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Category: Legal System

  • NYT Fails To Examine Its Participation In Brazil’s ‘Biggest Judicial Scandal’

    The Brazilian Supreme Court on March 8 dismissed all charges against former President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva made during the Lava Jato investigation, a little over a month after the investigation was officially ended. The termination came shortly after the Supreme Court admitted 6 terabytes of leaked Telegram chats between public prosecutors and judges as evidence in the case.

    A small portion of the leaks, released slowly by the Intercept Brasil and local media partners in 107 articles, revealed that Judge Sergio Moro illegally instructed prosecutors in cases he was ruling on; these leaks also exposed dozens of  secret, illegal meetings with agents of the US FBI. Lula’s defense lawyers have now released new, devastating information, in the context of a series of motions to dismiss.

    In one conversation, Lava Jato taskforce chief Delton Dallagnol refers to Lula’s imprisonment as a gift from the CIA.

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  • KC Tenants’ Month Of Activism Broke The System

    Daniel Halferty was behind on rent. “When I made a partial payment in October, [my landlord] texted me, berating me.”

    Halferty had been hunting for a job since April, but with a history of cancer and traumatic brain injury, he was cautious about finding a job that would be fairly safe from COVID-19. 

    Halferty started his new job at the end of November, and made a payment plan to catch up on past-due rent. That was fine with his landlord, Ellis Real Estate, until Halferty asked to delay just 2 weeks, so he could prevent his utilities from being shut off. Then his landlord stopped communicating.

    “They just cut out all communication to me, and then Christmas Eve, we had the notice from the lawyer on our door that we were going to be sued for $2,925. They had 30 days to collect the payment and get the apartment back.”

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  • First Trial For The Police Murder Of George Floyd Opens

    The opening of the trial of Derek Chauvin, one of the four former Minneapolis, Minnesota, police officers charged in the death of 46-year-old George Floyd, was delayed for at least a day Monday after Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill postponed jury selection as an appellate court reviews the possible reinstatement of a lesser third-degree murder charge dropped last fall.

    Currently, Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter for his actions last May. Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes while he was handcuffed and pinned to the pavement by two other officers. Legal experts suggest a third-degree murder charge would be easier for the prosecution to prove.

    Minnesota law defines third-degree murder as “without intent to effect the death of any person, causing the death of another by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life.”

    The post First Trial For The Police Murder Of George Floyd Opens appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • Bayer’s Class Action Settlement Plan Draws Widespread Outrage, Opposition

    More than 90 law firms and more than 160 lawyers have notified a federal court judge overseeing U.S. Roundup litigation that they oppose Monsanto owner Bayer AG’s $2 billion plan to settle future claims the company expects to be brought by people diagnosed with cancer they blame on use of Monsanto’s herbicide products.

    In recent days, nine separate objections to the plan and four amicus briefs have been filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, letting Judge Vince Chhabria know the extent of opposition to the proposed class settlement. Chhabria has been overseeing thousands of Roundup cancer lawsuits in what is called ‘multidistrict litigation’ (MDL).

    On Monday, the National Trial Lawyers (NTL) joined in the opposition on behalf of its 14,000 members. The group said in their filing with the court that they agree with the opposition that “the proposed settlement seriously endangers access to justice for millions of people in the proposed class, would prevent Monsanto’s victims from holding it accountable, and would reward Monsanto in numerous respects.”

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  • This Obscure Energy Treaty Is The Greatest Threat To The Planet

    On 4 February the German energy giant RWE announced it was suing the government of the Netherlands. The crime? Proposing to phase out coal from the country’s electricity mix. The company, which is Europe’s biggest emitter of carbon, is demanding €1.4bn in ‘compensation’ from the country for loss of potential earnings, because the Dutch government has banned the burning of coal for electricity from 2030.

    If this sounds unreasonable, then you might be surprised to learn that this kind of legal action is perfectly normal – and likely to become far more commonplace in the coming years.

    RWE is suing under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), a little-known international agreement signed without much public debate in 1994. The treaty binds more than 50 countries, and allows foreign investors in the energy sector to sue governments for decisions that might negatively impact their profits – including climate policies.

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  • Defending Standing Rock, Combating State Repression

    On February 3, Standing Rock protester Steve Martinez appeared before a grand jury in North Dakota. The US Attorney’s Office had subpoenaed Steve in an ongoing investigation into a 2016 incident in which another protester, Sophia Wilansky, was gravely injured. After refusing to testify, the Magistrate Judge overseeing the grand jury held Steve in contempt of court and ordered him imprisoned. After nearly three weeks in jail, Steve was released, but the government’s attack on him continues.

    In order to learn more about his case and the broader climate of repression against activists and protestors, I spoke with Lauren Regan, executive director and lead attorney with the Civil Liberties Defense Center in Oregon. The Civil Liberties Defense Center is an organization founded to give legal, educational, and strategic support to social movements that seek to dismantle the political and economic structures at the root of social and environmental destruction.

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  • Protesters Block Intersection In Support Of Jailed Indigenous Elder

    A group of protesters has blocked the port access at Clark and Hastings in Vancouver since Tuesday night.

    The action was organized by Braided Warriors, a newly formed group, made up of Indigenous youth from many Nations, who fights for Indigenous sovereignty mostly on the unceded territories of the Səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) nations. The group is calling for the release of Indigenous elder Stacy Gallagher who was sentenced to 90 days in jail Tuesday.

    Gallagher was handed the sentence in B.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday by judge Shelley Fitzpatrick for violating an injunction that bars people from protests at Trans Mountain sites in Burnaby. It was at the Burnaby tank farm in 2019 where Gallagher took part in a smudging ceremony and was subsequently apprehended and charged.

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  • Black Mass Incarceration In The So-Called Free State

    Maryland holds itself up as a progressive state when it comes to criminal justice, but a recent report highlights a stark reality: Maryland incarcerates Black people at more than twice the national rate. Until recently, the horrifyingly unjust reality of America’s mass incarceration system has not been a central concern in popular political discourse. In […]

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  • New Report: Judge, Jury And Occupier

    Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian land is now in its 54th year. Throughout this time Palestinians have never stopped fighting for their inalienable rights; rights denied to them by the systemic and daily violence of occupation. This violence is manifested in settlements, checkpoints, the Apartheid Wall – and in Israel’s farreaching system of military rule in the West Bank, enforced by military courts and prisons: the topic of this report.

    As of January 2021, Israel holds 4,500 Palestinians as political prisoners, 450 of whom are held in administrative detention, and 140 of whom are children. Like hundreds of thousands of Palestinians before them, they have either been sentenced in Israel’smilitary courts run entirely by Israeli military personnel; or in the case of administrative detainees, imprisoned without charge or trial. Their imprisonment ‘offences’ include possession of political pamphlets, holding political meetings, and participating in peaceful demonstrations.

    The post New Report: Judge, Jury And Occupier appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • The Carceral Force Of Prosecutor Associations, Explained

    The California District Attorneys Association (CDAA), a statewide advocacy group, misappropriated almost $3 million that was earmarked to support public interest advocacy, and instead used it for general expenses including lobbying, according to a recent audit. The state attorney general’s office is currently reviewing the audit, but whether the CDAA’s misappropriation of funds results in criminal charges or other state action, the findings are remarkable and especially newsworthy because the CDAA is an organization of prosecutors—the chief county law enforcement officers in the state, and those primarily responsible for the day-to-day functions of the state’s criminal legal system. 

    The post The Carceral Force Of Prosecutor Associations, Explained appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • I’m On Hunger Strike In Guantánamo

    There are very few freedoms at Guantánamo Bay prison, where I have been held without charge or trial — referred to as Guantánamo ISN 1461 — for over 16 years. The right to starve myself is one of them, but even then, they force-feed me, to spare themselves the embarrassment of my death.

    Back in Pakistan, before I was kidnapped and tortured and flown halfway around the world in chains, I loved cooking. There is nothing more satisfying than preparing a hot meal for your family and sharing it with them. Here, I am allowed to cook for my fellow prisoners, but only in a microwave, and the guards could take even that away at any time. I never eat the food myself. I have been on hunger strike for seven years in protest at my indefinite detention.

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  • Activists Who Forced Elijah McClain Investigation Face Retaliation

    People all over the country are learning about the explosive new report just out in Aurora, CO which concluded that the Aurora Police’s entire encounter with Elijah McClain which ended in his death was unjustified. What is not being talked about in most media coverage is that the organizers who led the massive peaceful protests which forced this report to be commissioned are still facing as many as 48 years in prison.

    The city of Aurora commissioned the independent investigation that produced the report on July 20, 2020 under the pressure of massive peaceful protests demanding accountability for the murder of Elijah McClain. Peaceful protests of unprecedented scale swept Aurora on June 27, July 3, and July 12.

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  • Students At Fordham University Fight For Their Right To Support Palestine

    Veer Shetty wants what hundreds of other college students have: a school club that speaks out for Palestine on campus. 

    Shetty grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with a close Palestinian friend who told him horror stories about the Israeli occupation. So when he started school at New York’s Fordham University, he was determined to get active in the struggle for Palestinian rights.

    For the past year and a half, the college senior has had the chance to do so. As vice-president of Fordham’s Students for Justice in Palestine club, Shetty has helped to organize various Palestine-related cultural and political events for his fellow students. “Having a budget and being a sanctioned club, we did what we wanted to do: showing movies and having awesome speakers come in and further the discourse on the Israel-Palestine issue on campus,” Shetty told +972.

    The post Students At Fordham University Fight For Their Right To Support Palestine appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • More States Propose Harsh New Penalties For Protesting Fossil Fuels

    Dawn Goodwin spent her 50th birthday among towering pines and yellow birches whose tree rings make her lifespan seem like a child’s in comparison. But on that cool, overcast Saturday in December, the growling of construction trucks and chainsaws drowned out the natural soundscape of gushing freshwater and wind whispering between pine needles on the banks of the Mississippi River. 

    Goodwin was at this river crossing near Palisade, Minnesota, to protest the construction of the energy company Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline, a $9.3 billion project to carry tar-sands oil ― one of the dirtiest varieties of crude oil ― from Joliette, North Dakota, to a terminal facility in Clearbrook, Minnesota. From there, it’s distributed to refineries. Goodwin winced as workers felled a mighty spruce while clearing a 50-foot berth for the pipeline, its sappy rings laid bare as its crown thudded to the ground.

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  • UK Top Court Gives Uber Drivers Benefits In Landmark Ruling

    London – Uber drivers in Britain should be classed as “workers” and not self-employed, the U.K. Supreme Court ruled Friday, in a decision that threatens the company’s business model and holds broader implications for the so-called gig economy.

    The ruling paves the way for Uber drivers to get benefits such as paid holidays and the minimum wage, handing defeat to the ride-hailing giant in the culmination of a long-running legal battle.

    The Supreme Court’s seven judges unanimously rejected Uber’s appeal against an employment tribunal ruling, which had found that two Uber drivers were “workers” under British law.

    Yaseen Aslam and James Farrar, the two drivers, cheered the outcome.

    The post UK Top Court Gives Uber Drivers Benefits In Landmark Ruling appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • Indigenous Water Protector Jailed For Refusing To Cooperate With Grand Jury

    Bismarck, North Dakota – Water Protector Steve Martinez is confined in Burleigh County Detention Center after refusing, on principle, to give testimony before a federal grand jury. This Grand Jury, like the one at which Martinez refused to testify three years ago, ostensibly involves a criminal investigation into events leading to the grievous injury of Water Protector Sophia Wilansky. It has been the position of Morton County, ND that Ms. Wilansky was not injured as a result of excessive force by law enforcement, but by the actions of Water Protectors. In a federal civil rights lawsuit against Morton County, however, Wilansky says she was shot in the arm with a concussion grenade by a…

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  • Government Secrecy Causes Conspiracy Theories

    The DC Circuit has ruled that the CIA is under no obligation to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests pertaining to its involvement with insurgent militias in Syria, overturning a lower court’s previous ruling in favor of a Buzzfeed News reporter seeking such documents.

    As Sputnik‘s Morgan Artyukhina clearly outlines, this ruling comes despite the fact that mainstream news outlets have been reporting on the Central Intelligence Agency’s activities in Syria for years, and despite a US president having openly tweeted about those activities.

    “In other words, the CIA will not be required to admit to actions it is widely reported as having done, much less divulge documents about them to the press for…

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  • Wrongly Jailed Queens Youth Organized Own Defense From Prison

    On Feb. 10, now 21-year-old Prakash Churaman of Queens, New York, stood on the steps of Queens Criminal Court addressing a crowd of supporters just before his latest trial. He spoke confidently into the mic: “I’m ready to fight. This is round two. And I just want to say…free them all!” 

    At age 15, Churaman was held and aggressively interrogated by the New York Police Department for the fatal shooting of his best friend Taquane Clark. After he and his mother were subjected to hours of intimidation tactics by Detectives Barry Brown and Daniel Gallagher, Churaman agreed to say whatever they wanted to hear: in this case, a false admission of guilt. 

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  • Judge Refuses Injunction To Stop Sacred Oak Flat Destruction

    Phoenix, AZ – This afternoon, U.S. District Court Judge Steven Logan denied Apache Stronghold’s request for an injunction preventing the giveaway and destruction of sacred Oak Flat to Rio Tinto/Resolution Copper.  Judge Logan said that Apache Stronghold has no right to ask the Court for help because they are not an officially designated a “sovereign nation.”  Judge Logan said that the U.S. Government has no Trust Responsibility to the Apache even though their Treaty of 1852 says, “the government of the United States shall so legislate and act as to secure the permanent prosperity and happiness of said Indians.” 

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  • DOJ Drops Lawsuit To Block California Net Neutrality Law

    The US Department of Justice under President Joe Biden has dropped a department lawsuit filed under former President Donald Trump that challenged California’s net neutrality rules. California’s law, considered more strict than federal rules adopted during the Obama administration, could set the baseline for future federal rules. 

    The DOJ formally dismissed the lawsuit Monday. The suit was first filed in 2018 under ex-US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a Trump appointee. Former California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, signed the California law in October 2018. California adopted the new rules after a Republican-led FCC in 2017 repealed federal rules that had been established under President Barrack Obama. 

    The post DOJ Drops Lawsuit To Block California Net Neutrality Law appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • Demands To Drop The Charges On The 646 Mass Arrested

    Minneapolis, MN – Three months after six hundred forty-six people were mass arrested on Interstate 94 in Minneapolis, calls to drop the charges are continuing. A February 5 rally at the Hennepin County Government Center demanded specifically that a felony charge on college student Amina McCaskill be dropped, along with the charges and citations given to the other 645. Dozens braved single-digit temperatures for the Friday rally that featured Amina and numerous speakers that were also part of the 646. Unicorn Riot live streamed the rally and spoke with Amina afterwards. Civil rights lawyer, Nekima Levy Armstrong, expressed outrage that Amina is facing “worse charges than most of these cops out here in the street” that are doing harm to the community.

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  • Development Arrested

    **How does a seventh grader end up in solitary confinement in an adult jail? Reporter Ko Bragg takes us to Mississippi to learn about a set of laws that automatically send kids into the adult legal system for certain crimes. 
    **


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