The Government Can’t Send You a Bill for Your Free Speech

 

Let’s not charge protesters for public safety costs when they exercise their First Amendment rights.

By Elizabeth Randol, ACLU-PA Legislative Director

Imagine if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., future Congressman John Lewis, and their compatriots in the civil rights movement had been stuck paying the fiscal costs of Sheriff Bull Connor’s harassment, beatings, and arrests. Under a proposal before the Pennsylvania Senate, people who take to the streets to express their political views would have to do exactly that if they end up on the wrong side of the law.

On August 16th, four days after the white supremacist demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, Senator Scott Martin (R-Lancaster) introduced a bill that could hold protesters liable for public safety costs associated with demonstrations. But despite the timing, Charlottesville wasn’t the primary trigger for this proposed legislation; the Dakota Access Pipeline protests were.

Under Senate Bill 754, courts could hold individuals convicted of protest-related misdemeanors or felonies liable for all public safety costs associated with demonstrations. This legislation is most certainly unconstitutional and would likely be struck down in federal court, but only after a costly legal fight.

Read more about SB754 at ACLU-PA’s Medium page.

On to the links.

EXCERPTS
(Criminal justice news deserving of an in-depth look.)

 

Don’t believe claims to the contrary. Tasers kill. Photo via Flickr.

Reuters: “The Toll”

“Reuters documented 1,005 incidents in the United States in which people died after police stunned them with Tasers, nearly all since the early 2000s – the most thorough accounting to date of fatal encounters involving the paralyzing stun guns. Many of the casualties are among society’s vulnerable…. Most independent researchers who’ve studied the weapons agree deaths are rare when Tasers are used properly. But the probability of dying from a Taser shock in a police encounter may be incalculable, researchers say, citing a lack of official data on stun-gun use, the fact that deaths often have more than one cause, and other complexities. No government agency tracks fatalities in police incidents where Tasers are used. Autopsies are not public in some states. And coroners and medical examiners use varying standards to assess a Taser’s role in a death. The language of their rulings ranges from detailed and rigorous to thin and opaque.”

Philly.com: “After 40 years, prosecutor worries he locked up wrong man”

“I am nearly 70 years old and in the process of winding down my legal career. Before I retire, however, I thought it was essential to address the conviction of Kevin Brinkley and my lingering doubts both then [and now] about his guilt. As time has passed, I have come to believe that a very significant doubt exists as to whether Kevin Brinkley killed Charles Haag, and that Ronald Brinkley was the actual killer.”

Washington Post: “[Pardoning Joe Arpaio] would be a travesty of justice”

“Even as Mr. Trump was busy last week condoning the goons and thugs who invaded Charlottesville — there were ‘very fine people’ among them, the president said — he was praising Mr. Arpaio for his ‘crackdown’ on illegal immigration and saying he was seriously considering a pardon for him. ‘He’s a great American patriot, and I hate to see what has happened to him,’ Mr. Trump said. To say such a thing is to twist the meaning of patriotism. Mr. Arpaio, who used ethnicity as a wedge issue and delighted in humiliating the immigrants he arrested and incarcerating them in inhumane conditions, is no more a patriot than the thugs in Charlottesville are. Pardoning him would be a travesty of justice that would further discredit a presidency already stained by Mr. Trump’s words and conduct.”

The most infuriating thing you’ll read this week, from Law Officer: “Three years after the big lie”

“The shooting of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson became the biggest lie ever told in American Law Enforcement and served as a backdrop for many lies told ever since, not only in that case but many others. Admittedly, I have been hesitant to speak here at Law Officer about Ferguson. While I speak at length about it in the Courageous Leadership Seminar, I spoke about it one time here and was summarily attacked by some in my own community where I work. Just the idea that ‘hands up…don’t shoot’ didn’t happen sent a few nefarious characters into a tailspin. No explanation of the facts would do and the pressure to be silenced was immense. Three years after the incident, I once again read the Department of Justice Report and decided that I will be silenced no longer. It is evil to continue to perpetuate the ‘Lie of Ferguson’ and I am disappointed in myself that I let evil keep me quiet. I will no longer be quiet. Officer Darren Wilson suffered mightily and will feel the repercussions of the cop haters, liars and evil doers for the rest of his life. The least that I owe him is to continue to tell the truth.”

HEADLINES
(Criminal justice news to be aware of.)

 

A noose hangs at 18th and Lombard Streets in Philadelphia on July 7. Police investigated. From Philly.com.

Pennsylvania

• Philly.com: “Since Trump, more slurs, signs and discrimination in Philly”
• More Philly.com: “Philly-area law firms bullish on cannabis despite grave legal risks”
• Associated Press: “Lawsuit: Pa. school (embattled Woodland Hills HS, outside Pittsburgh) created culture of abuse and excessive force”
• CBS Philly: “New Yorker Chosen To Lead Philadelphia Police Advisory Commission”
• The Legal Intelligencer: “Justices Agree to Mull Limits of Warrantless Police Re-entry”
• The Morning Call: “Norco drug forfeiture program netted $132K last year”
• The Incline: “State Democrats call for the expansion of hate crime laws in Pennsylvania after Charlottesville’s deadly clashes”
• PennLive: “Pa. hate groups: some open, some hidden, some claim to be mislabeled”
• BBC: “Killer robots: Experts warn of ‘third revolution in warfare'”
• Public Opinion: “First local hemp crop is ready for harvest”
• Philly.com: “Since Trump, more slurs, signs and discrimination in Philly”
• Penn Live: “New law gives first-time DUI offenders an option to losing their license for a year”
• Philly.com: “Pa. high court orders new death penalty hearing in ’84 murder of Germantown deacon”
• CNHI News: “Pennsylvania’s sex offender registry could shrink after court ruling”
• Philly.com: “Pa. high court orders new death penalty hearing in ’84 murder of Germantown deacon” (Pa. Supreme Court opinion)
• Philadelphia Weekly: “Life of a lifer: Sentenced as a juvenile to life without chance of parole, a Supreme Court ruling gives Philadelphia man second chance at a meaningful life”
• Times-Herald: “Pennsylvania prison system reports promising results in recidivism effort”
• Newsworks: “Pa. experimenting with quick penalties for probation violators”
• Philly.com: “Philly detective fired as police, feds probe conduct”

National

• Meet Your DA
• The Ezra Klein Show: “Why prosecutors, not cops, are the keys to criminal justice reform”
• Associated Press: “Fallen forensics: Judges routinely allow disavowed science”
• Stateline: “‘Ban the Box’ Laws May Be Harming Young Black Men Seeking Jobs”
• New York Times: “‘We Can’t Just Pull Out Our Gun’: Border Patrol Alters Training”
• CityLab: “How Police Are Using Stop-and-Frisk Four Years After A Seminal Court Ruling”
• Motley Fool: “A Record Number of Americans Have Tried Marijuana, New Survey Shows”
• Tribune News Service: “OPED: Sessions should respect states’ policies on pot”
• Chicago Magazine: “The Contradictions of Chicago Police’s Secretive List”
• Marketplace: “When in prison, the costs are steep and the pay is close to nothing”
• CityLab: “Seeking Peace and Justice, Montgomery Plans a Lynching Memorial”
• New York Times: “New Jersey Is Front Line in a National Battle Over Bail”
• Washington Post: “Johnson & Johnson says its drug shouldn’t be used in executions”
• Baltimore Sun: “Prosecutors say a third body-camera video shows ‘questionable activity’ by police, drop dozens more cases”
• WNYC: “Tribal Justice in the American Court System”

Trump Criminal Justice Watch

• The Week: “Jared Kushner’s real estate firm has sought the arrest of more than 100 ex-tenants over unpaid debts”
• Guardian: “How Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump have restarted the war on drugs”
• More Guardian: “Trump order could give immigration agents a foothold in US schools”
• Washington Post: “Attorney General Sessions’s absurd link between sanctuary policies and crimes in Chicago and Miami-Dade”
• The Verge: “Justice Department walks back demand for information on anti-Trump website”
• Vice News: “State of no emergency”
• The Criminal Report: “Aides Urge Trump to Save ‘Dreamers’ in Immigration Deal”
• The Intercept: “Trump Threatens Funding For California Cops Over ‘Sanctuary State’ Bill”

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, and ACLU-PA’s summer criminal justice interns, Emilia Beuger and Andrew Arslanpay.

If you have suggestions for links or criminal justice-related work that you’d like to highlight in The Appeal, or if you have suggestions for ways that we might improve, please email Matt 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.

This newsletter is governed by ACLU-PA’s privacy policy, which you can read here.