ACLU

  • The ACLU of Mississippi has received numerous reports that students are getting in trouble for mentioning President-elect Barack Obama's name:
    [U]pset parents... said a school bus driver told the children on a Pearl school bus that if they said Obama’s name, they would be written up and taken to the principal’s office for disciplinary reasons.

    Another parent said that a coach at Pearl Junior High School told students that if they speak Obama’s name, they would face expulsion.
    This kind of thing isn't completely surprising due to the attacks against Obama in the last two months of the election, but I hope this sort of thing is rare within a year or two. (1) #
    11/7/2008
  • Remember that death penalty stay the Nevada Supreme Court ordered last October pending the U.S. Supreme Court's lethal injection decision? Back then I wrote:
    It was a tricky situation, because Castillo himself refused to file any appeals for his execution and was willing to die last night. The ACLU of Nevada decided to go forward anyway...
    Tricky no longer -- Castillo has decided to join the legal challenge. (4) #
    5/7/2008
  • The Supreme Court has rejected without comment the ACLU's challenge to the Bush administration's domestic spying program. From the AP:
    The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the suit, saying the plaintiffs could not prove their communications had been monitored.

    The government has refused to turn over information about the closely guarded program that could reveal who has been under surveillance.

    ACLU legal director Steven R. Shapiro has said his group is in a "Catch-22" because the government says the identities of people whose communications have been intercepted is secret. But only people who know they have been wiretapped can sue over the program, Shapiro has said.
    So deliciously Orwellian. (22) #
    2/19/2008
  • Richard Abowitz summarizes the ongoing battle in Las Vegas between businesses/local judges and the ACLU/1st amendment. The most recent case involves a woman being thrown in jail for protesting a jewelry business on the sidewalk in front of the business. (0) #
    2/6/2008

Nevada Supreme Court stays Castillo execution

Last night, 90 minutes before the scheduled time, the Nevada Supreme Court stayed the execution of convicted murderer William Castillo, pending a fuller review of the issues brought to the court by the ACLU of Nevada in an emergency hearing yesterday afternoon.

It was a tricky situation, because Castillo himself refused to file any appeals for his execution and was willing to die last night. The ACLU of Nevada decided to go forward anyway, with a two-pronged argument:

1) A lethal injection execution should not take place because the U.S. Supreme Court took a case several weeks ago to look into whether the three chemical cocktail used in such executions constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment," as interpreted from the 8th Amendment of the constitution. There is no emergency reason why the execution cannot wait until that issue has been resolved by the highest court.

2) The second chemical used in lethal injection serves no purpose but to mask the effects (by muscle paralysis) of the third and lethal chemical. This violates the 1st Amendment right of the press to witness the full effects of lethal injection, especially in a time when its potential to be "cruel and unusual punishment" is in review. Courts in the past have prohibited such things as hiding executions with curtains, etc.

I think the arguments are sound, but the trickiness mostly lies in whether or not the ACLU of Nevada has legal standing to bring the issue to the court. Such determinations are beyond my legal understanding, but are what the court is hoping to work out during the upcoming briefings and further arguments. I'm hoping that Nevada continues to follow the examples of other states in not executing anyone until at least the Supreme Court has resolved their issue. (Although I personally would prefer that the death penalty be banned altogether.)

Lastly, I should mention that Flea was the one who argued this case for the ACLU of Nevada (along with her colleague Allen, who argued the 1st Amendment portion remotely from Las Vegas), and I went down with her to Carson City yesterday to watch. She did a tremendous job, especially considering that she's been licensed as a lawyer for less than a year, and more than held her own in front of all seven Nevada Supreme Court justices and the representatives of the state on the opposing side.

Rarely does a legal motion such as this get written, filed, argued, and decided within several days, and I was lucky to be a witness. Congratulations go to the entire ACLU of Nevada, and their allies, for making this happen. (And for having an emergency cert prepared for the U.S. Supreme Court ready to go in case of a loss.) The public has a right to ensure that its government is handling this grave and irreversible duty in an ethical, responsible, and constitutional manner.

Tue, 10/16/2007 - 12:58pm

Las Vegas homeless feeding law struck down

This morning, the injunction against the ordinance banning the feeding of the homeless in public parks, filed by the Nevada ACLU, was granted by a district court judge. Yes, that means that you can again go down to a park in Las Vegas, give a sandwich to a homeless person, and not worry about being cited -- at least until the city writes another overly broad ordinance.

Mon, 11/20/2006 - 1:44pm
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