In a case brought by NLG members Ben Hale, of the Portland Law Collective, and Steven Goldberg, the Multnomah County Circuit Court recently approved a settlement that provides $2,100,000 to the family of a man who died in prison from medical neglect. Because the decedent was in prison, he couldn’t go to the hospital, and the doctors in prison wouldn’t treat him, so he slowly died from liver failure. Benjamin Haile achieved a settlement in which the decedent’s parents, widow, and children received compensation for their loss of financial support and companionship due to the death.

The decedent was serving a relatively short prison sentence, and his employer testified that his job as a construction worker was waiting for him the day he would have been released. Aggressive development of the case by Ben and co-counsel Steven Goldberg included retaining an expert in prison healthcare to explain the medical procedures that prison doctors and nurses failed to follow, a hepatologist to explain how these errors caused the patient’s liver to fail, and an economics expert to explain the financial support he would have been able to provide his family if he had survived. The case is Cruz-Reyes v. State of Oregon, Multnomah County Circuit Court Case No. 1107-09220.

The evening will also be a fundraiser for the Oregon Justice Resource Center and Right 2 Survive. Your admission ($5) will be donated to these two organizations, as well as the money collected from a raffle that will take place at the event.

Entertainment will include:

Invite your friends to the Facebook event page.

ACLU of Oregon (student group’s affiliate organization) is a non-partisan organization dedicated to the preservation and enhancement of civil liberties and civil rights. The ACLU believes that the freedoms of press, speech, assembly, and religion, and the rights to due process, equal protection and privacy, are fundamental to a free people. The ACLU advances civil liberties and civil rights by activities that include litigation, education, and lobbying.

National Lawyer’s Guild (student group’s affiliate organization) is dedicated to the need for basic change in the structure of our political and economic system. NLG seeks to unite the lawyers, law students, legal workers and jailhouse lawyers to function as an effective force in the service of the people, to the end that human rights shall be regarded as more sacred than property interests.

The mission of the Oregon Justice Resource Center is to dismantle systemic discrimination in the administration of justice by promoting civil rights and enhancing the quality of legal representation for traditionally underserved communities. In the spirit of this mission and in collaboration with other like-minded organizations, the OJRC seeks to provide legal services to underrepresented populations; to impart practical skills to future public interest lawyers; and to educate the local community on individual civil rights and current civil liberties issues.

Right 2 Survive is a group of houseless and formerly houseless individuals dedicated to teaching about and defending the human civil and constitutional rights of people experiencing homelessness. One of their recent direct actions, the Right 2 Dream Too rest area, provides refuge and a safe space to sleep undisturbed for Portland’s unhoused community who cannot access affordable housing or shelter.

A Guild happy hour follows at 6:30 pm at the Florida Room, 435 N Killingsworth.

Queer (In)justice is “a groundbreaking work that turns a ‘queer eye’ on the criminal legal system. In March 2003—three decades after Stonewall—police stormed the Power Plant, a private Detroit club frequented by African American LGBT people. Over 350 people were handcuffed. Some were hit in the head and back; others were slammed into walls while being verbally abused. Their supposed crime was later chalked up to a bizarre infraction ‘loitering inside a building.’ The event illuminated a long shadow of policing in America, where discrimination and prejudice are pervasive. Drawing on years of research, activism, and legal advocacy, Queer (In)Justice is a searing examination of the queer experience—as criminal defendants, prisoners, and survivors of violent crimes.”

Andrea Ritchie is a police misconduct attorney and organizer who has engaged in extensive research, litigation, and organizing on profiling, policing, and violence by law enforcement agents against women and LGBT people of color over the past two decades. She currently coordinates Streetwise & Safe (SAS), a leadership development initiative aimed at sharing information, strategies for safety, and visions for change among LGBT youth of color. Her book, Violence Every Day: Racial Profiling and Police Brutality Against Women, Girls and Transgender People of Color, will be published in 2012 by South End Press.

To: Multnomah County Commissioners

501 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Suite 600

Portland, OR 97214-3587

Jeff Cogen, County Chair

Deborah Kafoury

Loretta Smith

Judy Shiprack

Diane McKeel

RE:      Upcoming Resolution calling on ICE to Exercise Prosecutorial Discretion

Dear Multnomah County Commissioners:

The Portland Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) supports the Multnomah County Resolution calling on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to exercise prosecutorial discretion for its effort to address the negative impacts of the federal government’s Secure Communities Program and local police collaboration with ICE.  Secure Communities (S-Comm), a federal mass deportation system, and similar programs do not accomplish their professed mission of keeping communities safer; instead, they have proven costly for our local community.

            S-Comm does not make our neighborhoods or families safer.  S-Comm is touted as a deportation system that only targets violent criminals who pose a threat to the broader community.  However, ICE’s own statistics demonstrate that 77% of persons detained in Oregon were arrested for minor offenses (such as traffic violations), and 28% of those deported had no criminal record at all.

           Instead, S-Comm drives us apart and makes us less safe.  S-Comm increases fear of police, rather than facilitating cooperation in immigrant populations.  Because of S-Comm, those who engage with law enforcement may be deported, effectively tearing their families apart.  Rather than making us safer, S-Comm, and local law enforcement/ICE collaboration, makes members of immigrant communities reluctant to contact police in serious situations, such as reporting incidents of domestic violence or witnessing a crime.

           S-Comm places the cost of federal immigration enforcement onto Multnomah County taxpayers.  Although immigration enforcement is the federal government’s responsibility, S-Comm places the burden and cost of such enforcement on local municipalities and police departments.

          ICE’s “detainers” are requests, not mandatory.  ICE places “detainers” requesting local law enforcement detain individuals beyond their legal release date, wasting vital and limited resources while burdening local agencies and officers. These programs have the effect of rendering people otherwise eligible for bail release unable to gain release.  The County should not honor these requests, as they may violate basic principles of due process.

           S-Comm is fundamentally flawed, and needs to be reined in.  We join the chorus urging the Commissioners to act on their pledge to work with community-based groups to save precious County resources, protect immigrant families, uphold constitutional due process protection, and restore public trust between local law enforcement and the immigrant community.  We urge Commissioners change County policy to deny ICE detainer requests in County jails unless certain conditions are met.

Please pass this resolution as a first step towards creating a mechanism for oversight and accountability in a program that is dire need of it.

For a Better World,

National Lawyers Guild

Portland, Oregon Chapter

J. ASHLEE ALBIES

Co-Chair, Portland NLG Chapter

MEGHAN BARNER

Treasurer, Portland NLG Chapter

“Civil Liberties 10 Years After 9/11 – Can We Be Safe and Free”

at 7:30pm on Tuesday, November 8, 2011. The event is free and will be held at the

Portland Building Auditorium, 1120 SW 5^th Ave in Portland

The forum will discuss the threat to our civil liberties caused by the prior and current administration’s systematic policies of torture and targeted killing, extraordinary rendition and warrantless wiretaps, military commissions and indefinite detention, political surveillance and religious discrimination – policies which have dubious or no value in preserving our safety and national security. Speakers: Steven Wax, Kayse Jama, Steven Goldberg, Brandon Mayfield, David Fidanque. Moderator: Jo Ann Hardesty.

 Contact Mark Kramer for further information.  503.243.2733, mark@kramer-associates.com

It will begin on  Oct. 6th at the Tom McCall Waterfront Park.  For more information, go to occupyportland.org.

To adequately support Occupy Portland, there will be two LO trainings in the next two days: 

Saturday, August 27th at 11am at the Kenton Firehouse, 8105 N. Brandon Street

It will be fun, fanciful and reasonably priced. It’ll be a chance for Guild members, colleagues, allies, friends and family to enjoy one of Portland’s finest culinary traditions, brunch. We’ll celebrate briefly our community’s accomplishments for the year, but mostly we’ll celebrate a leisurely morning with new friends and old.

$25 in advance, $12 for student/low income

$30 at the door, $15 for student/low income

Email kac@lclark.edu to make your reservation!

REPORT BACK FROM TUNISIA
Friday, May 13, 2011
12:00 – 1:15 PM
Multnomah County
Courthouse
1021 SW 4th Ave.,
Room 226
Judge Wyatt’s Courtroom

This event is a brown bag lunch. Please bring your associates and friends.

Steven Goldberg and Tom Nelson were part of a delegation of lawyers and activists from the United States, England and Turkey which visited Tunisia in March at the invitation of the National Bar Association of Tunisia. The cataclysmic political changes which resulted in the fall of the Ben Ali regime in January sparked continued changes and protests throughout North Africa and the Middle East.

· How did such dramatic political change happen so quickly?
· What was the role of lawyers in bringing about this change?
· What are the challenges to the transition to democracy?
· How can U.S. lawyers and judges be part of such international delegations?

Come and find out the answers to these questions!