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STAMFORD A U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that police violated the free-speech rights of Stamford resident Michael Friend, who was arrested in 2018 for holding up a sign saying Cops Ahead near where city police were conducting a distracted-driving operation.

"This decision is a solid affirmation of the fact that people have the right to protest the police," said Elana Bildner, senior staff attorney for the ACLU Foundation of Connecticut and an attorney on the case. "When Michael Friend held up a sign on a Stamford sidewalk to alert people to police activity, he was well within his First Amendment rights, and Stamford police never should have arrested him. This decision is good news for protesters rights and should serve as a reminder to all police in Connecticut that they cannot and should not silence speech like Mr. Friends."

But attorney Elliot Spector, who represents Lt. Richard Gasparino, the officer who arrested Friend, maintains that his client was just doing his job and said he plans to file a motion for summary judgement, claiming Gasparino had "qualified immunity."

"An officer in (Gasparino's) position at the time would believe that he is acting in good faith," Spector said. "There is no clearly established lawthat would inform him that his actions are unconstitutional."

Spector also cited cases from the United States Supreme Court and lower courts that "would inform officers under similar circumstances that (Gasparino's) actions were constitutional."

The legal dust-up stems fromApril 2018 when Gasparino then a sergeant arrested Friend and charged him with interfering with police.

According to a lawsuit filed by Friend shortly after his arrest, Friendcreated a sign reading Cops Ahead, after he saw Gasparino standing near where police were conducting the distracted driving detail and alerting other officers to motorists allegedly violating the states distracted driving law.

Gasparino reportedly approached Friend, told him to stop and took the sign away. Gasparino threatened to arrest Friend when he started recording the officer with his phone, according to the suit.

Friend then made a bigger sign reading "Cops Ahead" and moved to another location. Friend was arrested after he recorded Gasparino when he approached again, the suit states.

After his arrest, Friend was held on $25,000 bond until a bail commissioner released him on a promise to appear in court. A Stamford judge dismissed the charge on May 7, 2018.

In his lawsuit, Friend alleged that Gasparino violated his First Amendment right to freedom of speech and his Fourth Amendment right againstmalicious prosecution. Friend also claimed the City of Stamford violated his 14th Amendment rights to due process and equal protection.

In 2020, a federal judge threw out Friend's suit, claiming that it was "questionable" whether Friend's actions rose to "the level ofexpression of an opinion related to a matter of public significance." Even if Friend's actions constituted an exercise of free speech, that court claimed that Gasparino's actions were acceptable because he and his fellow officers were "saving lives by stopping distracted driversand issuing citations for their behavior."

But the Court of Appeals disagreed.

In a decision issued Feb. 27, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals vacated the earlier findings that Gasparino violated Friend's rights to free speech and freedom from malicious prosecution.

"The district court erred when it held that Friends arrest was supported by probable cause and that Gasparinos actions did notviolate Friends First Amendment right to freedom of speech," the findings read.

The 29-page decision said, among other things, that "The district courts suggestion that only 'expression(s)of an opinion related to a matter of public significance' merit First Amendment protection is unsupported in our case law."

However, the Court of Appeals did uphold the district court's ruling showing that the City of Stamford didn't violate Friend's Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process and equal protection.

"The City is pleased the Second Circuit upheld the District Courts grant of summary judgment in its favor," said Barbara L. Coughlan, Assistant Corporation Counsel, City of Stamford.

Excerpt from:
Court supports suit of Stamford man with 'cops ahead' sign - Torrington Register Citizen

New City, NY, The Rockland County Office of Buildings and Codes (OBC) and the Department of Health Center for Rockland Codes Investigations (RCI) have spent the past two weeks inspecting all properties owned by Jacob Jeremias, his wife Etsy Jeremias, and properties under his corporation, 7 Ohio LLC. Jacob Jeremias owns 118 S. Lake Street, which was the site of a recent fatal fire that resulted in 5 deaths.

Any and all information gathered by the County of Rockland will be provided to the Spring Valley Police Department, Rockland District Attorneys Office, and the Internal Revenue Service pending the completion of these investigations.

The OBC found a significant number of New York State Fire Prevention and Building Code violations at each of the following properties owned and related to Jacob Jeremias. An excess of 250 potential violations were found and are being finalized before being issued to Jacob Jeremias. A property-by-property breakdown of violations will be provided once they have been issued.

116 S. Lake St., Spring Valley - 118 S. Lake St., Spring Valley - 120 S. Lake St., Spring Valley - 122 S. Lake St., Spring Valley - 86 N. Lake St., Spring Valley - 3 Jay St., Spring Valley - 6 Sherwood Ave., Spring Valley - 4 Ohio Ave., Spring Valley - 5 Ohio Ave., Spring Valley - 7 Ohio Ave., Spring Valley

The County Office of Buildings and Codes (OBC) assumed control of the Village of Spring Valley Building Department as ordered by New York State Department of State (NYSDOS) effective February 14, 2022.

Under New York State law, 3-family homes and above, commercial buildings, and places of assembly are subject to mandatory inspections. Each of the above properties are single or two-family private residences which are not subject to state mandated inspections.

The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the right of the people to be secure in their houses and prohibits the government from entering without a search warrant supported by probable cause.

Inspectors were granted access to the above properties with the permission and authority of the tenants. The County of Rockland urges people to submit complaints of unsafe housing conditions in the Village of Spring Valley to the Office of Buildings and Codes to attempt similar complaint-driven inspections.

The Center for Rockland Codes Investigations (RCI) found more than 150 potential violations on the following properties owned and related to Jeremias:

120 S. Lake St., Spring Valley - 122 S. Lake St., Spring Valley - 6 Sherwood Ave., Spring Valley - 4 Ohio Ave., Spring Valley - 5 Ohio Ave., Spring Valley - 7 Ohio Ave., Spring Valley - 3 De Baun Place, Hillcrest - 46 West Hickory St., Hillcrest

Fines are still being assessed and finalized but many properties had common violations including:

Inspectors learned smoke detectors were installed by the landlord in at least 3 properties following the fatal fire.

The Office of Buildings and Codes requests all interested parties submit complaints within the Village of Spring Valley by calling 845-364-3700 or emailing BuildingsAndCodes@co.rockland.ny.us.

Rockland Codes Investigations requests all Sanitary Code Violations be reported to 845-364-2585 or by filing a report online.

The Rockland County Department of Healths Healthy Neighborhoods Program (HNP) provides free safety outreach, including providing smoke detectors, and education to eligible residents including low-income residents, seniors, and at-risk families.

To schedule a free Healthy Neighborhoods Program home visit, a presentation for your organization, or for more information, please call 845-364-3292 or 845-364-3290.

Read more from the original source:
County of Rockland, New York :: OBC & RCI Inspect All Properties ... - Rockland County

Sixty years ago today, the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in Gideon v. Wainwright. The court held that states must abide by the Sixth Amendment and that those whose liberty is threatened by criminal prosecution have the assistance of an attorney: The right of one charged with crime to counsel may not be deemed fundamental and essential to fair trials in some countries, but it is in ours. This noble ideal cannot be realized if the poor man charged with crime has to face his accusers without a lawyer to assist him.

In the decades since, the Supreme Court has expanded the right to counsel in important ways, declaring that the right extends to children in juvenile delinquency proceedings, to probationers in probation revocation proceedings, and to people charged with misdemeanors. The court has established that the right includes an obligation for lawyers to correctly advise their clients about certain immigration consequences of criminal convictions, and that the right includes effective assistance of counsel during plea bargaining.

Today we celebrate these Supreme Court decisions and the public defenders who dedicate themselves to fulfilling Gideons promise. Public defenders are guardians of our constitutional rights, and therefore guardians of the freedoms that our rights protect. When public defenders zealously defend their clients, they are holding us all to our stated beliefs that these rights are for everyone not just the innocent, not just the wealthy or the socially favored.

Safeguarding the Constitution

As we ring in 60 years of Gideon, its important to remember what paved the way. Twenty-five years before the landmark decision, the court held that the Sixth Amendment requires counsel to be provided to someone unable to hire their own lawyer in federal criminal cases. And 50 years before Gideon, our countrys first public defender agency conceived of by Californias first female lawyer opened its doors in Los Angeles, California.

Clarence Earl Gideon

Credit: AP Photo

By the time Gideon was decided, many states already had laws or procedures in place to ensure that indigent people at risk of losing their liberty were represented by counsel. But some states lagged behind. Florida, the state in which Gideon arose, argued in the Supreme Court that it should not be required to equalize social and economic conditions among its citizens, by providing counsel for all indigent people. Alabama and North Carolina filed an amicus brief agreeing with Florida and asking the court to leave them alone. They argued that forcing states to abide by the Sixth Amendment would be socialism, and that those gratuitous services should only be provided if the people of individual states believe they are warranted morally or are feasible financially. Fortunately, they lost, and Clarence Earl Gideon won.

The right to counsel is fundamental: It means a criminal defense lawyer is there to uphold everyones constitutional rights even those accused of violent crimes. And public defenders know that our constitutional rights are only as strong as our willingness to uphold them in the face of the worst accusations. Our rights include the presumption of innocence, which means it is the governments job to try to prove our guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Public defenders dedicate themselves to the wisdom handed down by Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who all taught a version of the same lesson: A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens, but by how it treats its criminals.

Public defenders will stand beside you, insist on your humanity, and demand that you are entitled to the protections of our constitution no matter what. They fight at every turn seeking pretrial release, challenging the introduction of the governments evidence, holding the government to its burden of proof at trial, negotiating favorable plea deals, and advocating for humane sentences.

Ensuring That Constitutional Rights Endure

The Eighth Amendment imposes substantive limits on what can be made criminal and punished as such, but the Supreme Court has decided that those limits are to be applied sparingly. As a result, our collective choices about what is criminalized changes considerably over time, reflecting shifts in social mores and politics. At different times in this countrys history, we have criminalized people who escaped enslavement, sexual contact between people of the same gender, filming the police, interracial marriage, adultery, and contraception. Marijuana possession and distribution remains criminalized in the federal code and in many state codes, while in other states marijuana distribution is a legal and booming business. And we are now returning to an era of increasing criminalization for having or helping someone have an abortion, as well as bills that criminalize gender affirming care. Public defenders ensure that our constitutional rights endure, in contrast to the ever-changing and often unjust landscape of what we call criminal.

Exposing Abuses of Power

In addition to upholding our rights and protecting the most disfavored among us from arbitrary and lawless treatment, public defenders play a crucial role in exposing government abuses of power. As they challenge the governments evidence, public defenders discovered government programs that invade our privacy, including overbroad use of surveillance cameras attached to utility poles, flawed facial recognition technology, and the mining of discarded or shed DNA. It was appointed counsel representing detainees at Guantanamo Bay who exposed one of the darkest chapters of recent time government-sponsored torture, physical abuse, and arbitrary detention.

Public defenders also expose racist practices in law enforcement. They raised the alarm on rampant Fourth Amendment violations in the New York City Police Departments stop and frisk program, which targeted people of color, especially Black New Yorkers, and the LA County Sheriffs racial profiling on the I-5 freeway. In Seattle, Washington, public defenders challenged a system of racially biased prosecutions for drug crimes, which ultimately led to the creation of a groundbreaking diversion program.

Making the Noble Ideal a Reality

We are living in an era of mass incarceration and overcriminalization that has robbed generations of their liberty, torn families and communities apart, and entrenched economic and racial inequality. Public defenders witness and attempt to combat this systemic oppression every day. Despite the essential roles public defenders play, they are consistently undervalued. In too many places, lawmakers dont adequately fund public defenders, and as a result, peoples access to quality public defense lags behind our noble ideal. If we are ever to realize this ideal, we must better understand the crucial role public defenders play in protecting all of our rights.

Sixty years ago, Gideon ushered in a new era, establishing a fundamental legal protection for people accused of crimes. The decision resulted in meaningful change, but there is more work to do because the principle announced in Gideon is not yet a reality across much of the country. At a moment when our fundamental rights are being increasingly eroded, we must fulfill the promise of Gideon. Thriving public defense systems strengthen our constitutional order, an interest that we all share.

Read this article:
Celebrating 60 Years of Gideon v. Wainwright - ACLU

by Tom Beck

Erika Almiron, a Germantown resident who first ran for City Council at-large in 2019, learned a lot about running citywide since her last attempt, when she finished 9th in a field of 28 at-large candidates. At the time, she was the executive director of Juntos, an immigrants rights nonprofit, which provided her a base of support within the Latino community.

Problem is, thats a Philadelphia voting block that doesnt exactly turn out in droves at least compared to other cities, Almiron said. So this time she intends to build a bigger coalition of voters who resemble the whole city.

There needs to be a diverse set of voters that come to the table, she said. I think that is a formula for a win.

If she wins, Almiron would become the first Latina in the history of Philadelphias at-large seats on City Council.

The Local spoke with Almiron about her experience as the head of Juntos, her work turning Philadelphia into a sanctuary city and where she stands on some of the citys most discussed issues. The following interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Can you tell us what makes you unique as a candidate?

I'm the daughter of immigrants from Paraguay. I'm the first in my whole family to go to college, and at the time I didn't even know what financial aid was. My first year of college, I actually cleaned houses with my Mom to pay for school because I didn't know that there were other ways to pay for a college education.

I've been doing social justice work for more than 20 years, and I've fought for fully funded schools and education reform as assistant director for the Philadelphia Student Union. I worked at the American Friends Service Committee where I supported the Mexico/U.S. border program. But most people know me for my work at Juntos, where I was the executive director for almost ten years. I led a lot of the fights for sanctuary city policies at the time when it wasn't a popular policy or even a way to describe the city.

I think it is now something the city is very proud of, and I'm proud of the fact that I was able to lead some of the fights that got us to this place.

What are sanctuary cities, exactly?

The most prominent aspect of a sanctuary city is putting an end to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) holds. Thats when ICE would call local police and ask them to hold people who they thought were undocumented so that border agents could pick them up from the police station. The issue with that is you could get picked up for anything. You could even be a victim of a crime and get picked up. And there were lots of victims of crimes getting caught up in that dragnet.

So we said that was unconstitutional, and a violation of the Fourth Amendment, in particular in regards to searches and seizures. That was a huge success for us and the policy that we created here in the city was replicated over 80 times across the country.

We also put an end to sharing the arrest database with ICE, which agents were using to conduct home raids.

Would you consider Philadelphia a leader in these policies?

I believe so. We were definitely always at the vanguard of pushing for sanctuary policies.

What are your top issues?

I think that number one on everybody's mind including mine has always been public safety. I had an incident last summer where I had a stray bullet come through my front windshield while I was driving down Broad Street. The bullet got so close to hitting me that it landed in the cupholder next to my leg.

The hardest part of the whole experience was that I then proceeded to call 911 several times and I didn't get an answer. I've done a lot of digging to try to find out why that was. I think there's a big problem with how we're managing things. I also feel like we have to support our city workers with a living wage.

Public safety is followed by affordability whether that's housing, how expensive your grocery bill has gotten and I would say education.

It sounds like you're making a connection between the state of the economy and crime?

Yes.

We have a wide wage gap in this city. First off, we're the poorest of the large cities in the country, which means there are a lot of places in our city that are really struggling, and I think that the pandemic made things a lot worse.

We're seeing the way that inflation has impacted our communities. Poverty has always been a problem here, but it's getting worse. When that happens, people are going to do what they need to do to survive.

You can't address public safety without talking about poverty, and how we're going to address schools, and access to jobs. Without those solutions it's just going to get worse and worse.

The Philadelphia2035 plan is calling for more dense developments, especially near transit areas. Do you support this?

I think you can't have one without the other. Finding parking in the neighborhood is hard. We can have a critique about parking and the use of vehicles and pollution, which I agree with, but we also don't have good public transit out here [in the Northwest].

It takes at least an hour from Germantown maybe longer from places like Chestnut Hill and Mt. Airy to even get downtown, unless you take Regional Rail, which is much more expensive.

I think we have to do some of the transit developmental improvements out here that would allow for people to be able to move between here and Center City and other parts of the city before we start [building dense apartment complexes]. Otherwise we're actually just going to make everything worse, because we're just going to have more people with cars out here.

How would you accomplish that? There's been some talk about cutting prices for Regional Rail down to what the subway costs. Is that something you'd support?

We should do that. Regional Rail functions in a way where it only comes out once an hour, and it's so expensive.

We should start by prioritizing city residents as a part of our transit system. People in Germantown are constantly talking about if we're ever going to get the trolley again, and whether or not that would improve transit. Are there routes that could be better? Could we get more routes out here in Germantown and Mt. Airy? The 23 comes by my house, but it takes a long time to get downtown. Some people will hop on the 23 and then hop on [the train] at Wayne Junction to go downtown - that still takes you forever. I just think there are ways that we need to restructure some of that.

What haven't I asked that youd want people to know about you?

I'd like people to know that the experience that I bring makes me a really good fit for this job. To have fought for something like the sanctuary city policies that were really unpopular at first, and then to see everybody be proud of it - that's called helping build a movement. And in order to make change we have to build movements in this city that are exciting and that move people to want those changes.

I want to bring that. I want to build coalitions inside of City Hall, and also work with all the movement groups on the outside, as well as the people in the community who want change. I'm excited to do that because I'm really good at that.

Visit link:
From sanctuary city to city council? - Chestnut Hill Local

The mother of a man shot by a Dewey Beach Police officer in 2022 filed a wrongful death suit March 20 in federal court against the Town of Dewey Beach and the officer involved in the shooting.

Sheena Robinson, the mother of Rodney Keith Robinson II, who died after he was shot by Patrolman Dylan Ebke, is seeking compensatory damages, punitive damages, attorneys fees, damages for mental anguish under state law, pre- and post-judgment interest, and any other relief the court deems proper.

The five-count lawsuit filed by attorney Patrick Gallagher is mostly aimed at Ebke in connection with excessive force, wanton negligence, assault and battery. The Town of Dewey Beach faces a Monell claim in connection with practices that led to Robinsons death.

Dewey Beach Town Manager Bill Zolper and Chief of Police Constance Speake referred questions to the town attorney, Emily Silverstein of Balaguer, Milewski & Imbrogno, based in Wilmington. Reached by email March 23, Silverstein said she had no comment at this time.

The lawsuit states Robinsons rights were violated under the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens from unlawful searches or seizures, and the 14th Amendment, which provides equal protection under the law, when police approached Robinson at the Starboard Restaurant and Bar after someone told them he had a gun.

The officers approached Keith. No doubt well aware that confrontations between young black men and police do not typically end well for young black men, Keith was presumably scared and therefore fled, the lawsuit states.

Robinson left but came back after an hour, and was again approached by Ebke and another officer, who chased Robinson into a nearby alley. One officer used a Taser on Robinson, and Ebke shot him. Robinson left the area and was found dead behind the Starboard, the lawsuit states.

Earlier this year, the Delaware Attorney Generals Office released a report on the deadly shooting that included security footage showing Robinson displaying a handgun to a group of people while at the Starboard. The report also said Ebke was justified in the later shooting of Robinson, and his use of deadly force was not a criminal offense.To view the full report, go tohttps://tinyurl.com/y3ykj4de.

The 16-page civil suit refers to a case where a man was beaten by former Dewey Beach Police Officer Gregory Lynch while the man was on a stretcher. Gallagher represented the man on the stretcher in a 2021 lawsuit, resulting in Lynch pleading guilty to perjury and his removal from the department.

The lawsuit connects Ebke to Lynch because it says Lynch trained Ebke.

Some details of the latest lawsuit are similar to the 2021 case, such as a list of past examples of excessive force used by the Dewey police, and a 2019 study of the Dewey Beach Police Department that determined the department was understaffed, had low morale, and trained officers to be overly aggressive regardless of the circumstances.

Example of this aggressiveness, the suit states, include an officer writing a citation for someone carrying an open container of alcohol instead of having them empty the container, and situations when officers would aggressively pursue visitors/residents who urinated in public. If the visitor/resident ran when confronted by the police, seasonal officers were encouraged by the Town and DBPD to charge the person with resisting arrest.

The lawsuit states that Dewey police did not have body-worn cameras even though Delaware law required them. It notes one officer was wearing a GoPro body camera the night of the shooting, but it was not activated prior to the shooting.

Read more:
Mother sues Dewey Beach, officer over 2022 fatal shooting of son - CapeGazette.com