In response to protests in Pennsylvania and around the country to hold police accountable, Pennsylvania’s state legislature has responded by trying to expand the role of secrecy in government. To vote NO on House Bill 27, click this link. Photo via Thomas Hawk.
By Andy Hoover, Communications director, ACLU of Pennsylvania
A social justice movement knows that it is having an impact when it faces backlash. And so it is with the movement for black lives and the response it’s getting from the Pennsylvania General Assembly.
As people from communities around the state and around the country have called for fairer treatment from the police and more transparency in how police operate, our state legislature is maneuvering to use state law to withhold as much information as possible from the public.
Next week, the state House of Representatives is prepared to vote on legislation to hide the identities of police officers who kill or seriously injure someone. Public officials could be charged with a second-degree misdemeanor for violating the gag order.
Ostensibly, this public blackout would last 30 days. But the bill also prohibits releasing an officer’s name if doing so “can reasonably be expected to create a risk of harm to the person or property” of the officer or his family. In practice, the gag order will go on indefinitely. What public official would risk it otherwise, especially with the threat of criminal charges?
The supporters argue “safety,” as they always do when they want to undermine civil liberties. And yet they cannot point to a single documented case in which the safety of an officer who used force was under credible threat of harm.
In November, Governor Wolf vetoed a similar bill, and in his veto statement, he said, “Government works best when trust and openness exist between citizens and their government. I cannot agree to sign this bill, because it will enshrine into law a policy to withhold important information from the public.”
We agree. Police officers are public employees with extraordinary powers. They have the power to deprive people of their liberty and even to deprive people of their lives. With that power comes the expectation that they will operate with openness for the public to see.
We are not alone in that opinion. Former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey has said that police officers cannot shoot someone and have an expectation to remain anonymous. Open government advocate Terry Mutchler, the former head of the Office of Open Records, told the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, “This type of legislation, while very well intended, which I understand coming from a long family of cops, collides with open government. Government must be open and transparent no matter how difficult that may seem at times.”
In urging Wolf to veto last year, state Representative Jordan Harris, the chairman of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus, wrote, “(T)his bill would cast a cloak of secrecy around police officers at a time when the public most demands information. This is not how you rebuild community-police relationships.”
Last year, the bill even received national attention, including from David Simon, creator of “The Wire.”
And now the bill is back. The ACLU of Pennsylvania has created an action for you to contact your state representative to tell them to vote NO on House Bill 27. The action is available at this link.
There is a lot of gloomy talk these days about where we are headed as a country. This bill and others like it that hide information about police practices from the public create an environment in which police are hidden and unaccountable. Be assured that the ACLU of Pennsylvania will do whatever is necessary to stop it.
Onto the links.
EXCERPTS
Criminal justice news that could use a second look.)
What happens when cops lie? Photo via Vice.
From Vice: “Why Cops Don’t Get Charged with Crimes When They Lie”
“According to Professor Yaroshefsky, the DA’s implicit concession that its office fails to search out evidence favorable to defendants in police files could leave it vulnerable to a federal lawsuit down the line. But Kline, in a statement, shifted the burden to the police department, saying they all ‘must rely on the department and on other sources to identify appropriate cases for review. We note that the premise of your inquiry appears to be that all internal police discipline is automatically Brady material. The expert you quote does not say that, and we do not believe it is the law.’ Meanwhile, Philly DA Seth Williams is on his way out, and Larry Krasner, a longtime civil rights attorney, is hoping to succeed him with a campaign premised on rooting out some of the police misconduct local prosecutors have long countenanced. ‘I’ve seen first hand how dirty they can get,’ Thompson said in his Internal Affairs complaint. ‘Even if they don’t like the tone of your voice they are not God.’”
From PennLive: “Immigration agents flood Allison Hill in Harrisburg”
“The ICE agents do not partner with police or even notify police of their raids, Olivera said. Instead, police have found out about the series of daily raids, some starting as early as 5 a.m., from residents. ‘Several people have been taken into custody,’ Olivera said. ‘Families have been broken up.’ The organization, Movement of Immigrant Leaders in Pennsylvania, or MILPA, is planning a 6 p.m. news conference Monday about the raids, said Harrisburg City Councilwoman Shamaine Daniels. The event will be at the St. Francis Assisi Church in Harrisburg. The raids have caused such fear in certain pockets of Allison Hill that residents are afraid to go to the corner store, Olivera said. Some parents are reluctant to drop their children off at school for fear of getting stopped, said Daniels, who is an immigration attorney. Instead, the children are missing classes. ‘It’s really bad,’ Daniels said. ‘They don’t just stop the person they’re looking for. They hassle everyone who’s around.'”
From The York Daily Record: “After ICE arrests immigrants, Springettsbury restaurant reopens”
“The four kitchen employees were arrested as part of a recent surge in Immigration & Customs Enforcement activity, said Stephen Converse, the attorney representing them. The men are all in their mid- to late 20s and are from Guatemala, Mexico and El Salvador. Converse declined to provide his clients’ names, but he said none has a criminal record. Their only crimes, he said, are being undocumented immigrants.”
From The Marshall Project: “The Seismic Change in Police Interrogations: A major player in law enforcement says it will no longer use a method linked to false confessions.”
“The technique was first introduced in the 1940s and 50s by polygraph expert John Reid, who intended it to be a modern-era reform — replacing the beatings that police frequently used to elicit information. His tactics soon became dogma in police departments and were considered so successful in garnering confessions that, in its famous 1966 Miranda decision, the U.S. Supreme Court cited it as a reason why suspects must be warned of their right against self-incrimination.But the advent of DNA evidence and advocacy by the Innocence Project in the 1990s showed that about one-third of exonerations involve confessions, once believed to be an absolute sign of guilt. Academics have theories why someone would falsely confess to a crime, including having a mental disability, being interviewed without a lawyer or parent in the room, or suffering through hours or days in jail before questioning.”
HEADLINES
(Criminal justice news to be aware of.)
Plastic Jesus strikes Philly. Photo via Philly.com.
Pennsylvania
- From Philly.com: “L.A. Street artist’s anti-Trump project marks a ‘future internment camp’ site in South Philly”
- From The Marshall Project: “Philadelphia Will Stop Billing Parents When Their Children Are Incarcerated”
- From Courthouse News Service: “Justices Won’t Answer Forfeiture Questions Yet”
- From The Daily News: “2 more Philly-area prosecutors tapped for lead roles in AG’s Office”
- From The Morning Call: “Immigration crackdown could stir up green card scams”
- From Philadelphia Weekly: “The curious case of Philly’s increasingly unsolved murders”
- From The Post-Gazette: “Auditor General says taxing marijuana could yield $200 million for state.” (Meanwhile, from CBS Philly: “Wolf: Pennsylvania Not Ready For Legalized Marijuana”)
- From The Post-Gazette: “Committee to select new U.S. attorney interviews candidates”
- From The Inquirer: “How Philly goes after the poor for child support, keeping families apart”
Pa. District Attorneys
- From The Inquirer: “Philly DA will seek life without parole for some juveniles, after all”
- From Newsworks: “New DA candidate jumps into crowded Philly field”
- From City&State: “Joe Khan’s quest to return to the District Attorney’s Office – as DA”
- From The Daily News: “Seven Democrats file in primary election for District Attorney”
- From Philadelphia Magazine: “Meet the D.A. Candidate Who’s Defended Black Lives Matter and Occupy in Court”
National
- From NBC News: “Number of Exonerations Hits Record for Third-Straight Year.” (Read the report.)
- From The Washington Post: “This company is making millions from America’s broken immigration system”
- From The Chicago Tribune: “ATF sting operation accused of using racial bias in finding targets, with majority being minorities”‘
- From Washington City Paper: “The Latest in the Search for a Missing Recording That Might Exonerate a Murder Convict”
- From The Missoulian: “Lawsuit over accommodations for disabled inmates settled.” Read the settlement, from ACLU Montana, here.
- From The Washington Post: “Despite a mother’s plea, her mentally ill daughter was sold a firearm. Here’s why she sued.”
- From The San Francisco Chronicle: “For SF’s black defendants, it’s hard to find jury of peers”
- From The Intercept: “How Junk Arson Science Convicted a Mother of Killing Her Own Daughters”
- From Ars Technica: “To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case; DOJ: ‘Disclosure is not currently an option.’”
- From The Washington Post: “Racial bias in the jury room can violate a defendant’s right to a fair trial, Supreme Court says”
- From TeleSUR: “Lynne Stewart, Lifelong Fighter and People’s Lawyer, Dies”
- From Ebony: “African-Americans More Likely to be Wrongfully Convicted, Study Finds”
The Appeal is a weekly newsletter keeping you informed about criminal justice news in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania and beyond. It is written and compiled by Matt Stroud, ACLU-PA’s criminal justice researcher, along with ACLU-PA interns Morgan Everett and Bethel Habte.
If you have suggestions for links or criminal justice-related work that you’d like to highlight in The Appeal — or ways that we might improve — please email Matt Stroud at mstroud@aclupa.org. And if someone forwarded this email to you, and you’d like to receive it every Friday, you can subscribe here.
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