Illinois Deserves the Truth

Major Victory for Rights of Developmentally Disabled in IL

You have to love the power of class actions.  Last week, the IL developmentally disabled community hailed a settled federal class action as a huge step forward.  For the first time, it will give thousands of Illinoisans a choice in where they want to live.  From the Sun-Times,

"Finally, the state of Illinois has listened," said Zena Naiditich, president and CEO of Equip for Equality, an advocacy group for people with disabilities. "The outcome of this development is nothing short of remarkable. I'd like to say awesome."

Awesome, indeed!

Lawsuit Paved the Way for Burge's Downfall

Former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge finally faces prosecution, but not for what you’d expect.  Since expired statutes of limitations prevent any charges related to torture or coercing confessions, Burge was instead indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice - crimes that occurred during the federal lawsuit that compensated four of his torture victims.

Also worth a read: this subsequent AP story about the challenges facing Burge’s other torture victims.

Poverty and Law

Check out this great letter to the editor by Lawrence Wood and Richard Wheelock from the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago.  It appeared this morning on the Sun-Times op-ed page.

Civil Vindication

Cross posed from The Pop Tort by Joe Consumer.

Yes, we have a uniquely-American civil justice system, historically an important tool for protecting rights and liberties not just in the United States but also around the world.  The corporate/neo-con lobby, of course, views this system not as a source of national pride that the injured and disempowered sometimes get justice, but rather as a source of shame, as something that should be weakened.  In looking back over a few articles from last week, I’m reminded of the breathtaking capacity of our system to provide access to justice and vindication of rights.   

Human Rights in Iraq:  In a lawsuit filed by families of 12 Nepali men killed in Iraq against defense contractor KBR and a Jordanian subcontractor of human trafficking, the families say that the workers were sent to work in Iraq against their will after being promised jobs in a hotel in Jordan, taken to work at an American air base in Iraq in 2004 when insurgents intercepted their caravan and killed them days later.  A Nepali worker who survived said he was forced to work at the airbase for 15 months.

Human Rights in Indonesia: A court is allowing the case to go forward against Exxon, sued for “the actions of Indonesian soldiers who, while guarding Exxon assets, allegedly beat, shot, tortured and raped villagers eight years ago.”

Hate Crime: An openly gay woman (a former contestant on "Top Chef,") was attacked last year by a group shouting anti-gay slurs. She has filed a lawsuit against her alleged attackers and the bar owner.

Discrimination: Officer Doreen Spiotti, the only female police in Wolcott Connecticut’s Police Department, sued for harassment and discrimination after being berated and told she had become a "soft" police officer after becoming a mother. The police department settled for $300,000.

Vindication for Imprisonment: A man spent more than five years in state prison for child molestation before a criminal jury acquitted him in 2005.  Turns out that the investigating officer and the imprisoned man’s wife had become romantically involved and planning to marry.  None of this was disclosed to the defense.  But a civil jury stepped in, awarding him $16 million. “‘I’m most thankful,’ he said. ‘I believe in the system. The only way you can get vindication is to go back through the system.’

Child Molestation:  After finding that a Roman Catholic diocese hid the sexual abuses of a priest, a former altar boy was awarded $5 million by an Illinois jury.  The jury found that the diocese "fraudulently concealed" his suspected molestations since the early 1970s yet quietly shuffled him around from parish to parish.

Cross posed from The Pop Tort by Joe Consumer.

Yes, we have a uniquely-American civil justice system, historically an important tool for protecting rights and liberties not just in the United States but also around the world.  The corporate/neo-con lobby, of course, views this system not as a source of national pride that the injured and disempowered sometimes get justice, but rather as a source of shame, as something that should be weakened.  In looking back over a few articles from last week, I’m reminded of the breathtaking capacity of our system to provide access to justice and vindication of rights.   

Human Rights in Iraq:  In a lawsuit filed by families of 12 Nepali men killed in Iraq against defense contractor KBR and a Jordanian subcontractor of human trafficking, the families say that the workers were sent to work in Iraq against their will after being promised jobs in a hotel in Jordan, taken to work at an American air base in Iraq in 2004 when insurgents intercepted their caravan and killed them days later.  A Nepali worker who survived said he was forced to work at the airbase for 15 months.

Human Rights in Indonesia: A court is allowing the case to go forward against Exxon, sued for “the actions of Indonesian soldiers who, while guarding Exxon assets, allegedly beat, shot, tortured and raped villagers eight years ago.”

Hate Crime: An openly gay woman (a former contestant on "Top Chef,") was attacked last year by a group shouting anti-gay slurs. She has filed a lawsuit against her alleged attackers and the bar owner.

Discrimination: Officer Doreen Spiotti, the only female police in Wolcott Connecticut’s Police Department, sued for harassment and discrimination after being berated and told she had become a "soft" police officer after becoming a mother. The police department settled for $300,000.

Vindication for Imprisonment: A man spent more than five years in state prison for child molestation before a criminal jury acquitted him in 2005.  Turns out that the investigating officer and the imprisoned man’s wife had become romantically involved and planning to marry.  None of this was disclosed to the defense.  But a civil jury stepped in, awarding him $16 million. “‘I’m most thankful,’ he said. ‘I believe in the system. The only way you can get vindication is to go back through the system.’

Child Molestation:  After finding that a Roman Catholic diocese hid the sexual abuses of a priest, a former altar boy was awarded $5 million by an Illinois jury.  The jury found that the diocese "fraudulently concealed" his suspected molestations since the early 1970s yet quietly shuffled him around from parish to parish.

Chicago Urban League Utilizes the Courts to Fight Discrimination

The Chicago Urban League filed a lawsuit against Illinois yesterday, saying our system of funding schools through property taxes is racially discriminatory and unconstitutional.  From an AP article,

Illinois' current system of funding exacerbates the state's segregated housing problem, especially in Chicago, said Lisa Scruggs, a lawyer for the group. Because homes in neighborhoods with high percentages of minorities have lower values than homes in white neighborhoods, schools in minority districts get less funding.

"The basic fact that you have a distinction between low property-wealth districts and high property-wealth districts, ultimately that leads down the road to gaps in education performance," Scruggs said.

The disparity in funds is real.  The Chicago Reporter collected a list of stats that'll raise your eyebrows.  One example:

Due to the primary reliance on local property tax revenue for school funding, there are massive cumulative gaps in per-pupil spending, particularly in poor or minority communities. The 6,413 students who started elementary school in Evanston in 1994 and graduated from high school in 2007 had about $290 million more spent on their education than the same number of Chicago Public Schools students.

The Urban League wants the state to institute a fairer funding system.  Whether or not you agree with them, everyone should recognize the importance of being able to ask these kinds of questions.  For years, people have used the civil justice system to do just that and to further other civil rights causes.  This is just the latest example.

An Activist Supreme Court Like No Other

Cross posted from The Pop Tort by Joe Consumer

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing this week about how the current U.S. Supreme Court is one of the most activist ever (yes, that’s right, I said activist) when it comes to shielding corporations from wrongdoing.

The hearing, “Courting Big Business:  The Supreme Court’s Recent Decisions on Corporate Misconduct and Laws Regulating Corporations,” will be held Wednesday, July 23, at 10:00 a.m. in room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.  The hearing will be webcast live online.

Senate Judiciary Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) noted, “In June, the Judiciary panel examined recent Supreme Court decisions that have preempted several state laws established to protect Americans, including laws to shield Americans from illegal hiring practices, medical liability, and predatory lending practices.”

Among those testifying: an Exxon Valdez victim, a Harvard University Law professor, and a corporate lawyer.  Interestingly, all women!

Center for Justice & Democracy’s Joanne Doroshow wrote this commentary last March along the same lines for California's The Recorder, about the Stoneridge securities case, called the "A Return to Gordon Gekko Justice."  Here’s an excerpt:

Specifically, in Stoneridge Investment Partners v. Scientific-Atlanta, 128 S.Ct. 761, the court ruled that shareholders could no longer hold these so-called secondary actors responsible when they participate in a scheme with a public company to inflate its stock price and, thereby, defraud shareholders.

In making this ruling, a majority of the court's justices acted as if they had never heard of Enron, WorldCom or the countless other cases of corporate fraud from the last several years — many of which were made possible by these very same secondary actors.

The Stoneridge ruling means that many victims of securities fraud can no longer recover even a fraction of the losses they suffer at the hands of deep-pocketed business interests who are directly involved in elaborate schemes to mislead the investing public.

Breaking with Securities and Exchange Commission precedent, the views of 33 state attorneys general and members of Congress from both parties — including ranking Senate Judiciary Committee Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. — this ruling was one of the most activist Supreme Court decisions in recent years. It should come as no surprise that a representative of the national Chamber of Commerce giddily characterized the first year of Roberts' Supreme Court as, "our best Supreme Court term ever."

However, for those concerned about the integrity of our markets and the rights of investors, it may very well be the worst court ever.

Illinois News Roundup

A few recent stories that may pique your interest…

In a post a few weeks ago, we mentioned the story of a 77-year-old who was beaten to death in his Chicago nursing home, presumably by a roommate with a history of dementia.  His family has filed a lawsuit against the nursing home for pairing their Alzheimer's-stricken relative with the dangerous roommate. (Tribune)

Poor living conditions at the Cook County Jail violate prisoners’ constitutional rights, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.  Their investigation uncovered physical abuse by staff, insufficient medical care, and poor sanitation. (Chicago Public Radio)

The Tribune reports that the state’s largest psychiatric hospital left sexual predators unattended, even though they knew of at least 10 mentally disabled children who were assaulted over the last three years.  We commend the Tribune, whose findings led the hospital to “immediately impose changes, including new training for child-protection workers and better reporting of assault allegations.” (Tribune)

We’ve written a lot about nursing home abuse, but here’s a frightening article on elderly abuse by home aides.  Read this and try to argue that we don’t need more regulation over the elderly care industry! (Wall Street Journal)

In Chicago, Unfair Housing and Unequal Opportunity

The National Commission on Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity held its first hearing in Chicago yesterday.  Yes, housing discrimination is still a huge issue.   The nation's housing crunch has affected basically every demographic group, but predatory lenders especially targeted black and Hispanic borrowers.  Chicago markets were pretty much the worst in this respect, so it is only fitting that we host the first meeting. 

And, for those who don't think discrimination plays a big role in the foreclosure crisis, a quote from our own equal opportunity housing champion Lisa Madigan:

"[The foreclosure crisis] isn't the natural result of a slumping economy, and it isn't the result of homeowners taking on more than they can handle," she said. "This crisis is the direct result of unfair, deceptive and discriminatory lending practices by the lending industry."

Congress, White House and Telecoms to All of Us: Drop Dead

Cross posted from ThePopTort.

Well we’ve all heard by now that the Senate passed - by a vote of 69 to 28 - the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, an unconstitutional domestic spying bill that pretty clearly violates the Fourth Amendment.

And it also, by the way, grants retroactive immunity to phone companies that illegally released confidential phone records to the government, helping it engage in warrantless wiretapping over the last seven years.

Before the final vote, the Senate rejected an amendment from Senators Chris Dodd, Russ Feingold and Patrick Leahy, to strip out the telecom immunity. That effort failed by a vote of 32-66.

Lest we forget the kind of lobbying and PR money behind all of this.  See here, for example. 

Lawsuits, of course, would have been the only real way for the facts about this entire illegal mess to come to light.

Here’s Law Professor Jonathan Turley talking to Rachel Maddow on Countdown last night, summing the whole thing up.

Abu Ghraib Torture Victims Sue Military Contractors in U.S. Courts

Cross posted from ThePopTort by Amanda

Many of us were shocked and appalled by the photographs of the prisoner abuses occurring in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison between 2003-2004.  Several military and Congressional investigations were started and eventually nine U.S. soldiers were found guilty of abuse.  This scandal changed the way prisoners were detained in Iraq.

However, none of the private contractors were ever charged with any of the crimes that occurred at Abu Ghraib.  Yesterday, four men filed lawsuits against two U.S. defense contractors.

The lawsuits allege that those arrested and taken to the prison were subjected to forced nudity, electrical shocks, mock executions and other inhumane treatment. They seek unspecified payments high enough to compensate the detainees for their injuries, and to deter contractors from such conduct in the future.

In 2001, the Center for Justice & Democracy released a Primer on War, Terrorism and the U.S. Civil Justice System.  According to one of the co-authors: 

Given today's world situation, further acts of terrorism both here and abroad, war crimes, torture, disappearances, imprisonment, hostage-taking and other scenarios are all possibilities that, while awful to think about, historically have accompanied many violent confrontations and wars. The United States has the best civil justice system in the world for dealing with these kinds of atrocities, war crimes and human rights violations.