Breaking News From Bleeding Missouri

Here is a legal update for the events that happened over this past weekend for the FergusonOctober mobilization and an accumulative assessment since Mike Brown was murdered on August 9th.

There is now an incredible, burgeoning legal collective in St. Louis that is working with Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE) and the National Lawyers Guild, as well as other groups like the ArchCity Defenders. The legal collective showed grace under pressure this past weekend and will continue to support the pending criminal cases, help to monitor police presence/misconduct at ongoing demonstrations, track arrestees through the system, and play other support roles.

FergusonOctober:

This past weekend was especially active with numerous protests in Ferguson and across St. Louis County. You can see more about the weekend <http://fergusonoctober.com/>here, but this is some legal info:

More than 80 NLG Legal Observers were trained in the days leading up to the weekend, establishing a new robust group of LOs for future protests. The NLG worked with the local ACLU chapter to dispatch LOs such that every action over the weekend had ample green hats in the crowd.

There were nearly 100 arrests during the weekend of resistance, all of which were municipal offenses.

Friday included a march on the prosecuting attorney Bob McCullough's office in downtown Clayton. The main march of several thousand was on Saturday through downtown St. Louis, and included a breakaway march to Police Headquarters. None of these actions resulted in arrests.

Saturday night, 20 people were arrested at a sit-in at the Quick Trip gas station in the Shaw area of St. Louis, near where VonDerrit Myers was killed by an off-duty police officer last Wednesday. In fact, since then, near-daily protests have occurred in the Shaw neighborhood. The night of the murder, protesters successfully ran police out of the neighborhood, but since then the police have been fairly aggressive, using riot gear, forming police lines and pepper spraying crowds indiscriminately. Five Shaw protesters were arrested last Thursday, three of whom were charged with felonies (destruction of property), including one protester who was assaulted by police during his arrest (additional resisting arrest charge).

More than an hour after the arrests at the QT on Saturday night, an NLG Legal Observer, Steven Hoffmann, was arrested on site and charged with unlawful assembly. This brings the total number of LOs arrested since August to 5.

Sunday night, two large marches in the Shaw area joined to form a bloc of more than 1,000 protesters, which converged at St. Louis University for a sit-in at the clock tower, which is still going on right now. There have been no arrests at SLU, and the University has indicated that it would not make arrests as long as protesters remain peaceful.

On Monday, there were several decentralized direct actions across St. Louis, including:

- a clergy civil disobedience action at the Ferguson Police Department (37 arrests)

- "Show Me $15" actions at 3 different Walmarts (27 arrests)

- a civil disobedient action at a fundraiser for St. Louis County Executive candidate Steve Stenger (9 arrests), and

- a banner drop at the Monday Night Football St. Louis Rams game (no arrests).

Everyone who was arrested during the weekend of resistance is now out of jail. However, two people arrested last Thursday in Shaw and charged with felonies are still in jail. The legal collective and MORE, with the help of the Guild, are working to get them out.

Total Arrests:

There have been a total of approximately 350 political arrests since Mike Brown's murder. The vast majority of protesters were arrested on municipal charges, but 40 people have been charged with felonies (mainly burglary, destruction of property, assault on a police officer, use of a deadly or dangerous weapon, and resisting arrest). Most of those charged with felony burglary were also charged with misdemeanor theft.

The NLG has worked to find attorneys for all of the felony arrestees who contacted the legal hotline, which is approximately half of those charged. Other felony defendants currently have public defenders.

As I mentioned in a previous update, MORE is sponsoring ArchCity Defenders, a local legal aid organization, to defend all of the municipal cases, but so far prosecutors have filed formal charges against less than 30 protesters.

The protests and the energy generated by them have helped to establish a new, vibrant, more collaborative legal community in St. Louis, drawing from SLU Law School, Washington University Law School, Mound City Bar Association, ArchCity Defenders, ACLU, and NLG. But, the legal collective in particular, deserves tremendous credit for its amazing work under pressure and its ability to react gracefully and with cooperation despite often chaotic, difficult, and tense circumstances. Local legal workers have sharpened their teeth on these latest actions, and will hopefully continue their awesome work as long as protests are occurring.

It has been an honor to support both spontaneous and planned protests by mainly youth of color and to have the back of an unrelenting revolutionary movement.

In solidarity,

Kris Hermes

NLG Legal Worker VP

P.S. People are now preparing for the possibility that the grand jury won't indict Darren Wilson.

Know your rights--and the duties of police officers

I recently met a person who is working in a restaurant. He is a white American, but most of the workers are Latinos. He has developed a problem with other employees. The other employees come in before their shifts begin, put on their uniforms, set up their stations, and otherwise work off-the-clock. He refuses to do that. He tells the others that he doesn't want to give his work to the company without pay, but they tell him he's lazy. They shame him, he says, and he really can't abide that so he will likely quit his job.

It is likely the Latinos have little concept of work as a timed endeavor. They probably consider that they come to work, do their job, and then leave, without any consideration of how long they have worked. Their concept of an hourly wage may be vague. The American man would have to explain these things—in fact, he has tried—but he has the weight of numbers against him. The other employees all have the same view of the situation. He might be able to persuade them one at a time, but is helpless to argue against them all together.

The American man would like to organize them, because he knows that unions are able to improve wages and working conditions. Many of his coworkers are undocumented, however. They refuse even to discuss such a prospect.

The American needs to connect with them. First, he needs to prove to them that he is not lazy so they will stop shaming him in the workplace. He should tell them he doesn't mind working at all, especially when he is working to better himself or others. He should offer to spend some time each day teaching them something they can use to better themselves or cope with society better.

One thing he could do is explain the concept of ICE holds. Immigration police (ICE) pick up suspected undocumented workers and hand them over to the police or sheriff to be held in prison until such time as ICE wants to move on their cases. This is called an ICE stop. Under US law, however, a person can only be held in jail for 48 hours without bringing a charge against him in court. Undocumented workers do not usually know this. They should also know that there are some public interest lawyers that will file a writ of habeas corpus for undocumented workers who are being held illegally. Usually, once a prisoner is released, he will not be deported. The telephone number of such a lawyer would be valuable to one of the American's co-workers. Once one of them, or one of their friends, is released from prison in this way, it is likely they will stop shaming him.

Many people, even Americans, do not know their rights when they are stopped by police. They are technically free to walk away, but sometimes it is not possible to insist on this right.

One right they do have is to be represented by an attorney. Even before they are under arrest, they should tell the police that their attorney warned them not to answer any questions until he is present. A person who is likely to be stopped should get in the habit of carrying an attorney's business card, in case the police ask him for his attorney's name and telephone number.

A person in not required by law to produce identification when asked to do so by the police. He is required to give his real name and address, however. Failure to do so may lead to an arrest.

The subject of a police stop should not offer any incriminating evidence. For example, if a policeman asks if a bag of drugs belongs to you, you should always say you don't know anything about it. Do not reveal the location of other evidence.

The police are permitted to lie to suspects. They may say it will go easier on you if you confess, or give them names of your friends. Don't believe them. A policeman may seem powerful, but he is unable to influence the court. The person who can do that is the prosecutor, but you should always have a lawyer talk to the prosecutor.

For more information on this topic, see ACLU's Know Your Rights pamphlet.

ACLU court case brings prison reform to Mississippi

[this case is discussed in greater detail here]

In 1989, two HIV-positive prisoners brought a pro se law suit against the Mississippi Department of Corrections ("MDOC") for failing to provide them with adequate medical care at Parchman Farm. After losing their case, they won on appeal (Moore v. Mabus, 976 F.2d 268 (1992)) the right to receive prescribed medical care and be represented by an attorney. This was only the beginning of their troubles, however. MDOC continued to provide inadequate treatment and their court-appointed attorney refused to provide adequate representation.

In 1999, the ACLU filed a motion to substitute counsel on behalf of 110 HIV-positive prisoners at Parchman. Once again, the courts were reluctant to assist the prisoners. The ACLU enlisted the aid of Holland & Knight pro bono  attorneys. They also began negotiations with Robert Johnson, the newly appointed commissioner of MDOC, to remove their clients from segregation. Johnson assembled a task force of local groups and prisoner family members to discuss the issues and ended up agreeing with the prisoners' representatives Johnson then instituted regulations that integrated the HIV-positive prisoners with the general prison population.

It wasn't until 2007--after numerous trials and more discussions--that MDOC began instituting reforms for the entire prison. These reforms included a clearly defined incentive program that permitted prisoners to earn their way out of segregation--solitary confinement--and into the general population. Prisoners were permitted to take classes and play sports. General mental health services were greatly expanded.

Conditions at Parchman Farm in 1992 were similar to conditions at Red Onion Prison in 2013. Neither prisoners nor lawyers gave up trying to better their conditions over 15 years of litigation, negotiation, and retrenchment. We do not know the extent of prisoners' rights violations at Red Onion. The first step, however, should be a law suit on behalf of prisoners undertaken by the NLG and whatever other agencies or pro bono  attorneys are willing to join.