A Giant Step Towards Justice for the Burge Torture Survivors Who Continue to Languish Behind Bars

In an historic decision on Wednesday, March 12, 2014, Cook County Circuit Court Chief of the Criminal Division Judge Paul P. Biebel, Jr. ruled that all of the Burge torture survivors who remain incarcerated are entitled to pro bono representation in post-conviction proceedings, allowing them the opportunity to challenge the validity of their convictions. Judge Biebel also appointed Loyola Law School Dean David Yellen as a special master to work with attorneys from the People’s Law Office (PLO) and the MacArthur Justice Center (MJC) to identify all Burge torture survivors who remain incarcerated, and inform them of the availability of attorneys to represent them for free in post-conviction proceedings. This ruling affirms that the torture survivors have the right to a full and fair opportunity to present allegations that they were tortured, and effective legal representation in challenging their convictions on this basis.

It is a giant step forward on the path to justice for the Burge torture survivors who are still behind bars, as many of them do not have lawyers to represent them and have been denied a full and fair opportunity have their day in court to present evidence of the torture they endured.

The decision was in response to a class action petition filed by the PLO and MJC in October 2012, on behalf of Johnnie Plummer, Vincent Wade and all other Burge torture survivors who continue to languish behind bars. The petition argued that comprehensive relief, including new evidentiary hearings, must be afforded to incarcerated individuals who claim they were tortured or abused under Burge’s command at Area 2 and 3 Police Headquarters. Such comprehensive relief has been provided in other cities and counties throughout the country where systemic police misconduct and corruption has raised questions about scores of criminal convictions, including in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Tulia, Texas, West Virginia and the Ramparts scandal in Los Angeles.

There is no credible dispute that Burge and the detectives under his command routinely and systematically engaged in acts of torture. Yet many of the survivors of such torture remain behind bars and have been routinely denied the opportunity to present newly discovered evidence of systemic torture by Burge and his men. At the time of their original trials, these torture survivors challenged their coerced confessions, but they did not have access to the wealth of evidence that has since been uncovered documenting Burge’s reign of torture and abuse.

In his ruling, Judge Biebel noted that Burge’s conduct “has caused irreparable harm to many persons,” and that “it is of the highest importance that these remaining possible Burge-related cases be given resolution.” He further noted that Special Prosecutors appointed in 2002 concluded there was a pattern of misconduct that occurred with Burge and his associates. Thus, the alleged Burge victims who remain behind bars are both entitled to be identified and to be appointed representation because they have never had an opportunity to present claims that their confessions were coerced “with the benefit of substantial evidence now available to implicate Burge and those who worked under him.” When announcing his ruling from the bench, in front of a courtroom filled with attorneys, activists, and family members of the torture survivors, Judge Biebel also noted this was an “important endeavor” that was essential to bring to “a close an unfortunate chapter.”

Thus, all the individuals who can show:

1) His or her conviction was based in part upon a confession;

2) That the confession was the end result of an interrogation in which Burge or officers under his chain of command or direct supervision participated;

3) That her or she made an allegation of coercion in the context of his or her original proceedings, either at a motion to suppress or in some other clear and definitive way, that his or her confession was the product of physical abuse or torture, and those objections were overruled;

4) He or she remains incarcerated today; and

5) He or she has never had that the opportunity to present his or her claim of coerced confession with the benefit of the substantial evidence now available to implicate Burge and those who worked under him;

are entitled appointment of pro bono lawyers to represent them in post-conviction petitions.

Although he declined to certify a class of individuals entitled to relief or to automatically grant class members an evidentiary hearing, Judge Biebel assured a legal avenue for incarcerated torture survivors to challenge the coerced confessions that led to their convictions.

You can read Chief Judge Paul Biebel’s decision here.

If someone you know may be incarcerated who meets this category of criteria listed above, please send your information to the People’s Law Office or the Roderick MacArthur Justice Center.

For nearly 30 years, People’s Law Office has fought for justice for the survivors of Chicago police torture in appeals, post-conviction proceedings, civil rights lawsuits and in working with community members to fight for justice outside of the courts. Currently, we are working with the Chicago Torture Justice Memorial Project in advocating for reparations for the survivors of Chicago police torture. Please sign the petition supporting the Reparations Ordinance.

On March 10, 2014, the Illinois Appellate Court ruled in Jaime Kalven v. City of Chicago, 2014 IL App (1st) 121846 that police misconduct complaints and their investigations are public information and can no longer be kept secret by the Chicago Police Department.

In November 2009, the plaintiff, Jamie Kalven, an award winning journalist, made Freedom of Information Act requests to the Chicago Police Department, seeking two types of documents: (1) lists of Chicago police officers who accumulated the most police misconduct complaints in the entire City, commonly referred to as “repeater lists”; and (2) Complaint Register files, commonly referred to as “CRs,” related to the City’s completed factual investigations into allegations of official police misconduct against five officers charged with a pattern of abuse. After the City denied the requests, Mr. Kalven filed suit in the Circuit Court of Cook County.

The central issue in the case was whether records relating to police misconduct are public information under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. The Appellate Court’s rejection of the City’s arguments that the requested documents are exempt from disclosure under certain provisions of FOIA, is a watershed moment in the ongoing fight for police accountability and governmental transparency in Illinois.

Mr. Kalven is represented by a team of civil rights lawyers, including Ben Elson and Flint Taylor from People’s Law Office.  As part of our continued commitment to fighting against police brutality and misconduct, we recognize the importance of the public’s access to information regarding police abuse.

Illinois Appeals Court Ruling
Kalven v. City of Chicago, 2014 IL App (1st) 121846

Media coverage of the ruling

Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Tribune
CBS Chicago
Think Progress

For more information on our work fighting for police accountability, visit this page: Police Brutality

If you are the victim of police misconduct or brutality and would like to know more about the type of cases we handle, view our Areas of Practice or contact us at (773)235-0070

The National Lawyer’s Guild Work Defending Independentistas in the U.S.

By Michael Deutsch, with assistance of Jan Susler
Originally appeared on claridad.com

As a young lawyer relatively new to politics and prisons, my work with the Attica Brothers and with Rafael Cancel Miranda and the other Nationalist political prisoners in the early 1970’s, changed my life forever. In the case of the Puerto Rican political prisoners, their courageous commitment to the self-determination and independence of their country, and their warmth and humanity, despite the hardships of two decades in prison, greatly influenced the course of my own work as a lawyer over the next decades. It was the example of these extraordinary fighters, along with many other political prisoners with whom I have worked, that has fueled my continuing dedication to work for justice. To all past and present political prisoners I owe a deep debt of gratitude.

The National Lawyers Guild, which will be celebrating its annual convention in Puerto Rico this October, has a long history defending Puerto Rican militants and activists. Much of the beginnings of this work can be traced to Guild lawyers from the People’s Law Office (PLO) in Chicago meeting Rafael Cancel Miranda in the early 1970’s while he was a prisoner at Marion Federal Prison. It was through those prison visits with Rafael that many of us first learned of the history of the struggle against U.S. colonialism over Puerto Rico and the heroes of this resistance.

Through Rafael, Guild lawyers from the PLO learned of the four other Puerto Rican Nationalists also incarcerated in U.S. prisons since the 1950’s, – Lolita Lebron, Irvin Flores, Andres Figueroa Cordero, and Oscar Collazo. Lawyers from the PLO visited each of the prisoners – Lolita at Alderson, West Virginia; and Irvin, Oscar and Andres in Leavenworth, Kansas – and developed a lawsuit challenging some of their conditions of confinement, restricted visits, denial of access to Claridad – the independence movement weekly newspaper – and their continued incarceration. While the Nationalist Prisoners did not recognize the right of the U.S. to hold them as criminals, and refused to directly ask the U.S. courts for their freedom, their family members and independence leaders assumed the role of plaintiffs in the lawsuit and petitioned for their freedom.

Guild lawyers joining with lawyers from Puerto Rico filed the case in Washington D.C. in 1976, as part of a revitalized international political campaign to “Free the Five.“ The case was assigned to the famous Watergate Judge, John Sirica, who severed the cases and transferred them to four separate federal district courts, near the respective prisons where the Nationalists were held. By this time Andres was suffering from colon cancer and was incarcerated in the Federal Medical Prison in Springfield, Missouri.

The Nationalists prisoners decided that the lawyers should pursue the case on behalf of Andres, and within a year, fueled by a strong political campaign, Andres was given a medical clemency and released. At the same time, Guild lawyers from Chicago prepared a petition to the United Nations Human Rights Commission calling for the freedom of the Nationalists, and also appeared on their behalf before the United Nations Decolonization Committee, whose 1978 resolution called for their freedom.

In September of 1979, an international campaign, with the support of broad sectors of the people of Puerto Rico including the former governor, Hernandez Colon and the Catholic Bishop Antulio Parilla, successfully pressured President Carter to grant the unconditional freedom of the remaining four. Guild lawyers, with lawyers from Puerto Rico and family members, went to the prisons where they were held, and escorted them first to Chicago and New York where they were greeted by large crowds, and then home to Puerto Rico where thousands received them at the airport.

Grand Jury Work

Even before the release of the Nationalists, Guild lawyers were involved in representing independentistas subpoenaed to federal grand juries in New York and Chicago investigating the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional (FALN), a U.S. based clandestine Puerto Rican group which emerged in 1974 and which carried out bombings and other militant actions calling for the freedom of the Nationalists and the end to U.S. colonialism.

Lureida Torres from Puerto Rico, and later Maria Cueto, the executive director of the U.S. Episcopal Church Hispanic Affairs Commission, and her assistant Raisa Nemekin, and three brothers Julio, Luis and Andres Rosado, were subpoenaed in New York. In Chicago, several leaders of the Puerto Rican community, Jose Lopez, Myrna Salgado, Steven Guerra and Roberto Caldero were subpoenaed, as well as two Mexicano activists, Ricardo Romero and Pedro Archuleta from the Southwest. Guild lawyers represented all of them. Through creative lawyering, including challenging the use of secret illegal electronic surveillance, the lawyers were able to delay their inevitable political detention, thus reducing the time they were imprisoned for civil contempt for their refusal to testify before the grand jury. The grand jury resisters took a position of non-collaboration with the repressive use of the grand jury, and hundreds of people mobilized to support them. Later two independence activists, Carlos Noya and Federico Cintron, were subpoenaed to a New York grand jury. Defended by lawyers from Puerto Rico and the Guild, they also refused to collaborate and were imprisoned for civil contempt.

Several years later, in an unprecedented act of political repression, five of the grand jury resisters, Julio Rosado, Riccardo Romero, Andres Rosado, Maria Cueto and Steven Guerra, after their release from civil contempt, were indicted in Brooklyn for criminal contempt based on their prior refusal to testify, and put on trial. Facing a possible sentence of up to life in prison, they were represented by Guild lawyers. They were convicted after a hard-fought political trial, during which the government argued that they were aiding terrorism by not testifying. The government asked for a 15 year sentence, showing the judge pictures of victims from FALN bombings. Each one of the five was sentenced to 3 years in prison.

In 1983, Guild lawyers were also involved in the case of Alberto de Jesus, a young man who had left Puerto Rico to avoid a grand jury investigating the Puerto Rican clandestine movement. He was arrested in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for using a false social security card. Living in Wisconsin, Alberto had earned the respect and admiration of many human rights activists and people from the religious community, who traveled to Milwaukee to support him at his sentencing.

Part of Guild work around the grand jury and the Puerto Rican independence movement included public education since many people in the United States were not aware of the colonial case of Puerto Rico and the grand jury’s use against the independence movement.

THE FALN AND SEDITIOUS CONSPIRACY

In 1979, William Guillermo Morales was arrested after an explosion in an apartment in Queens, accused of membership in the FALN, and charged with possession of explosives. He was first put on trial in federal court in Brooklyn. Represented by Guild lawyers, he proclaimed he was a Prisoner of War fighting against the crime of colonialism, and demanded to be transferred to an international forum. This was the first time that a Puerto Rican asserted international law as a defense in the U.S. courts. The court denied Morales’ claim, but his Guild lawyers argued that he was indeed a prisoner of war and that the real crime was the U.S. colonial control over Puerto Rico. Morales was sentenced to 10 years. Immediately following his conviction, he was put on trial in New York State court for similar charges and given an additional 55 years.

Guild lawyers would again be involved in defending Morales after his convictions. After a daring escape from a New York prison hospital, he was later arrested in Mexico, where he was tortured and imprisoned. Guild lawyers worked with progressive Mexican counsel and helped to oppose U.S. efforts to extradite him to the United States. A successful political campaign to fight the extradition allowed Morales to go to Cuba, where he was granted political asylum.

In April of 1980, 11 Puerto Ricans were arrested in Evanston, Illinois and accused of being part of the FALN. They were first tried in state court and sentenced to terms of 8 to 30 years. The U.S. then indicted them for seditious conspiracy, the same charge lodged against Albizu Campos and other Nationalist Party members in the 1930’s and in the 1950’s. Like Morales, the accused FALN prisoners, Carlos Alberto Torres, Carmen Valentin, Dylcia Pagan, Alicia Rodriguez, Lucy Rodriguez, Elizam Escobar, Ricardo Jimenez, Luis Rosa, Adolfo Matos, and Alfredo Mendez also asserted their right to be treated as POWs. Assisted by Guild lawyers who acted as legal advisors, since the accused refused to participate in what they considered an illegal trial, the accused filed an extensive document supporting their claim under international law. The lawyers also filed a petition with the U.N. Human Rights Commission and raised their case in international fora in Malta, Barcelona and Cuba. The federal prosecution resulted in grossly disproportionate sentences ranging from 55 to 90 years, with the judge lamenting that he could not give them the death penalty.

During the Illinois state court proceedings, Alicia Rodriguez was gagged and beaten for speaking out about the illegal nature of their criminal prosecution. A Guild lawyer who condemned this brutal, demeaning treatment was held in contempt, and immediately taken into custody until bail was obtained from the Appellate Court. The judge also threatened to throw another lawyer out the window of his chambers.

One of those arrested in Evanston, Maria Haydee Torres, was taken to New York and tried for a bombing at the Mobil Oil Building in Manhattan. She was physically brutalized in the course of being forced to participate in a line-up, witnessed by a Guild lawyer, refused to participate in her trial, and sat in a holding center with her legal consultant, a Guild lawyer, listening to her trial over special speakers. She was given a life sentence.

The following year, Oscar Lopez Rivera was arrested and charged with the same seditious conspiracy. While he assumed the same POW position, Oscar, advised by Guild lawyers, confronted one of those arrested in Evanston, Alfredo Mendez, who the FBI, through isolation and promises of leniency, had made into a government witness.

In July of 1983, there were four more arrests of accused FALN members in Chicago – Alejandrina Torres, Edwin Cortes, Alberto Rodriguez and Jose Rodriguez, also charged with seditious conspiracy. The government, based on information provided by Mendez, located safe houses in private apartments rented under false names, and placed secret cameras and filmed bomb-making activities. Guild lawyers convinced the judge to suppress this evidence as illegally obtained without any legal statutory authorization. The government took an interlocutory appeal, and the appeals court found that, regardless of the absence of any authorizing law, the government had the inherent authority in fighting terrorism to enter a private dwelling and place cameras there. At trial, one of the defendants, represented by Guild lawyers, presented a legal defense, while the three others, with Guild lawyers acting as legal consultants, took the POW position. All were convicted. Jose Rodriguez who presented a legal defense was given probation, and the three others were sentenced to 35 years.

The Guild lawyers who represented the POWS were criticized by many members of the bar, including other Guild lawyers. Many asked, “Why didn’t the lawyers convince the accused to make a legal defense?” And “by not presenting a traditional legal defense weren’t these lawyers abdicating their responsibility as lawyers?” Despite this criticism, the lawyers for the POWs believed that they were acting in the highest tradition of radical lawyers, following the political direction of their clients and using the courtroom to put forth the legal/political position of their clients. Nonetheless, these Guild lawyers not only had to endure the negative opinions of their colleagues, but also suffered attacks on their competency and reputation. Creative lawyering, however, had established the international law framework to help build a campaign for their release.

The negative fall-out against the lawyers was nothing compared to the treatment that the political prisoners suffered in U.S. prisons. They were placed in special sensory deprivation isolation units, including the Alderson Cardinal Unit, Lexington Woman’s High Security Unit, U.S. Prison at Marion and ADX Florence, Colorado. They were subjected to discriminatory and humiliating treatment, sensory deprivation isolation, and arbitrarily denied visits, literature and mail; in other words, denied contact with their political movement, family and supporters. Guild lawyers were involved in campaigns to end the torturous treatment. In the case of the Lexington unity Guild lawyers, along with other attorneys, brought a lawsuit challenging the treatment of similarly situated political prisoners and with the support of a public campaign eventually closed down the Lexington unit.

LOS MACHETEROS CASE IN CONNECTICUT

On August 30, 1985, hundreds of FBI agents raided numerous homes and workplaces in Puerto Rico, arresting and transporting out of the country to Connecticut accused members ofLos Macheteros, (Sugarcane Cutters), a highly successful Puerto Rico based clandestine group, charging them with involvement with the expropriation of 7 million dollars from a Wells Fargo depot in Hartford. Working with lawyers from Puerto Rico, Guild lawyers from New York, Connecticut, Boston and Chicago organized a joint legal defense team. Discovery revealed that in the course of months of secret investigation of the independence movement, the FBI had illegally recorded hundreds of personal conversations and had seized thousands of political books, pamphlets and personal diaries. Evoking claims of terrorism, the government used a new “preventive detention” law to deny bail to many of those arrested. While some were detained as long as three years, Guild lawyers were successful in challenging the indefinite pre-trial detention of those arrested, ultimately obtaining the release of all the accused on bail. The lawyers were also able to have much of the electronic surveillance suppressed. Guild lawyers formed part of the defense team that represented those accused at trial, and also help to negotiate substantially reduced sentences for those who did not go to trial. Guild lawyers also represented on appeal those who had been convicted at trial.

During the court proceedings in the Machetero case in Connecticut, another case againstindependentistas was taking place in Chicago. In 1986, several community organizers were charged with conspiracy to free Oscar Lopez from Leavenworth federal prison, resulting from an FBI sting operation designed to ensnare community people active in the campaign for the release of the FALN prisoners. Guild lawyers represented the accused at trial and on appeal. Oscar Lopez was sentenced to an additional 15 years and transferred to super max prisons for the next 12 years, and his codefendants Jamie Delgado and Dora Garcia were sentenced to 4 and 3 years respectively.

The case was emblematic of the FBI’s continuing attack on Chicago’s Puerto Rican community. The FBI raided the Puerto Rican Cultural Center and Pedro Albizu Campos Alternative High School, with agents searching the community institutions for hours. The raid was part of continuing efforts by the U.S. government to frighten community members by labeling the Center and school as “terrorist” institutions. Guild lawyers stood in solidarity with the Puerto Rican community condemning these repressive actions.

In yet another case in Chicago, professor Jose Solis Jordan was tried in 1999 for planting two pipe bombs outside a military recruiting center. Represented by Guild lawyers, the defense centered on the FBI’s use of an informant/provocateur to infiltrate the Puerto Rican community and ensnare people active in the campaign for the release of the political prisoners. Solis was convicted and sentenced to 4 years in prison.

THE CAMPAIGN TO FREE THE FALN PRISONERS

In 1993, Guild lawyers working closely with the Puerto Rican community in the U.S. and the Puerto Rico based human rights campaign filed a petition for executive clemency on behalf of the FALN and some of the Machetero prisoners and began to garner support for their release in Puerto Rico, the U.S. and internationally. In 1999, President Clinton offered to commute their sentences, declaring that “the prisoners were serving extremely lengthy sentences–in some cases 90 years–which were out of proportion to their crimes.” The president said he was moved by the support from “various Members of Congress, a number of religious organizations, labor organizations, human rights groups, and Hispanic civic and community groups” along with “widespread support across the political spectrum within Puerto Rico,” and thousands of letters requesting their release. He also indicated he was moved by “worldwide support on humanitarian grounds from numerous quarters,” pointing specifically to former President Jimmy Carter, Nobel Prize Laureate South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Coretta Scott King.

As the prisoners consulted about whether to accept the offered commutations, which did not include all of them, and which provided for parole-type conditions upon release, the right wing set about to try to sabotage the release of the prisoners. Several committees in both houses of the legislature convened hearings, and both houses overwhelmingly approved a joint resolution condemning Clinton’s offer, accusing him of “making deplorable concessions to terrorists and placing in danger the national security in conceding clemency to Puerto Rican ‘terrorists.’”

A month later, after more than 100,000 Puerto Ricans marched to show support, the prisoners’ agreed that those eligible for immediate release would accept the offer, while Oscar López Rivera, who would not have been eligible for release for another 10 years, would remain in prison in solidarity with those not included in the offer.

On September 10, 1999, eleven women and men became former political prisoners, emerging from prison to be received with a hero’s welcome, in Chicago, where two returned to their families and communities, in San Juan, were nine went to live. With the love and support of the Puerto Rican people, they all integrated into civil society, and have since lived productive, law-abiding lives, just as the previous generation of Puerto Rican political prisoners.

In 2010, Carlos Alberto Torres, represented by a Guild lawyer, was released on parole after having served 30 years in prison. Haydée Torres was also released after serving 30 years. Today Oscar López Rivera, represented by a Guild lawyer, is the only remaining prisoner from the Chicago FALN cases. After 32 years behind bars, the call for his release enjoys even more support than that garnered in 1999, including numerous NLG resolutions.

Today, Guild lawyers are instrumental in organizing and advising the international campaign to free Oscar Lopez Rivera. They have been at the forefront in helping to obtain the support of many sectors of society throughout the world. They continue to testify annually before the U.N. Decolonization Committee, representing the NLG International Committee, and have lent their advice and expertise to assist lawyers representing new grand jury resisters and two fugitive Macheteros, Norberto and Avelino Gonzalez Claudio, arrested and imprisoned over the last several years. Also Guild lawyers were involved in helping to expose the 2005 FBI assassination of Machetero leader Filberto Ojeda Rios.

In all of this work, the National Lawyers Guild and Guild lawyers have stood in solidarity with the Puerto Rican people in their fight against political repression and their struggle for independence and self-determination.

Thanks to Sylvia Solá, Guillermo Rebollo Gil, María Cristina y Lowell Fiet for the translation.

NOTES:

1 This article does not cover the work of the Puerto Rico Legal Project, whose legal support for the independence movement will be discussed in a separate article.

2 The author apologizes for any Guild work on behalf of the independence movement which was unintentionally left out.

3 The Guild Lawyers involved included Michael Deutsch, Mara Siegel and Dennis Cunningham. The lawyers from Puerto Rico included Emilio Soler Mari, Luis “Willie” Abreu and John Passalacqua.

4 Instrumental in the coordination of this campaign was Nelson Canals.

5 Among the Guild lawyers involved in the representation of grand jury witnesses were Elizabeth M. Fink, Margaret Ratner-Kunstler, Susan B. Tipograph, Martin Stolar and Doris Peterson from New York; Jose Antonio “Abi” Lugo from Puerto Rico; Michael Deutsch, Dennis Cunningham, Mara Siegel, and Kingsley Clarke from Chicago.

6 Non-collaboration with U.S. federal grand juries has been a continuing principal of the independence movement. The FBI conceded that the refusal of independentistas to testify before grand juries had stymied their investigation into the FALN.

7 See e.g. Deutsch, The Improper Use of the Federal Grand Jury: An Instrument for the Internment of Political Activists, 75 Journal of Criminal Law and criminology, 1159 (Winter 1984): Berkan, The Federal Grand Jury: An Introduction to the Institution, Its Historical Role, Its Current Use and the Problems Faced by the Target Witness, 17 Revista Juridica Del La Universidad Interamericana 103 (1984)

8 William was represented by Michael Deutsch and Elizabeth M. Fink.

9 In state court William was represented by Susan B. Tipograph. After Morales’ escape, Attorney Tipograph was the subject of intensive FBI surveillance and harassment.

10 Among the Guild lawyers who acted as legal advisers were Michael Deutsch, Mara Siegel, Edward Voci, Kinglsey Clarke and Dennis Cunningham.

11 The lawyer, Mara Siegel, had her contempt sentence reversed by the Appellate Court, but was later reinstated by the Illinois Supreme Court.

12 Involved with the suppression challenge were Guild lawyers, David Thomas and Michael Deutsch. In addition, Melinda Power and Dennis Cunningham acted as legal advisors.

13 Jan Susler, Elizabeth Fink, Michael Deutsch, Mary O’Melveny, and Adjoa Aiyertoro from the ACLU, National Prison Project comprised the legal team

14 Among the Guild lawyers involved were William Kunstler, Leonard Weinglass, Ronald Kuby, and Richard Harvey from New York; Linda Backiel then from Philadelphia; Michael Avery from Boston; John Schoenhorn, Richard Reeve, Diane Polan, John Williams and Margaret Levy from Connecticut; Michael Deutsch from Chicago; and Juan Ramon Acevedo and Rafael Anglada from Puerto Rico.

15 The Guild lawyers included Carol Brook, Jeffrey Haas, and Jan Susler.

16 Solis was represented by Linda Backiel and Jed Stone.

17 In 1995, Guild lawyers also assisted independence leader Juan Mari Bras, in his effort to renounce his U.S. citizenship and affirm his right to his Puerto Rican nationality, and to reject the U.S. citizenship that was imposed on Puerto Ricans against their will by an act of the U.S. Congress. After months of delay, pressure by the independence movement assisted by Guild lawyers forced the U.S. government to accept Mari Bras’ renunciation.

On Monday, September 30, a legal team from the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), including lawyers from People’s Law Office, filed a brief arguing that the mass arrests and prosecutions of Occupy Chicago activists that occurred in October of 2011 when Occupy occupied Grant Park should be dismissed. In September of 2012, Cook County Circuit Judge Thomas Donnelly issued an opinion dismissing the charges against 92 of the activists who were arrested, on the grounds that the Chicago Park District curfew prohibiting congregating in the park after 11 p.m.was unconstitutional on its face and as applied to Occupy Chicago.

The City of Chicago appealed the Court’s decision. We have now filed our brief with the Illinois Appellate Court, arguing that the curfew ordinance violates the constitutional rights of the Occupy Chicago activists who were arrested.

Because of the importance of this issue, involving the rights of individuals to gather in a public place to demonstrate against the government, we are requesting an oral argument in the case, which will be open to the public. The date and location of the argument, should it be granted, along with other updates, will be posted on this site.

View the Occupy Chicago Appeal

The Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) recently released their second quarterly report for 2013, reviewing allegations of brutality and misconduct against Chicago police officers. Details in these reports are notably scarce, hidden behind a veil of lies and secrecy that enable the police to be wholly unaccountable to the public they ostensibly serve and protect. The People’s Law Office continues to encourage and promote government transparency and all efforts to make the Chicago police force more accountable to the public, including providing meaningful disciplinary consequences to those officers who beat or abuse people. Victims of police brutality and abuse who courageously come forward must be supported, and civil rights litigation must be employed to advance strategies of justice and social change to improve the conditions for all who live in Chicago.

IPRA’s quarterly report, dated July 15, 2013, provides information regarding investigations spanning from April 1, 2013 – June 30, 2013. The report is available here. During this time, IPRA initiated 558 investigations, up 15% from the previous quarter. Of those cases, 96 involved a Taser discharge, and 13 related to officer-involved shootings. IPRA noted that they will continue to refer mediation to the Fraternal Order of the Police when appropriate, though we must ask: when is it ever appropriate to refer a case of police brutality or misconduct to an organization that in 2008 voted to pay for the criminal defense of a notorious former police commander who tortured confessions from over 200 black men? Altogether, IPRA received 2,122 allegations or notifications of brutality or misconduct: 14 cases involved an “extraordinary occurrence,” 13 cases involved police shootings where someone was injured, 7 cases involved police shootings where no one was hit, 14 cases involved police shooting animals, 96 reported uses of Tasers, and 5 cases reported pepper spray discharge. An extraordinary occurrence is a death or injury to a person while in police custody or other extraordinary or unusual occurrence in a lockup facility.

The breakdown of complaints by district is also revealing, despite the fact that IPRA only provides quantitative figures, and not any depth of analysis or information related to those complaints whatsoever. Districts 2 thru 8 were among the districts with the most complaints filed; notably, they are all African-American neighborhoods throughout the south side. District 11 recorded the most complaints – 154 in a three month period – and is comprised primarily of the Garfield Park neighborhood, another African-American community.

What little qualitative information IPRA is forced to divulge regarding sustained complaints reveals an unscrupulous workplace that would not be tolerated in most other professions. On May 18, 2012, an officer texted another person with whom he was in a previous relationship with, in violation of a Direct Order, and only received a written reprimand. A complaint filed December 28, 2010 was sustained in so far as it found a Chicago police officer used Chicago Police Department resources for personal gain; the officer was suspended for a single day. On January 31, 2011, an officer choked another while intoxicated, and only received a 10-day suspension. On August 10, 2006, two officers purchased a controlled substance, and only received a 10-day suspension. On December 6, 2011 and December 13, 2011, an officer endangered the life/welfare of a child and was subsequently charged and arrested for that crime. He was suspended a single day for his actions. On various dates in 2010 and 2011, an officer left abusive and profane voicemails for two other individuals, and was suspended a single day for this behavior. On June 14, 2008, an officer fired at an unarmed individual, violating the Department’s Use of Deadly Force Policy, and failed to immediately provide notification of his involvement in a weapons discharge; for these actions he was suspended a single day. On December 20, 2008, an officer threw a victim in the snow, struck her, bit her, and verbally abused her; he was suspended for 15 days. For harassing and stalking a victim in the winter of 2008, another officer was given a mere 10-day suspension. On September 15, 2010, an officer issued a false parking ticket, and received a 2-day suspension. On February 2, 2010, an off duty sergeant put a victim in a headlock and brandished a knife, for which he received a 5-day suspension. On May 8, 2008, an officer scratched the face and neck of another officer, and received a 2-day suspension. In October of 2009, an officer violated an Order of Protection multiple times; he received a 3-day suspension. On February 1, 2012, an officer “accidently” discharged a weapon twice, and received a 3-day suspension. On September 6, 2012, two officers got in a physical fight; they each received a 1-day suspension. There were also numerous other complaints IPRA sustained regarding weapons discharged, and failures to make reports of complaints. All of these cases resulted in no worse than a single day suspension. We would implore the reader to contemplate these incidents, and think about the punishment they would receive for much less severe delinquency at their own workplace. It becomes all the more alarming when we remember the power, authority, and heightened responsibility that comes with being a police officer.

It is quite notable that a significant number of these complaints that were found to be “Sustained” involved police officers injuring other officers. This is in spite of the fact that the overwhelming majority of IPRA complaints are filed by civilians against Chicago police officers who beat them, tased them, falsely arrested them or otherwise violated their civil rights. The Chicago Justice Project has reported that only 5.56% of the complaints filed with IPRA are sustained. It is remarkable that of these 5% of cases, so many of them involved officers injuring one another, rather than Constitutional violations against people of Chicago.

Victims of police shootings, brutality and abuse who courageously come forward must be supported and civil rights litigation must be employed to advance strategies of justice and social change to improve the conditions for all who live in Chicago. The People’s Law Office continues to encourage and promote government transparency and all efforts to make the Chicago police force more accountable to the public they serve and protect, including providing meaningful disciplinary consequences to those officers who shoot, beat or abuse people. When Chicago Police Department and the Independent Police Review Authority fail to hold police officers accountable, we utilize our skills as civil rights lawyers to file lawsuits on behalf of those abused by police. For more information about the types of cases we handle, view our Practice Areas.

This article is part of People’s Law Office’s ongoing analysis of IPRA and police accountability. Read further analysis here.

This week marks the anniversary of the Attica prison uprising and subsequent massacre by New York police officers and prison guards.  The rebellion began on September 9, 1971 and ended on September 13, 1971.

The rebellion was inspiring to many around the country and throughout the world in that it represented a growing movement fighting for human rights for prisoners.

People’s Law Office was among a group of civil rights attorneys around the country who immediately responded to the massacre and provided legal representation to inmates who were charged with crimes due to their involvement in the rebellion. Many of the participants, particularly key organizers, were subjected to abuse and torture by guards after the rebellion was suppressed. Lawyers from People’s Law Office, along with other civil rights attorneys, represented the Attica Brothers in a class action civil rights lawsuit which settled in 1999 for $12 million.

For more information on the Attica Rebellion and subsequent massacre:

Attica Is All Of Us from Freedom Archives on Vimeo.

Attica Prison Uprising 101: A Short Primer by Mariame Kaba, Project NIA

For more on our work representing the Attica Brothers:

Remembering Attica Forty Years Later, article in Prison Legal News, co-written by Michael Deutsch of People’s Law Office

Attica Rebellion Radio documentary featuring Michael Deutsch

Portion of the History page on this site discussing Attica