On May 16, 2008, the Minnesota Chapter of the National Lawyers will sponsor a CLE at the University of St. Thomas School of Law. "Defending Dissent: Representing Activists and Protesters at the Republican National Convention," will train lawyers to represent persons arrested at the upcoming 2008 RNC in the Twin Cities.The CLE is both for experience criminal defense lawyers and lawyers who do not practice criminal defense but will volunteer to provide initial representation for persons arrested during the 2008 RNC. Presenters will include Gideon Oliver of New York City, who represented many people during the 2004 RNC, and Carol Sobel of the NLG Mass Defense Committee. Carol is an experienced litigator who has worked on mass defense litigation for many years, including the 2000 DNC, the 2004 RNC, and the FTAA protests in Miami.To register, see the flyer at the link below. Call 612-326-4315 for more information. CLE Flyer   

Pictured at Left: Peter Brown (NLG); Andrea Ritchie and Ajamu Baraka (USHRN); Shawn Stuckey (St. Paul NAACP).

The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, more commonly known as ICERD, is an international treaty designed to protect individuals from discrimination based on race, whether that discrimination is intentional, or is the result of seemingly neutral policies.

On February 22, 2008, a two person delegation from Minnesota, consisting of Peter Brown of the National Lawyers Guild and Shawn Stuckey of the St. Paul NAACP, joined a 120 member delegation organized by the US Human Rights Network to counter the report prepared by the US State Department on US compliance with CERD. The Minnesota Delegation presented the Minnesota Shadow Report, a document produced by a wide range of community organizations consisting of a Minnesota-focused, community-based critique of compliance with ICERD.

During a monthly ride sponsored by Critical Mass in Minneapolis on August 31, Minneapolis police arrested 19 people on initial charges of rioting. Guild attorneys Jordan Kushner, Peter Nikitas, and Bruce Nestor, along with Michelle Gross of the the Coalition Against Police Brutality and attorney Joe Vacek, met with the arrestees at the Hennepin County Jail on Saturday, September 1, in an attempt to have persons released prior to appearing in Court after the long holiday weekend.

by: Matthew L.M. Fletcher
© Indian Country Today December 28, 2007. All Rights Reserved
 
Each year, the U.S. Supreme Court chooses which appeals it wishes to decide. In most years, the court decides to hear fewer than 80 cases out of several thousand appeals. These usually include cases in which there is a split of authority in lower courts (often called a ''circuit split,'' referencing the 13 federal circuit courts of appeals), cases in which a lower court has committed a gross error or cases in which there is a critical constitutional issue at stake. Cases in which there is no split, cases that will affect only a few people, cases involving simple correction of a minor lower court error or cases involving an unimportant issue are unlikely to be heard by the court.

At least, this is true in theory. But Indian law seems to be different. Consider the following examples:

While people in New Orleans stand down bulldozers menacing public housing, Twin Cities residents served the local HUD office with a "Condemnation Notice". The Director of the HUD office sent a representative to speak with the protesters and agreed to meet with them Monday morning.

This action was part of a rising tide of opposition to HUD's demolition plans in New Orleans and elsewhere. Housing advocates across the country and around the world are calling for a halt to HUD’s ongoing campaign to tear down public housing units and force the relocation of public housing tenants against their will.

In New Orleans the question is urgent. Consistent with Katrina “Restoration” (cruel boondoggles), HUD plans to spend $762 million to demolish 4,605 units of public housing and replace them units with a lower number of mixed-income housing units of which only 744 units will be for public housing residents: a resulting loss of loss of 3,861 low-income public housing units (82 percent of the current number) at the cost of approximately $400,000 per unit.2

Even the proponents of aggressive "Deconcentration of Poverty" strategies advocate that HUD stop its demolition of viable inner city public housing (such as the New Orleans units in question), stating:

“. . . viable public and assisted housing should also be preserved, in light of the severe housing shortages facing low income families in the United States.” 3

The National Lawyers Guild strongly condemns the State of Emergency imposed on the people of Pakistan and the attacks on lawyers and the judiciary. The NLG demands that President Musharraf immediately withdraw the emergency declaration of November 3, 2007, the Provisional Constitutional Order No. 1 of 2007 (PCO), which suspends Pakistan's Constitution. This declaration includes suspension of the right to life and liberty, freedom of speech, assembly and association, and equal protection of the law, all of which are guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Local Guild member and past National Lawyers Guild President Bruce Nestor participated in a human rights delegation to Egypt from Aug. 17-23, 2007. Bruce was a member of a delegation organized by the Muslim American Society (MAS), based in Washington, DC. The purpose of the delegation was to seek to observe military tribunals involving members of the largest opposition party in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood.

 On June 27, 2007, the Maria Iñamagua Campaign for Justice co-sponsored and presented at the ACLU Conference on Human Rights and Immigration Detention in Chicago, Illinois.