Writer Makes Great Case For ‘Civil Gideon’ Rights

December 10, 2016 By
AP/John Minchillo A protestor holds his fist in the air during a demonstration outside Hamilton County Courthouse in Cincinnati, November 11, 2016.

AP/John Minchillo
A protestor holds his fist in the air during a demonstration outside Hamilton County Courthouse in Cincinnati, November 11, 2016.

If you’re looking for a great argument in favor of a “civil Gideon” right to counsel in some non-criminal cases, you can’t do much better than an article by Rebecca Backwater-Poza posted at the Center for American Progress. Civil Gideon refers to the criminal-law right to an attorney even if you can’t afford one. The “civil” idea is that some life-altering cases, especially involving housing evictions and family law, should include representation for the poor.
 
She notes that: “While 90 to 95 percent of landlords are represented by lawyers before the Landlord and Tenant Branch of the D.C. Superior Court, only 5 to 10 percent of tenants have legal assistance.2 Unlike criminal defendants, parties in civil cases do not have a generalized right to counsel. While all states provide a right to counsel for at least a few types of civil cases, most parties in civil cases that involve high stakes and basic human needs, such as housing, do not have a right to representation.3
 
In more than three-fourths of all civil trial cases in the United States, at least one litigant does not have a lawyer.4 Figures are even starker when it comes to family law, domestic violence, housing, and small-claims matters—those involving disputes over amounts up to $25,000, depending on the state. At least one party lacks representation in 70 to 98 percent of these cases.” 
 
She also notes that those are only the cases that make to to court; many do not, often because people do not know their rights. It’s compelling reporting.
 
Filed Under: Cases Tagged With: , , , ,

New Federal Law Targets Civil Pot-Forfeiture Issues

September 22, 2015 By
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: , , , , , ,

Legal Weed Still Brings Plenty Of Court Action

September 14, 2015 By
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: , , , , ,