Wednesday august 23, 2017

Unlikely Story The undocumented attorneys fighting for the lives of their undocumented clients

On the morning that Alfonso Maldonado Silva was set to argue his first case before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, Ca., he was too nervous to even drink a glass of juice for breakfast.

Maldonado, a third-year law student at Western State College of Law in Orange County, had left nothing to chance. This would be his first time arguing a case in court before any judge. 

Much was riding on this case. Maldonado and his fellow law student, Cristel Martinez Medina, were representing an undocumented Salvadoran immigrant, Juan Carlos Beltran, whose ability to stay in the United States to fight his deportation order depended on today’s argument before the federal appeals court.

In a twist that their law school professors said is extremely rare for law students arguing cases like this, Maldonado and Martinez are both beneficiaries of the President Barack Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Like their client Beltran, they lack legal status here in the United States.

Maldonado and Martinez have both navigated the pitfalls of the immigration system. Martinez’s request for asylum went as far as the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, and was still pending when she applied for DACA in 2012. These experiences have made them more effective at advocating for those they’ve represented through the school’s immigration clinic, said Law Professor Jennifer Lee Koh, who is Western State’s immigration clinic director and also helped supervise the students on Beltran’s case.

“They weren’t doing this for the prestige. They weren’t doing it to put it on their résumé. They were doing it to become better advocates and acquire stronger skills, and also… to change the system,” said Koh.

“Here we are two undocumented students trying to navigate this legal system that even us—with… a lifetime of personal experience, and a whole year of guidance and doing nothing but eating, breathing and sleeping over this one case—and still being unable to completely and truly understand the complexity of immigration law,” said Maldonado. “How do we expect other people to do so when they’re before an immigration judge without representation?”

Note: We’re so proud of Alfonso, a recipient of California Bar Foundation’s legal fellowship. He’s changing what it means to be a lawyer. ​

Article by ThinkProgress. Read More Here>>>

Breaking News Federal judge finds racism behind law banning ethnic studies

An Arizona law banning ethnic studies violated students' constitutional rights, a federal judge said Tuesday. His ruling made clear that the state showed discriminatory intent when it essentially shut down a Mexican-American studies program at Tucson Unified School District.

"Both enactment and enforcement were motivated by racial animus," federal Judge A. Wallace Tashima said in the ruling.

Despite this decade-long debate in Arizona, ethnic studies programs have grown in popularity throughout the country.

Article by NPR. Read More Here>>>

Podcast of the Week A Prosecutor’s role in criminal justice reform

Adam Foss, a former assistant district attorney in Suffolk County, Mass., says today's justice system is the same as the one created hundreds of years ago, and it's failing a lot of people. Today, a conversation on how prosecutors can help fix the criminal justice system. Listen here.

Speaking of… Prosecutors are powerful. We can’t have criminal justice reform without their help. 

This summer 24 prosecutors from around the country and across the political divide came together in New York to discuss the criminal justice system and prosecutors’ role in it. Their aim was not to gain more resources to maximize convictions or felony charges, but rather to find ways to recognize the needs and the dignity of the communities they serve — including victims, witnesses and defendants — and to build a criminal justice system that better enhances safety and ensures fairness.

This kind of convening was remarkable because prosecutors are some of the most powerful players in the criminal justice system. They wield wide discretion, including over what charges to bring and whether to enter a plea negotiation.

Traditionally, prosecutors are seen as measuring success in terms of convictions, plea bargains or the amount of punishment exacted. But prosecutors are rethinking their role in the criminal justice system. In a time where the future of criminal justice reform at the federal level is uncertain, justice delivery at the local level is even more important, and this shift represents a powerful sea change in thinking. 

At the meeting, 24 prosecutors asked hard questions of themselves and each other, and considered how to use their power for public safety rather than solely for punishment. Critical to this shift is recognizing the humanity of each person in front of them and embracing a restorative approach to public safety and the administration of justice.

Fred Patrick is the director of Sentencing and Corrections at the Vera Institute of Justice.

Meg Reiss is the executive director for the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. 

Article by The Hill. Read More Here>>>

Perspective My brother, the “violent offender”

My brother Aaron, a violent felon, is neither my brother nor violent. The fact that these two descriptors aren’t technically accurate is basically irrelevant. In practice, they function as truth.

To make justice reform digestible, we’ve had to draw black-and-white lines that obscure the shades of gray. Take, for example, the binary split between nonviolent and violent offenders. Because nonviolent offenders are much more sympathetic, they’ve received almost all the reform attention. Any mercy the system has demonstrated has gone almost exclusively to those we can safely lump into this nonthreatening category, a group we’ve separated rhetorically from the “violent” types who are generally considered beyond redemption or mercy.

The ones like Aaron. (I’m using a pseudonym to protect his privacy.)

Aaron and I met in eighth grade, more than 16 years ago. By the time I’d finished college, he’d gone to rehab at least once more and had been arrested at least twice—including once for a violent offense.

The arrest stemmed from a dispute about money between Aaron and an acquaintance. “He Maced me, then pulled out a gun and hit me on the back of the head with a gun,” the victim told 911. “I had a bunch of money … and he grabbed it and ran.” A witness later confirmed Aaron’s assertion that he hadn’t pulled a gun, but the pepper spray and robbery parts were true.

Aaron was arrested and charged. In 2010, he entered a plea deal, one that defined him as a violent felon. He will carry that designation for life.

If we want to fix the crippling irrationality of our criminal justice system, this is the reality we must grapple with. The numbers do not lie: There are millions of Aarons. If we want to cut the prison population significantly, we’re going to have to release a whole lot of “violent criminals.”

It can be virtually impossible for someone with “violent offender” on his record to rebuild his life. Aaron will be burdened forever by a debt he has long since accounted for. How long should he have to pay?

Josie Duffy Rice is a lawyer and writer in New York. She is research director of the Fair Punishment Project and director of Eleos.

Article by Slate. Read More Here>>>

Finally Thanks to Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, women prisoners will no longer need to beg for tampons

Amid pressure from lawmakers, the federal Bureau of Prisons announced it is improving access to basic menstrual needs for incarcerated women by ensuring female inmates are given pads and tampons in variety of sizes. While feminine hygiene products can be purchased in prison, former inmates and advocates say they are often of poor quality and limited in quantity — leaving women to beg for them from guards, to spend limited funds on marked-up products for sale in the commissary, or to go without.

The announcement was made weeks after a group of Democratic Senators introduced The Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act aimed at increasing quality of life for women behind bars. The Act, introduced in mid-July, would require quality sanitary products to be provided to female inmates at no cost and would ban shackling and solitary confinement for women during labor as well as pregnancy and recovery.

The bill was put forward in mid-July by Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kamala Harris of California and Richard Durbin of Illinois.

Article by Bustle. Read More Here>>>

Watch This We should be ashamed of how we treat women in prison

Ellen Pao in her own words: This is how sexism works in Silicon Valley

One day, I was part of a small group flying from San Francisco to New York on the private jet of another managing partner, Ted Schlein. I was the first to arrive at Hayward Airport. The main cabin of the plane was set up with four chairs in pairs facing each other.

I moved to one of the power seats — the fourth, backward-facing seat, but at the table nonetheless. The rest of the folks filed in one by one. Ted sat across from me, the CEO next to him, and the tech investor next to me on my right.

Once we were airborne, the CEO, who’d brought along a few bottles of wine, started bragging about meeting Jenna Jameson, talking about her career as the world’s greatest porn star and how he had taken a photo with her at the Playboy Mansion.

Then the CEO switched topics. To sex workers. He asked Ted what kind of “girls” he liked. Ted said that he preferred white girls — Eastern European, to be specific.

Eventually we all moved to the couch for a working session to help the tech CEO; he was trying to recruit a woman to his all-male board. I suggested Marissa Mayer, but the CEO looked at me and dismissively said, “Nah, too controversial.” Then he grinned at Ted and added, “Though I would let her join the board because she’s hot.”

Somehow, I got the distinct vibe that the group couldn’t wait to ditch me. And once we landed at Teterboro, the guys made plans to go to a club, while I headed into Manhattan alone. Taking your seat at the table doesn’t work so well, I thought, when no one wants you there.

Article by The Cut. Read More Here>>>

Dessert Statue of SCOTUS justice who wrote Dred Scott decision is removed