Archives
NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD CALLS FOR RELEASE OF MYCHAL BELL, FOR ALL CHARGES AGAINST THE JENA 6 TO BE DROPPED, AND FOR FEDERAL INVESTIGATION INTO JENA 6 ARRESTS AND PROSECUTIONS / NLG STATEMENT ON JENA 6
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, September 24, 2007Contact: Kerry McLean, kerrymclean at gmail.com
Marjorie Cohn, NLG President, 858-204-3565, libertad48 at san.rr.com
NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD CALLS FOR RELEASE OF MYCHAL BELL, FOR ALL CHARGES AGAINST THE JENA 6 TO BE DROPPED, AND FOR FEDERAL INVESTIGATION INTO JENA 6 ARRESTS AND PROSECUTIONS
The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) calls for the immediate release of Mychal Bell, one of the six high school students who have come to be known as the “Jena 6.” The Guild also calls for all charges against the Jena 6 to be dropped, and for the investigation and disbarment of Judge J.P. Mauffray and District Attorney Reed Walters.
Judge J.P. Mauffray and DA Reed Walters have engaged in a string of egregious actions, the most recent of which was the denial of bail for Bell on Friday. The NLG urges that: 1) The United States Department of Justice convene an immediate inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the arrests and prosecutions of the Jena 6; 2) Judge Mauffray be recused from presiding over Bell’s juvenile court hearings or other proceedings; 3) The Louisiana Office of Disciplinary Counsel investigate Reed Walters for unethical and possibly illegal conduct; 4) The Louisiana Judiciary Commission investigate Judge Mauffray for unethical conduct; and 5) The Jena school district superintendent be removed from office.
“Contrary to what Reed Walters and J.P. Mauffray may think, Jena is subject to the same Constitution that the rest of the United States is,” remarked Kerry McLean, member of the executive board of the NLG.
“There have been numerous, brazen violations of the constitutional rights of the Jena 6.” McLean continued, “In addition to the constitutional violations, Walters and Mauffray have breached the ethical requirements of their offices. They should be made to answer for all of this.”
"The double standard of justice in Jena, one for black students and another for whites, is emblematic of the racism that still permeates many towns throughout the South and the country as a whole. There must be an immediate and full investigation of judicial and prosecutorial malfeasance in Jena, Louisiana," said Marjorie Cohn, President of the NLG.
There is an unequal justice system in Jena, where blacks are routinely the victims of discriminatory and oppressive treatment by officials.
Founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association which did not admit people of color, the National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state.
-30-
NLG STATEMENT ON THE JENA 6:
The story of the Jena 6 began in September 2006 when, seeking shade from the sun, three black high school students sat under a big, leafy tree in their school yard where usually only white students sat. The next day, white students hung nooses on the branches of the tree, because the black students had dared to sit underneath the “white tree.” Hanging nooses, a reference to the brutal lynching of African Americans in previous years, has constituted hate crimes in North Carolina and Maryland. Even so, DA Reed Walters claimed that he could find no Louisiana law to punish the white students responsible. The white students who hung the nooses instead received a three-day, in-school suspension. Notably, the school principal had recommended that the white students be expelled, but the superintendent of the school district overruled that recommendation.
The entire black student body protested the fact that the white students that hung the nooses received only a three-day, in-school suspension by staging a peaceful sit-in under the same tree. The principal and school district superintendent convened a school assembly, and invited Walters to speak. Walters arrived with police officers, and stated that he could take away the black students’ lives with a stroke of his pen.
Walters not only failed to file criminal charges against the students who hung the nooses, he also failed to file charges against a white teen who pulled a shotgun on three black students in the parking lot of a convenience store in December 2006. In a startling twist, the three black teens were arrested and charged with aggravated battery and theft when, exercising their right to self-defense, they managed to take the weapon from the gunman.
In December, shortly before the schoolyard fight for which the Jena 6 were arrested, a white man, Justin Sloan, attacked Robert Bailey with a bottle at a party. Robert Bailey is, coincidentally, one of the Jena 6. DA Walters charged Sloan with simple battery and released Sloan on probation.
Yet in staggering contrast, after a schoolyard fight erupted later that December where a white student was beaten, DA Walters charged six black students with second-degree attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder. The student who was beaten was released from the hospital after two hours, and attended a school function that same night. Walters eventually reduced the charges to aggravated battery for most of the boys because he would not be able satisfy in court the necessary legal elements for attempted murder. Bail for the Jena 6 ranged from $70,000 to $138,000. Most of the six boys remained in jail for months as their parents attempted to raise money for bail. Mychal Bell’s family was never able to raise the money for bail, and he has been in an adult jail since December 2006.
In addition to unequal treatment of blacks and whites under the law, DA Reed Walters has participated in decisions concerning the Jena 6 where there was a conflict of interest. The Jena 6 were immediately expelled from school after being arrested and charged. The six boys appealed their expulsion. The school district conducted an internal investigation regarding the Jena Six, but Walters would not allow the school board to review it before it voted to expel the six boys. Walters’ advice to the school board was likely a violation of the Louisiana State Bar Association’s rules regarding conflicts of interest.
Walters had charged Mychal Bell as an adult, even though Bell was a minor when the fight occurred. Judge Mauffray allowed the trial to proceed. An all-white jury, which included a family friend of the white student who was beaten, found Bell guilty. The Third Circuit vacated the conviction because Bell should not have been tried as an adult. DA Walters has vowed to appeal the Third Circuit’s ruling.
Since the Third Circuit vacated the conviction of Bell in September. Bell’s attorneys sought to have Bell released pending Walters’ appeal of the Third Circuit’s decision. Though Louisiana’s Code of Judicial Conduct requires a judge to “disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” Judge Mauffray, the same judge who presided over Mychal Bell’s trial in adult court, presided over Bell’s juvenile court bail hearing on Friday. Mauffray denied the request for bail.
At a separate hearing on Friday, a court denied Bell’s attorneys’ request to remove Mauffray from Bell’s case. Mauffray set an exceedingly high bail of $90,000 for Bell prior to his conviction. The day before Mauffray’s ruling, the case drew tens of thousands of protesters from all over the country to Jena to rally against the Jim Crow era practices.
"The double standard of justice in Jena, one for black students and another for whites, is emblematic of the racism that still permeates many towns throughout the South and the country as a whole. There must be an immediate and full investigation of judicial and prosecutorial malfeasance in Jena, Louisiana," said Marjorie Cohn, President of the NLG.
# # #
| permalink | related link
LEGAL ORGANIZATIONS URGE REINSTATEMENT OF PROFESSOR ERWIN CHEMERINSKY AS DEAN OF UC IRVINE LAW SCHOOL
LEGAL ORGANIZATIONS URGE REINSTATEMENT OF PROFESSOR ERWIN CHEMERINSKY AS DEAN OF UC IRVINE LAW SCHOOL
Contacts:
*Marjorie Cohn, president, National Lawyers Guild, marjorie@tjsl.edu, (858) 204-3565
*Eileen Kaufman & Tayyab Mahmud, co-presidents, Society of American Law Teachers, eileenk@tourolaw.edu, (631)761-7125; Mahmud@seattleu.edu, (206) 398-4148
*Vincent Warren, executive director, Center for Constitutional Rights, vwarren@ccr-ny.org, 212-614-6468
One week after renowned legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky was offered the position of dean of the new law school at the University of California at Irvine, Chancellor Michael Drake withdrew the offer, informing Duke Law Professor Chemerinsky he had proved to be "too politically controversial."
Art. 9, § 9 of the California Constitution, which sets forth the powers and duties of the
Regents of the University of California, provides, "The university shall be entirely independent of all political or sectarian influence and kept free therefrom in the appointment of its regents and in the administration of its affairs."
Professor Chemerinsky is one of the most eminent law teachers and constitutional law scholars in the country. Author of a leading treatise on constitutional law, he has written four books and more than 100 law review articles. In 2005, he was named by Legal Affairs as one of "the top 20 legal thinkers in America." He has handled many cases in the appellate courts, including the Ninth and Fourth U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court, and has testified many times before congressional and state legislative committees.
Professor Chemerinsky has represented Valerie Plame Wilson, the CIA agent whose identity was revealed by members of the Bush administration; a Guantánamo detainee asserting his right to habeas corpus; a man sentenced to 50 years-to-life under California's three strikes law; and a person challenging the Texas Ten Commandments monument.
Professor Chemerinsky is devoted to public service as well as legal scholarship and education. He was elected by voters to be a Commissioner and chaired the Los Angeles Elected Charter Reform Commission; the new Charter was adopted by voters in 1999. He also spearheaded the Los Angeles Independent Analysis of the Board of Inquiry Report on the Rampart Police Scandal, Prepared at the Request of the Police Protective League, September 2000.
One of the "controversial" matters Chancellor Drake cited to Professor Chemerinsky was an August op-ed the professor wrote in the Los Angeles Times criticizing a proposed regulation by then-Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales to shorten the time death row inmates have to file habeas corpus petitions. In an op-ed in the Sep. 14 Times, Professor Chemerinsky explained, "There are more than 275 individuals on death row in California without lawyers for their post-convictions proceedings. The effect of the new rule would be that many individuals, including innocent ones, would not get the chance to have their cases reviewed in federal court."
Chancellor Drake's action, which sends a clear message to academics that they must avoid speaking out or writing about controversial issues, is a threat to academic freedom. As Professor Chemerinsky wrote, "Without academic freedom, the reality is that many faculty members would be chilled and timid in expressing their views, and the discussion that is essential for the advancement of thought would be lost."
The National Lawyers Guild, the Society of American Law Teachers, and the Center for Constitutional Rights oppose an ideological litmus test for academic appointments and abhor the firing of Professor Chemerinsky. They urge Chancellor Michael Drake to immediately reinstate Professor Erwin Chemerinsky as dean of the UC Irvine Law School.
| permalink | related link
National Lawyers Guild
The United People of Color Caucus (TUPOCC)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, September 13, 2007
Contact: Kerry McLean, 917-334-9331
Marjorie Cohn, NLG President, 858-204-3565
The United People of Color Caucus of the National Lawyers Guild Endorses September 20 Rally in Jena
The United People of Color Caucus (TUPOCC) of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) endorses the planned rally in Jena, Louisiana on September 20 in support of the six black high school students who have come to be known as the “Jena 6.” The rally takes place on the sentencing date of Mychal Bell, one of the Jena 6. “It is still the Jim Crow era in Jena,” said Kerry McLean, TUPOCC member, and member of the NLG national executive board. “The constitutional rights and human rights of these boys have been flagrantly violated. TUPOCC stands in solidarity with the Jena 6, and demands justice.”
Bell, originally charged with attempted murder for allegedly beating up a white student, was later charged with and convicted of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery. A judge recently dismissed the conspiracy conviction, saying that juveniles could not be charged with conspiracy in adult court. The battery conviction remains. Bell faces up to 15 years in prison.
The other five teens, Robert Bailey, Theo Shaw, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis and an unidentified juvenile, face charges ranging from aggravated second-degree battery to attempted second-degree murder. Most of the boys spent months in jail before being able to raise tens of thousands of dollars for bail, and Bell was never able to raise the money to make bail.
The story of the Jena 6 began last September, when three black high school students sought respite from the sun under a leafy tree in the school yard where usually only white students sat. The next day nooses were found hanging from the tree. Though the culprits who hung the nooses were discovered and recommended for expulsion by the principal, the school board chose to reduce their expulsions to a three-day, in-school suspension. After the entire black student body protested peacefully by sitting under the tree, Jena District Attorney Reed Walters informed the school in an assembly that he could take away the lives of the black students with a stroke of his pen.
Over the following months several incidents occurred, including threats and acts of violence against black students to which DA Walters did not respond. However, after a white student was beaten up by black students in December, Walters charged six black students with second-degree attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder. The white student was treated at the hospital, released that same day, and was seen at a social function that very night.
“The situation in Jena makes it apparent that racism continues to thrive in the U.S. ‘criminal justice’ system, and that we must raise our collective voice to a deafening pitch in order to oppose the systems of oppression that continue to treat us as second-class citizens,” said Anne Befu, co-chairperson of TUPOCC. TUPOCC calls on all allies in the fight for racial justice to join the rally on September 20 in Jena, Louisiana.
Founded in 1937as an alternative to the American Bar Association which did not admit people of color, the National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state.
-30-
| permalink | related link
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, September 5, 2007
Contact:
Vanessa K. Lucas, (919) 828-1456, vankatlucas@hotmail.com
Merrilyn Onisko, monisko@yahoo.com
Marjorie Cohn, NLG president, marjorie@tjsl.edu
NLG Denounces Arrest of Jose Maria Sison
Founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines
On August 28, Jose Maria Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), was arrested in The Netherlands by the Dutch police allegedly for two executions enacted by the New People's Army half a globe away. Sison's arrest also served as a pretext to raid his colleagues’ homes and the office of the National Democratic Front (NDF).
Sison is accused of ordering the killings in 2003 and 2004 of Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara, ex-CPP leaders, who, according to the Public Prosecutor's Office, were gunned down in the Philippines, on Sison's command.
Sison has denied any operational role with the New People's Army rebels since leaving the Philippines in 1986, and calls himself a political consultant for the Dutch-based NDF of the Philippines, which has been involved in off-and-on peace negotiations for many years with Manila.
A staff member of the NDF's negotiating team dismissed the allegations against Sison for the murders saying "They are all fabricated charges."
The New Patriotic Alliance, or Bayan, condemned the arrest of Sison and raids on his group's offices as attacks on civil liberties. “This bodes ill for the peace process," the group said. "The arrest was most probably undertaken with the knowledge and prodding of the (Gloria Macapagal) Arroyo government which is out to sabotage all hopes for peace talks."
Gabriela Network (GABNet), the Philippine-US women's solidarity mass organization, denounced the arrest as an extension of the Macapagal-Arroyo government's policy of political repression of Filipinos working and living in countries abroad. GABNet characterized the arrest as yet another attempt by the Macapagal-Arroyo government, in cooperation and in subservience to imperialist globalization, to stifle the patriotic concerns of 10 million overseas Filipinos and solidarity allies of the Philippine people's movement.
The Sison arrest is yet another example of the ongoing assault by the Arroyo regime on the people's right to dissent and to organize. This assault has seen nearly a thousand men and women murdered; rebellion charges filed against members of Philippine Congress; and three NLG lawyers (among others on a "terrorist watchlist") linked to the Taliban by the Philippine government.
The baseless accusations and now the arrest of the exiled founder of the CPP, Jose Maria Sison are just further evidence of trumped up war against those who challenge the Arroyo regime and reinforce the need to stop the repression now.
The NLG urges the Dutch government to free Jose Ma. Sison and drop all charges against this beloved people's leader. We call on those in the U.S. to express their condemnation of the arrest and solidarity with the people’s movement in the Philippines by joining rallies, sending letters and faxes to the Dutch embassy and joining in the on-going discourse on the legality of the Dutch action in the context of international law and governance.
The National Lawyers Guild, founded in 1937, is a progressive bar association in the United States working in the service of the people. Its national office is headquartered in New York and it has chapters in nearly every state, as well as over 100 law school chapters. In 2006, NLG lawyers participated in a delegation of women lawyers to the Philippines, which produced the report Seeking Answers available at http://nlginternational.org/com/main.php?cid=9.
| permalink | related link
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
National Lawyers Guild
132 Nassau Street, Suite 922
New York, NY 10038
Texas Governor Rick Perry
Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 12428
Austin, Texas 78711-2428
Facsimile: (512) 463-1849
Dear Governor Perry,
The National Lawyers Guild is writing to urge you to grant clemency to Kenneth Foster, a man scheduled to be executed in your state tomorrow, August 30. We also ask that you impose an indefinite stay of execution at least until a fully comprehensive examination of the causes of stark racial and geographic disparities in the administration of the death penalty is reviewed and published. Until such a study is undertaken, there is no way to assure the people of the United States—or the world—that Mr. Foster's race and his prosecution in the state of Texas had no bearing on the fact that he will be given the death penalty for his part in a crime.
Mr. Foster is to be executed for driving the car used during an attempted robbery in 1996 when Michael LaHood, Jr., 25, was shot and killed. The man who shot and killed Mr. LaHood, Mauriceo Brown, has already been executed for this crime (July 19, 2006). Mr. Brown confessed to the shooting and claimed he acted alone, completely, and that the other defendants had no knowledge of the shooting.
Despite the fact that Mr. Foster neither left the car nor touched the gun used in the crime, he was sentenced under the state's Law of Parties, where a defendant becomes eligible for capital punishment because of their mere presence at the scene of a crime, because he or she should have anticipated that a death might occur even without the intent to cause death. This is tantamount to death for manslaughter and unquestionably cruel and unusual. Such laws continue to be rightly opposed by human and civil rights organizations, and the National Lawyers Guild implores reconsideration of Mr. Foster's sentence because of how deeply flawed and unjust it is, in addition to the questionable application of the law as cited by a lower court. Lastly, it remains unclear as to why Mr. Foster was not granted the same leniency as his similarly situated co-defendants, Julius Steen and Dewayne Dillard, who were given long prison terms.
We support clemency for Mr. Foster because we believe that all state-sponsored executions are inherently cruel and violate fundamental human rights. In addition, Mr. Foster's execution, if carried out now, would violate the obligation of all governments to ensure that criminal punishments are sought and applied fairly, with reasonable uniformity, and without intentional or unintentional bias or discrimination. There can be no justification for proceeding with an execution when serious questions about the fairness of the death penalty system in general remain unresolved, and especially when one reviews his sentence in contrast to those of his peers.
The National Lawyers Guild opposes the death penalty in all circumstances because it is, without question, cruel and inhumane. The cornerstone of a just society is the concept of human rights, that all human beings possess inherent dignity and inviolability of their person. These principles, the very foundations of civil society, cannot be reconciled with capital punishment: a sentence that is unique in its barbarity and finality, and an ever-hemorrhaging wound in our justice system given its uneven application. The intrinsic fallibility of all criminal justice systems results in the possibility that innocent persons may be executed even when full due process of law is respected. Indeed, an innocent man stands to die this Thursday.
We respectfully urge you to grant Mr. Foster clemency.
Sincerely,
The National Lawyers Guild
cc: Texas Board of Paroles and Prisons
<submitted via facsimile, electronic mail, and U.S. Post>
| permalink | related link
Back Next