’s receiving their case to contest their deportation.”

Read the excellent report here: Immigration Crisis Shifts From Border to Courts

For a refresher on the Family Detention Center, check out our late August blogs, “Obama Admin. Fighting To Keep Family Detention Centers” and “Judge Orders Govt. To Release Detained Kids.”

Filed Under: Border Kids, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Border Kids, California, children, court backlog, court budget, court funding, Dreamers, family detention center, federal court, illegal aliens, illegals, immigration, immigration reform

Legal Weed Still Brings Plenty Of Court Action

September 14, 2015 By CCM Staff

As criminal actions against marijuana users and growers diminish in “legal” states like Colorado and Washington and in more than 30 “medical marijuana” states like California, there has been a new crop of civil litigation. For example, in Riverside County, California the county is facing litigation over a new law that authorities said is a “crackdown the proliferation of large-scale, for-profit marijuana farms” in their communities.

Those operations are usually cooperatives, where many people will combine their rights to create a larger operation. More than a dozen lawsuits are underway to sort out regulatory questions. But medical pot providers say the civil actions amount to another way to shut them down. Read about that in The Riverside Enterprise newspaper.

Up in Washington state, a prosecutor in King County named Dan Satterberg argues that medical pot shops have been selling marijuana illegally for years and that will end soon after he serves lawsuits to 15 collectives in unincorporated parts of the county in the coming days. For years, the NW Cannabis Collective catered to its clients seeking medicine for pain and other conditions.

NW Cannabis CEO Michael Keysor said, “Most of these patients have been given up on by doctors. They have no answers for them.” This month, he received a letter from authorities telling him to shut down or be sued. He says a forced closure will kill his business for good. Again, the authorities are using civil leverage to advance their goals, and you can find Channel 13 TV coverage of that situation here.

Filed Under: Cannabis in the Courts, Community, Courts Budget, Events Tagged With: cannabis, civil litigation, Courts, criminal justice, legalization, marijuana

Medical Cannabis Parents Getting Caught Up with Child Endangerment Charges

September 10, 2015 By CCM Staff

As cannabis laws shift at a rapid clip across the country, medical cannabis patients seem to be unexpectedly caught in a web of child protective services. Such was the case for Shawnee Anderson according to Al Jazeera America. An argument over a dirty diaper turned into a loud couple’s squabble, prompting a neighbor to call the police. The fight proved to be the least of their worries as police found remnants of their medical cannabis. The couple spent five days in jail and have been fighting while their son was placed in foster care for nearly two weeks.

This story is not unusual for parents in the 23 states where medical cannabis is legal. While it is legal for medical purposes, civil issues like family law are proving tricky. The article notes that “Meanwhile, low-income families of color are more likely to face neglect charges involving pot, as they tend to live in more heavily policed neighborhoods and give birth in hospitals that may be more likely to conduct drug testing on newborns.”

As we have reported before, the lack of Civil Gideon means there is no requirement that the government provide legal services for people who cannot afford them. This puts low-income families at a significant disadvantage when going up against state child advocates well-versed in the court system. Without legal counsel, parents may lose custody of their children simply for legally consuming a drug.

See more on the story here, “Parents face child abuse investigations over pot use.”

We also recommend following the national story on Shona Banda who is fighting for custody of her son, and against felony charges that could put her in jail for 3 decades. See “This Mom Faces Prison For Medical Marijuana.”

Filed Under: Cannabis in the Courts, Community, Courts Budget, National Tagged With: cannabis, child custody, civil law, family law, legalization, medical cannabis, medical marijuana