GN summer fall09 Digital.indd - National Lawyers Guild

Guild Notesa publication of the national lawyers guild foundation volume XXXIV, no. 2/3, summer/fall 2009Special Edition:Doris Brin Walker (1919-2009)SEE INSIDE FOR:■ SEATTLE CONVENTION PREVIEW■ REPORT FROM EL SALVADOR■ BAY AREA TAKES ON TORTURE■ PREP FOR G-20 SUMMIT■ NLG TRIP TO HANOIPLUSIN MEMORIAM:■ DORIS BRIN WALKER■ SUSAN B. JORDAN■ HUGH MANES■ WILLIAM MOFFITT

Inside This Issue...President Marjorie Cohn’s Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Cover Story: Preparation for G-20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .National Work:Victory in D.C. checkpoints case. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .San Francisco takes on torture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Fighting military recruitment of children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Prop 8 protesters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .International WorkDelegation to El Salvador . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .IADL congress in Hanoi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2009 Convention Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Committee and Chapter UpdatesPortland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .San Francisco. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Philadelphia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Southern Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Washington, D.C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oklahoma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Notes-worthy NewsWilliam Moffi tt and Hugh Manes obituaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Susan Jordan obituary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Doris Walker turns 90 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34-56-78-910111314-1516-20212223242525262728Guild Notes is published quarterly by:The National Lawyers Guild Foundation132 Nassau Street, Rm. 922New York, NY 10038Designed and Edited by: Paige Cram, Communications CoordinatorCopy deadline for next issue: Wednesday, November 4, 2009To subscribe to Guild Notes: Contact Paige Cram at communications@nlg.org.Note: The views expressed in Guild Notes are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of theNLG officers or staff members.

Guild Notes ▪ Summer/Fall 2009NLG gears up for G20 protests in Pittsburghby Andy ParkerPittsburgh will serve as the host city for the upcomingG-20 summit, which will be held on September 24 and 25.The G-20, a group whose membership includes representativesfrom 19 countries and the European Union, will meet todiscuss financial policy and the state of the global economy.The G-20 meeting will follow the Pittsburgh Coal Conferenceon September 20-23 as well as the AFL-CIO convention theweek before.Local groups have been hard at work, planning an entireweek of activities. Here are a few highlights:On Sunday, September 20, the faith community willbe getting out its message both in their churches and in apeaceful march on the NorthSide.Beginning on Saturdayand continuing Monday andTuesday, a people’s summitwill bring together inspiringspeakers from Pittsburgh andaround the world.On Monday and Tuesday,an international laborgathering will take place aswell as the First Annual InternationalPeace, Justice andEmpowerment Summit.On Wednesday, September23, The Institutefor Policy Studies, NationMagazine, United Electrical,Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) and manyco-sponsors will present a stellar panel featuring JosephStiglitz and other local, national and international speakers.This will set the stage for activities the following day, whichwill use dynamic discussion circles and a people’s tribunalto protest the G-20 and its policies while highlighting localstruggles. The Alliance for Responsible Trade is planning tobring in representatives of the Hemispheric Social Alliancefrom countries throughout Latin America, and GrassrootsGlobal Justice is inviting representatives of grassroots communitiesof color from throughout the U.S. to participate(GGJ brought us the amazing USSF in Atlanta last year andis now working on the next USSF for Detroit next summer).Then on Thursday, the G-20 Resistance Project, a Pittsburghbased anti-authoritarian group which functions as aclearinghouse for information and action to confront the G-20will engage in direct action.Protestors in the United Kingdom during the G-20 financial summitin April 2009. Photo courtesy of Indymedia Bristol.▪ 4 ▪And on Friday, there will be a major permitted marchbeginning in Oakland. Organizing is being spearheaded bythe anti-war committee of the Thomas Merton Center.On top of that, at least three encampments are being organizedthroughout the week—by Code Pink, the Bail out thePeople Movement, and various environmental organizations.Peaceful demonstrations at similar events in the pasthave been met with unduly harsh reactions from law enforcement.As Guild members well know, beginning with the 1999protests in Seattle, police used tear gas and pepper spray oncrowds and forcibly arrested hundreds of demonstrators. Atthe Free Trade Agreement of the Americas protest in Miamifour years later, police displayed an unprecedented showof force in what became known as the Miami Model. Theextreme tactics in Miami—which included the use oftasers, electric shields andpolice popup lines—havebeen adopted by law enforcementagencies acrossthe country when facingsimilar crowds.The most recent G-20summit was held in Londonthis past April. Prior to theevent a Member of Parliament,Andrew Dismore, expressedconcern about crowdcontrol measures, saying,“The police have a dutyunder the Human Rights Actto facilitate protest and notfrustrate it. If they act in a confrontational way…they willstart to provoke the kind of behaviour they are seeking toprevent.” Despite this warning, law enforcement officials stillhandled the demonstrations in a severe manner. At one point,thousands of protesters were rounded up by police and detainedfor several hours without access to food or water. Afterthe summit, an officer was suspended when a video surfacedof him striking a man who suffered a heart attack and diedminutes later.The extremely high-profile nature of the event has ledthe Secret Service to take over several aspects of the planning.Malcolm Wiley, a spokesman for the Secret Service,noted that the G-20’s classification as a “National Special SecurityEvent” raises the security requirements for the summitand puts the Secret Service in the lead on security issues.According to Pittsburgh mayor Luke Ravenstahl, securityexpenses for the summit will be in the neighborhood

Cover Storyof $10-20 million. Police estimate that approximately 3,000protesters will be present on September 24 and 25, and lawenforcement agencies are planning to deploy 4,000 officers.The Center for Domestic Preparedness, which is providingspecialized training for hundreds of officers, says that itstraining program “prepares law enforcement for crowd controland unlawful protest.”Several news articles discussing expected protests at thesummit help tojustify the policepreparation. Arecent AP articledescribing policetraining andorganization forthe summit saidthe “gathering ofleaders from theworld’s richestnations also drawsthousands ofsometimes violentdemonstrators.”Another newsitem referred tothe PittsburghG-20 ResistanceProject, noting, “It’s not clear if the group or its affiliates planviolence.” In Pittsburgh, media coverage suggesting that mostprotesters are prone to violence has only added to the tensionsurrounding the event. Referring to largely peaceful demonstrationsin this way encourages police to anticipate andprepare for hostile crowds, regardless of the actual behaviorof the protesters.At a July 27 City Council public hearing organized bythe Citizens Police Review Board, activists and representativesfrom the Guild and the ACLU shared concerns about thepossible police response. Council members said that they willmeet with groups planning to protest in the days leading up toand including the G-20 summit. City Public Safety DirectorMichael Huss, who was not at the meeting, also said that therewould be meetings with several groups before the summit.The NLG and ACLU have a long history of workingtogether in Pittsburgh on First Amendment issues and willbe training and organizing Legal Observers to ensure that therights of all demonstrators are protected.In Pittsburgh, long-time Guild members Mike Healeyand Jules Lobel have been working with local authorities,including city council members, to get them to take a firmstance on the protection of civil liberties while also hearingbasic criticisms of what the G-20 has done to workers andtheir communities.Guild member Robin Alexander has been activelyinvolved in organizing events on the ground and coordinatingwith national organizations on behalf of United ElectricalRadio and Machine Workers (UE). She encouragesGuild members to come to Pittsburgh to protest the G-20’spolicies and educate themselves. “Pittsburgh is a fantasticcity,” she said. “We have a rich labor history. We havewonderful jazz musicians. We have beautiful rivers. But wealso have seriousunemploymentand underemploymentwith20% of Pittsburghersbelowthe poverty line.Neonatal statisticsfor AfricanAmericans areamong the worstin the country.We have seriousenvironmentalproblems and fora city that pridesThe city of Pittsburgh, PA will host the G-20 Summit from September 24-25, 2009. itself on beingThousands of protestors are expected.green, it shouldbe a scandal thatwe keep cutting back bus service and raising fares. But wealso have a vision. Please join with us in helping to makeit a reality and sending a message that will be heard aroundthe world!” □▪ 5 ▪Get Trained for Pittsburgh!The NLG will be training and organizing Legal Observersto ensure that the rights of all demonstrators areprotected. Trainings will be held in Philadelphia in lateAugust and early September. For additional information,please look for email alerts on NLGannouncements orcontact:• Joseph Traub, josephtraub@gmail.com• Steve Gotzler, stevengotzler@gmail.comThe New York City chapter will be holding trainings aswell. For information on specific training dates, pleasecontact Susan Howard at (212) 679-6018.Rachel Rosnick, rachelrosnick@gmail.com, will be coordinatinglegal observer trainings at the University of Pittsburgh.For information on how you can help in Pittsburgh,contact Joseph Cohen at joseph.cohen@ranknfile-ue.org.

Guild Notes ▪ Summer/Fall 2009D.C. Circuit rules checkpoints unconstitutionalby Andy ParkerOn July 10, a three-judge panel ofthe U.S. Court of Appeals, District ofColumbia Circuit unanimously ruledthat a police seizure and interrogationcheckpoint program begun one yearago in Washington D.C. is unconstitutional.The plaintiffs in this casewere represented by National LawyersGuild attorneys Mara Verheyden-Hilliard and Carl Messineo of theDC-based Partnership for Civil JusticeFund (PCJF).The D.C. Metropolitan PoliceDepartment authorized the so-called“Neighborhood Safety Zone” programin which police may barricade and sealoff entire neighborhoods in June 2008.They were first deployed in Trinidad, apredominantly African-American neighborhoodthat has been undergoing earlystages of gentrification.This ruling is particularly significantbecause the extraordinary D.C.checkpoint program was seen as apotential model for similar programsacross the country. Had it gone unchallenged,it is likely that it would havebeen greatly expanded and repeatedin jurisdictions throughout the UnitedStates.Police were authorized to surrounda targeted neighborhood using jerseybarriers or other barricades, and to“funnel” traffic through a checkpointentrance to the area. All vehicles werestopped and all motorists questioned, inthe absence of any reasonable suspicionthat the driver or vehicle had been engagedin criminal activity. Persons werethen not allowed to travel any furtherunless the police deemed that they had a“legitimate” reason for traveling on thepublic roadway.Officers required that persons disclosetheir destination, intended activitiesand names and contact informationof those they might be meeting withinthe neighborhood, including phonenumbers. Anyone refusing to providethis information was denied the right tocontinue on the public roadway into orthrough the neighborhood. Police wereto “verify” representations including bycontacting or phoning associates of themotorist whom the driver or passengercared to associate with.If a driver was unwilling to bequestioned by police, he or she was deniedentrance. If a driver in response tointerrogation presented a lawful reasonfor wanting to continue on the publicroadways into the neighborhood, he orshe would be denied entrance unless herpurpose was both “verified” by policeand fell within six restricted police-approvedcategories such as being a verifiableresident, or making a verifiablecommercial delivery.Visiting a friend was not deemeda legitimate purpose for driving intothe neighborhood. Nor was picking upgroceries. A person could only enter toengage in political activity or attend areligious service if she or he could andwas willing to disclose details of heractivities to the police, provide verifiedcontact information of associates, orprovide a printed invitation, after whichthe police were to decide whether theevent was a “verified” activity such thatthey would allow entry and participation.At oral argument, counsel for theDistrict of Columbia explained thatthese limited categories were intendedto detect or profile “persons inclinedtowards committing acts of violenceinvolving a motor vehicle.”When instituted, the program wasmet with strong opposition from withinthe community. Trinidad residents likenedit to “martial law.” The challengeto the program was a significant exampleof the effectiveness of a combinedpolitical and legal struggle. Membersof the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now toStop War & End Racism) were presentduring the checkpoint deployments andorganized with residents in grassrootsopposition to this police action throughdoor to door outreach, leafleting andmeetings.When the checkpoint programwas announced, D.C. Attorney GeneralDespite D.C. Attorney General Nickles’ heated rhetoricand public relations campaign trying to justify themassive civil rights violations, the MPD’s own statisticssubmitted to the Court showed that violent crimedoubled during the operation of the checkpoints.Peter J. Nickles claimed it was constitutional,saying, “I don’t anticipate us beingsued…But if you do want to sue us,the courts are open.” Four drivers acceptedthis challenge after being deniedpassage through the checkpoint becausethey refused to provide information andthey were represented by the PCJF. Oneof the drivers, William Robinson, wasa retired school teacher who had livedin Trinidad for over 50 years, since ithad been desegregated. Sadly, he passedaway before the Appeals Court ruled onhis case. Other plaintiffs included SarahSloan, a community organizer workingwith residents to oppose checkpoints,Linda Leaks, a local housing advocate,and Caneisha Mills, a Howard Universitystudent and hotel worker.Plaintiffs argued that the checkpointswere clearly prohibited under▪ 6 ▪

National Workthe 2000 Supreme Court ruling of Cityof Indianapolis v. Edwards, 531 U.S.32 (2000), which held that, generally,checkpoints instituted in the absenceof individualized suspicion and forthe purposes of general crime controlwere unconstitutional. The MPDcountered that Neighborhood SafetyZone checkpoints were not intended toresult in prosecution or arrest and thatthe purpose of protecting the neighborhoodby deterring criminal activity andfencing out potential criminals placedthe checkpoints outside the scope ofEdwards.The PCJF argued in its briefingthat, “If police could use the existenceof crime to justify suspension of constitutionalprotections, there would be noConstitution left to speak of.”Not only was the program unconstitutional,it was also ineffective.Despite D.C. Attorney GeneralNickles’ heated rhetoric and publicrelations campaign trying to justifythe massive civil rights violations,the MPD’s own statistics submitted tothe Court showed that violent crimedoubled during the operation of thecheckpoints.Nonetheless, United States DistrictJudge Richard J. Leon agreedwith the MPD and denied plaintiffs’motion for a preliminary injunction.The PCJF, filed an interlocutory appealand took the fight to the U.S. Court ofAppeals.On July 10, 2009, Chief JudgeDavid B. Sentelle, a Reagan appointee,on behalf of a unanimous panelissued a strongly-worded opinionin favor of the plaintiffs. The Courtfound that “the harm to the rights ofappellants is apparent.” The Courtfound the Neighborhood Safety Zoneprogram violated persons’ FourthAmendment rights, and that “citizenshave a right to drive upon the publicstreets of the District of Columbia orany other city absent a constitutionallysound reason for limiting theiraccess.”Checkpoints like this one in Washington, D.C. were ruled unconstitutional in July thanksto the work of the Partnership for Civil Justice. Photo by Roger Scott.The Court of Appeals reversed thelower court’s denial of plaintiffs’ motionfor a preliminary injunction, findingthat “[t]hey have made a particularlystrong showing of the substantiallikelihood of success on the meritsand that they would suffer irreparableinjury if the injunction is not granted.”See Mills v. District of Columbia, No.08-7127 (D.C. Cir., July 10, 2009).The Court added, “It is apparent thatappellants’ constitutional rights areviolated.”The day before the PCJF filedsuit, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanierannounced that she would continueto impose the seizure and interrogationcheckpoint program “until a judgeorders me to stop.” That day has, quitedecisively, come. □CLE at Convention toAddress CheckpointsIssuesSeattle Plus 10: LitigationSkills Training for UniqueIssues in ConstitutionalRights Protest CasesWednesdayOctober 14, 20091-5 pmFor information onenrollment, contact:Mara Verheyden-Hilliardat mvh@justiceonline.orgor visitwww.nlg.org/convention.▪ 7 ▪

Guild Notes ▪ Summer/Fall 2009San Francisco takes on the torture lawyersby Sharon Adams and Carlos VillarrealSome of the most infamous advocates of torture in the Bushadministration now reside in California: former Justice Departmentlawyer John Yoo is a law professor at UC Berkeley; hiscounterpart at the Justice Department, Jay Bybee, is a 9th Circuitjudge; and former Department of Defense General Counsel,William Haynes, is working for the Chevron Corporation inSan Ramon. Our chapter continues to work in coalition with anumber of activist organizations to see that these men are heldaccountable for their illegal and immoral actions.C.A.T. Pressured UC Berkeley Law School to InvestigateJohn YooOur chapter’s Committee Against Torture (C.A.T.) beganpressuring the administration at UC Berkeley over a year ago.Our request to Chancellor Robert Birgeneau read: “we herebyurge you to initiate an investigation into whether ProfessorYoo’s ‘outside professional conduct,’ as an attorney of theU.S. Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, violatedthe Faculty Code of Conduct as set out in the University ofCalifornia Academic Personnel Manual.”Birgeneau’s response: For activities outside of theUniversity, principles of academic freedom “require far morethan assertion or allegation. They require a ‘conviction,’presumably by a competent legal authority rather than thecourt of public opinion.” He referred to a letter previouslypublished by law school dean Christopher Edley that restedlargely on the same assertion.By March of this year, however, Edley and others werebacking away from the “conviction” threshold. As the ContraCosta Times reported: “But some, including Berkeley lawDean Christopher Edley and a top faculty leader, have saidthey could punish Yoo regardless of whether he is tried andconvicted in a court. ‘A criminal conviction is not necessary,’said Christopher Kutz, a law professor and vice chairman ofthe UC Berkeley Academic Senate.”Meanwhile the NLG student chapter at Berkeley confrontedthe fact that Professor Yoo was teaching one of onlytwo required civil procedure sections initially offered by thelaw school. Students spearheaded a petition drive and wereable to get 74 signatures from students in two days to forcea change in the fall semester line up, demonstrating to theadministration that students would rather not learn about thelaw from war criminals.Bybee Authorized Waterboarding and Was Rewardedwith Federal JudgeshipJay Bybee now sits as a federal judge in the 9th Circuit.While serving as Assistant Attorney General at the Office ofAttorney Sharon Adams speaks at a rally in front of the 9thCircuit Court in San Francisco. Photo by of Carlos Villarreal.Legal Counsel, Bybee wrote a memo authorizing waterboarding.He specifically stated: “The waterboard, which inflicts nopain or actual harm whatsoever, does not, in our view inflict‘severe pain or suffering’ [sufficient to violate the statute.] . . .The waterboard is simply a controlled acute episode, lackingthe connotation of a protracted period of time generallygiven to suffering.” Bybee, in writing this sentence, showedhis extreme unfitness to be a federal judge because the statutereads: “pain and suffering.” Bybee deliberately or negligentlymisread the statute to weaken its meaning in order to pushforward his extreme view that waterboarding did not constitutetorture.Federal judges have lifetime tenure, and may only beremoved by an impeachment proceeding through Congress.Impeachment is a daunting political task, particularly withmost in Washington dead set against holding the Bush criminalsaccountable. But we’ve decided to get the ball rollingthrough a complaint with the 9th Circuit. Such a complaintcould result in, among other things, a recommendation ofimpeachment.The C.A.T. is working on a complaint, but an activist andfriend of our committee submitted her own complaint on anational day of action against torture this June. That complaintstates that Bybee “has ‘engaged in conduct prejudicialto the effective and expeditious administration of the businessof the courts,’ and ‘was confirmed by the Senate without theirknowledge of his misconduct, which had it been revealedto the Senate Judiciary Committee would very likely haveresulted in non-confirmation to the Ninth Circuit ...’”▪ 8 ▪

National WorkNLG-SF Files Complaint Against Haynes with CaliforniaState BarYoo may be a professor in California and Bybee a judge,but William Haynes is the only one of the three who hasany connection with the California state bar. He is officially“registered in-house counsel”—a designation that allows himto practice law only for the corporation he works for and onlyin-house. He is not required to take the bar exam, but he mustfile an Application for Determination of Moral Character,complete Continuing Legal Education requirements, and otherwisefollow all the same rules that California lawyers mustfollow.While with the Department of Defense, Haynes wrote amemo for Donald Rumsfeld urging approval of a number ofinterrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay including theuse of stress positions, forced nudity and extreme isolation.The memo was rescinded in less than two months due toobjections by military lawyers. Haynes continued to advocatevigorously for torture and inhumane interrogation techniques,ignoring objections from a number of other officials and forcinga working group of military lawyers to accept John Yoo’slegal work as controlling authority.We filed a complaint with the State Bar in March stating:“The State Bar must uphold ethics and the rule of law, andrepudiate Mr. Haynes’ actions that resulted in actual torture.”We asked for an investigation of Mr. Haynes, that his statusas “registered in-house counsel” be revoked or that he beotherwise disciplined. Our complaint was closed withoutprejudice but we have requested a review from the StateBar’s Audit and Review Unit.With the help of our partner organizations we alsolaunched a campaign to have others file their own complaints.Using a concise template, we encouraged others to sign andsend us their own complaints and as of July, we had collectednearly 150, which we are forwarding on to the State Bar.The various documents and other information onC.A.T.’s anti-torture work may be found at nlgsf.org/committees/againsttorture.php.As a single chapter in an organizationof legal professionals committed to human rights, we feel thiswork fits perfectly into our mission and is within our capabilities.We’re focusing on the lawyers living and workingin California. We’re lodging complaints with the state bar,at law schools, and with federal courts. Our hope is that thiswork will serve as a deterrent against torture and abuse ofpower in the future. □Fair Trade Certified TMOrganic ChocolateLocal New MexicoIngredientsWe can ship 3 or more bars to you!For more information: nmelc.org | 505.989.9022 | nmelc@nmelc.org▪ 9 ▪

Guild Notes ▪ Summer/Fall 2009Keeping military recruiters away from childrenby Daniel MayfieldIn November 2008 voters in Arcata and Eureka Californiaapproved identical ballot initiatives restricting militaryrecruiters’ contact with youth under the age of 18. In response,the Attorney General of the United States sued both cities onbehalf of the Department of Defense. This spring, without evenhearing oral argument, the U.S. District Court upheld the lawsuitand granted a permanent injunction against the two cities.The federal government brought suit one month later, assertingthat the initiatives subverted its right to raise an army.It also argued that the voter-approved restrictions on thecontact between military recruiters and minors were illegalbecause they “purport to authorize the cities to directly regulatethe activities of the federal government.” The increasedrestrictions are illegal, the government claimed, because theUnited States has greater authority than any city under ArticleIV, Section 2 of the Constitution, more commonly referred toas the Supremacy Clause.The cities argued that the issue was not as simple as theU.S. attorney asserted. Guild attorneys Dennis Cunninghamrepresented the City of Eureka, and Michael Sorgen assistedthe attorneys for the City of Arcata, Minami & Tamaki.Sharon Adams represented the initiative proponents andsought to intervene in the case. Defendants responded tothe government’s claims by arguing that the cities had theright—indeed the duty—to protect their citizens, noting thatthe cities clearly had the right to protect young people fromother harmful influences and that the ordinance only affectedpeople under the age of 18.The cities and the voters contended that parents shouldhave greater control over access to their children than themilitary, stating in part:“The very statutes which Plaintiff claims preempts thelocal ordinances here openly acknowledge the right of parentsand local authorities to limit military recruiter access tostudents ... Thus, Congress placed parental rights above theinterests of military recruiters.”However, the Court ignored this argument entirely andbased its decision on the Supremacy Clause.Defendants also argued that parents should have greaterauthority over the lives of their children than the federalgovernment. They noted that neither ordinance prohibitedmilitary recruiting completely. Instead the recruiters wereconfined (in Arcata and Eureka) to talking to those peoplewho were of voting age. The U.S. government disagreed withthis assertion on the grounds that it is unconstitutional to givelocal families an authority reserved for the state.The defendants also argued that the Supremacy Clauseis not violated since that Clause gives equal weight to treatiessigned by the U.S. The U.S. is a signatory to the “OptionalProtocol” to the Conventions of the Rights of the Child. TheProtocol specifically prohibits military recruiting of youthunder age 18. The U.S. signed with a reservation, prohibitingmilitary recruitment of youth under age 17.Despite these already existing restrictions, military recruitershave a history of targeting youth. Recruiters are encouragedin their own training manuals to contact minors. Programs suchas the JROTC and the Middle School Cadet Corps are in manyschools and allow contact between minors and the military wellbefore the age of 17. In addition, recruiters are encouraged tobecome volunteer coaches at middle schools and high schoolsso that they can have close, unsupervised contact with youth.Unfortunately, the U.S. District Court ignored alldefendants’ arguments. Judge Armstrong did not allow theproponents to intervene, stating that the Cities adequatelyrepresented their views. Then, she dismissed the Cities’counter-claims, holding that the Cities could not articulate a“particularized injury.” Defendants argued that the proponentmembers could and did state particularized injury, but theCourt ignored this and dismissed the counterclaims. In a similarfashion, the Court simply took the government’s position,without even analyzing U.S. obligation under the OptionalProtocol, or parental rights under the 10th.Other avenues of attack still exist for local control overrecruiters. Other cities are interested in similar initiative measures,which will be drafted to overcome the arguments madeby the U.S. in this case.Sharon Adams notes that current U.S. law is essentiallyin compliance with the Optional Protocol, because both U.S.law and the Optional Protocol discuss “recruiting” of youthage 17 or older. The Cities contended that Congress intendedrecruitment be directed toward youth age 17 or older. Astoundingly,the U.S. attorneys argued that the U.S. militaryrecruiters are not “recruiting” when they are speaking toyouth under 17; they are, the government argued, communicatingwith youth “for the purpose of encouraging their latervoluntary enlistment in the armed forces.”Kathy Gilberd of the Military Law Task Force feels thatthe real issue here is not whether the cities or the voters canwin in the courts, but rather the key issue is the attempt toassert local control over the ability of the U.S. Governmentto recruit youth. “There is no down side to the local controlof recruiters issue,” said Kathy. “We should raise this issuewith the voters, with the schools, and with parents in everypossible way.”The Military Law Task Force is planning a workshop forthe Seattle Convention on these issues. Speakers will addresslocal control as well as working with teachers and schoolboards to limit recruiter access to youth. Finally speakers willaddress how to use the No Child Left Behind Act to build amovement in the schools to cut off recruiter access to names,addresses and dates of birth of high school students. □▪ 10 ▪

National WorkCharges dropped against Prop 8 demonstratorsby Rachel LedermanOn November 4, 2008, Californiavoters passed Prop 8 by a 52% margin,depriving the LGBT community ofthe right to marry. By amending thestate constitution, the ballot measuresuperceded the California SupremeCourt decision last year that had legalizedsame-sex marriage. The NationalCenter for Lesbian Rights, ACLU, andothers immediately filed a lawsuit arguingthat Prop 8 was invalid because theCalifornia Constitution does not permitthe constitutional rights of a minority tobe stripped away by a simple majorityvote.The California Supreme Courtannounced its ruling upholding Prop 8on May 26, 2009. (The Court did refuseto invalidate the more than 18,000 gaymarriages that took place in Californiabetween June 16, 2008 and November4, 2008.) LGBT activists, clergy andothers immediately took to the street,blocking an intersection in front of theSan Francisco State Building, holdinglarge banners that read “SEPARATE ISNOT EQUAL.” The action began with60 people but grew over the course ofthe morning until a total of 211 peoplewere arrested. Organizers stated, “Thisis not a fight for marriage; it is a fightfor civil rights. Within the LGBT community—aswithout—we struggle withracial prejudice, immigrants rights,healthcare, poverty and homelessness,and gender discrimination.”The 211 arrestees were cited fordisobeying the police and blocking traffic,but ultimately, none was charged.Anti-Prop 8 activists arrested after theelection in November had a similarresult.The Bay Area National LawyersGuild Demonstrations Committee hasbeen successful in discouraging the SanFrancisco district attorney from filingcriminal charges against activists fornonviolent civil disobedience, by demandingthat the court appoint counselfor each eligible arrestee, and by consistentlymounting vigorous defenses. Thishas forced the DA to either dischargecases in which large numbers of peoplewere arrested, or to charge them only asinfractions, to which the rights to jurytrial and appointed counsel do not applyProp 8 protestors in San Francisco. Photocourtesy of the San Francisco Sentinel.in California. The infractions are processedthrough traffic court, apparentlyin the hope that the city will be able tocollect fines from the demonstrators.However, in traffic court, Guild lawyershave succeeded in getting thousands ofdemonstrator cases dismissed, usuallywithout the arrestees even having tocome to court. □The NLG website is getting a make-over!!Keep your eye on www.nlg.org to see our new look and great new features like:◦ Easier online payment for duesand convention registration◦ Easier to navigate menu bars◦ Better organization to help you findwhat you are looking for quickly and easily▪ 11 ▪

Guild Notes ▪ Summer/Fall 2009GIVE BACK TO THE GUILDDo you value the work that the National Lawyers Guild does? Has a Guild attorney helped you orsomeone you know? Won’t you reach out and help the Guild continue its work? For over 70 years,the Guild has fought to defend civil and human rights. As long as we are needed, we’ll be there.BequestsInclude the National Lawyers Guild in your willor estate plan, and leave a legacy of defendingcivil rights and civil liberties to future generations.Request information on making gifts oflife insurance, retirement plan benefits, stock,property, cash or proceeds from a charitable trust.Stock GiftsSave on capital gains taxes, and make yourcontribution with stock or mutual fund shares,instead of cash. If you have appreciated securitiesworth more than you paid for them, you gaina charitable deduction for the full fair marketvalue of the shares and avoid capital gains tax.For more information about opportunities to support the Guild through planned giving, contactMarjorie Suisman, Esq. at (617) 589-3869 or msuisman@davismalm.com.New NLG PublicationLuis Posada Carriles: Notes from a TribunalNow available in both print and electronic formats.The booklet contains the proceedings of a forum held atNew York University Law School featuring several authorities onCuba: Jane Franklin, renowned historian; Wayne Smith, professorat Johns Hopkins University and Senior Fellow at the Centerfor International Policy in Washington, D.C.; and Brian Becker,National Coordinator of the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition. New York attorneyand author Michael Steven Smith moderated the event.The National Lawyers Guild published Luis Posada Carriles: ATribunal to educate the public about the crimes of Posada Carrilesand about this nation’s selective terrorism prosecutions.To order a free copy, call 212-679-5100 or send an email tocommunications@nlg.org.To download an electronic version, go to www.nlg.org.▪ 12 ▪

International WorkDelegation monitors El Salvador’s historic electionby Chris Ford, Katie Glynn, SusanScott, and Judy SombergSince as early as the 1980s, theNLG has been engaged in accompanimentwork with the people of El Salvador.Accompaniment has taken manyforms, including: the physical accompanimentof refugees fleeing the bloodycivil war that plagued the nation from1980-1992; the zealous advocacy andrepresentation of Salvadoran asylumseekers who reached the United States;and, in recent years, the monitoring ofEl Salvador’s electoral process.On March 15, 2009, a delegationof 20 Guild members joined severalthousand international observers inmonitoring the presidential electionpolls from set-up to ballot count. Postedat voting centers in San Salvador and inthe state of Sonsonate, Guild memberswere witness to the historic election ofMauricio Funes, candidate of the FaribundoMartí National Liberation Front(FMLN), and to the end of the 20-yearreign of the ultra-rightwing Alianza RepublicanaNacionalista (ARENA) party.During the five days leading up tothe election, Guild members receivedtraining on the mechanics of the votingprocess and learned from various constituenciesthe threats to a transparent election.The identified injustices included:ARENA’s manipulation of and refusal todisclose the voter registry; the bussingin of citizens from neighboring countriesand assigning them voting credentials;the carrying out of political violencewith impunity; the threatening of voterswith termination from employment uponfailure to provide proof of a ballot castfor ARENA; and the politicization of theSupreme Electoral Tribunal.Significantly, the Guild delegationwas able to respond to an overblownmedia campaign regarding thepotential response of the U.S. to anFMLN victory. Guild members held apress conference to protest the amplificationof public statements made byRepublican U.S. Representatives Dana(Above) NLG delegates with Salvadoran colleagues. Photo by Judy Somberg.(Below) FLMN supporters celebrate. Photo by Emily Achtenberg.Rohrbacher and Dan Burton that anFMLN win would result in the end ofthe temporary protected status (TPS) ofthousands of Salvadorans in the U.S., aswell as in the declaration of El Salvadoras a “terrorist state.” Such a designationwould block receipt of the remittancessent home by the Salvadoran populationin the U.S.—funds that constitute a vital18% of El Salvador’s GDP.Guild members demanded thatthe U.S. State Department clearlyand publicly declare the neutrality ofthe U.S. in the Salvadoran electoralprocess as well as its intention to workconstructively with whichever partywon the election. Two days before theelection, the U.S. Charge d’Affaires,Robert Blau, announced that the U.S.would remain neutral, and distanced theObama administration from the threatsof the Republican representatives. Theissue disappeared from the headlines ofthe local print and broadcast media theday before the election.The Guild is proud of its role inpressing the State Department to issuea statement of neutrality. We hope thatour presence as certified observers onElection Day contributed to a climate inwhich people could vote as they wished.Our Salvadoran colleagues reported thatthe presence of international observers,in particular U.S. attorneys, played avital role in protecting the right to freeelections and transparent results. □▪ 13 ▪

Guild Notes ▪ Summer/Fall 2009Good Morning Vietnam: NLG goes to Hanoiby Susan Scott and Eric SirotkinTwenty-five members of the NLG, including fourstudents subsidized by International Committee members,joined hundreds of lawyers from throughout the world atthe 17th Congress of the International Association of DemocraticLawyers (IADL) in Hanoi from June 6-10. Many of ustook advantage of the opportunity to visit the place that ourcountry had bombed in the 60s and 70sand meet the people who have rebuiltVietnam into the dynamic socialist/marketsociety that it is today.The IADL is the second oldestinternational non-governmental organization.Founded in 1946 by the NLGand progressive bar associations fromseveral other countries, the IADL hasits focus on furthering and facilitatingcommunication internationally aboutlegal work that furthers the principals ofpeace and the Universal Declaration ofHuman Rights. It holds a Congress everyfour years to address its members’work on international human rights andelect its leadership.The Congress, held at the magnificentNational Convention Center onthe outskirts of Hanoi, was a powerfulexperience for all of us. After serving asIADL Secretary General for the past four years, InternationalCommittee co-chair Jeanne Mirer was elected the first womanpresident of the IADL. NLG President Marjorie Cohn waselected to the IADL Bureau; NLG law students convenedthe first student meeting of the IADL where they exchangedstories and tears with Vietnamese students; and we createdthe NLG IC’s first blog of an international delegation wherepeople at home could follow some video talks and read thedelegation’s experiences while they were unfolding (seewww.nlgic.blogspot.com).The main thoroughfares of Hanoi were bedecked withbeautiful red silk banners welcoming the IADL to Hanoi, thePresident of Vietnam addressed the Congress at its openingsession (watch his speech live on the IADL Video pagehttp://www.vimeo.com/groups/nlgic/), and the Vietnamesemedia covered the proceedings. The local IADL affiliate, theVietnam Lawyers Association, did a magnificent job of organizingthe Congress logistics, including supplying visitingdelegations with convenient bus transportation to the conventioncenter and a plethora of enthusiastic young volunteerassistants who were studying English at universities in Hanoi.Eric Sirotkin with Agent Orange victim veteranwho was doused with the chemical.Photo courtesy of Eric Sirotkin.The Congress followed shortly upon the U.S. SupremeCourt’s April decision to deny cert for the IADL-sponsoredlawsuit by Agent Orange (AO) victims against the chemicalcompanies that produced the toxin, and the IADL’s subsequentTribunal of Peoples of Conscience in support of theVietnamese Victims of Agent Orange, held in Paris in May.NLG members Claudia Morcom and NLG President MarjorieCohn, both present in Hanoi, served on the Tribunal, whosefindings and recommended actionwere presented to the Congress and theVietnamese government. Pursuant tothe Tribunals’ recommendations, a commissionwill be convened to calculatedamages and reparations due to the AOvictims and their communities. Manyof our delegation visited the FriendshipVillage, a school and resident facilityset up for the victims of Agent Orangeby Vietnam War vets from all sides.There you can see the damage wroughtby introducing this poison into the DNAof so many sprayed over the years inVietnam. Read Marjorie Cohn’s movingarticle on Agent Orange on the blog.The IADL has member organizationsfrom 100 different countries, andapproximately 35 were present at theCongress, including a delegation of75 progressive attorneys from Japan,involved primarily in peace and labor issues.Two of the five days of the Congress were dedicated tosix “commissions”—day-long workshops on the topics of:• The Right to Peace• Anti-Terrorism Legislation• Accountability for International Crimes• Independence of the Judiciary• Globalization and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights• Development and Environmental RightsEach commission was chaired by an IADL leader and apanel of specialists, and a keynote speech was followed by 5-10 speakers, translated into English, French and Vietnamese,and question/answer periods. Many others submitted papers.Luncheons and coffee breaks provided opportunities for delegatesattending different commissions to mingle and shareinformation. See the report on the conference and the manyresolutions for social justice passed at www.iadllaw.org.Topics related to the Right to Peace included Eric Sirotkin’spresentation on the need for a peace treaty with North▪ 14 ▪

International Work(Left) Guild member sports the shirt of the Philippines Peoples Lawyers Union. (Middle) Children in Vietnam suffered birth defects as aresult of U.S. military’s use of Agent Orange. (Right) Lincoln Ellis, Dan Parziale and Vietnamese students. Photos courtesy of Eric Sirotkin.Korea and the role of the Truth and Reconciliation Commissionin South Korea, as well as the Japanese campaign toretain Article 9 (the Peace Article) in their constitution. TheNLG International Committee now has an Article 9 workinggroup and the IADL committed itself to promoting suchpeace constitutions around the world.As part of the Anti-Terrorism commission, Art Heitzerpresented a paper on the history of U.S. travel restrictions toCuba. The commission on Accountability for InternationalCrimes focused on the value and use of universal jurisdiction,especially in relation to U.S. and Israeli war crimes, and acritique, by NLG delegate John Wheat Gibson, on the prosecutorialdiscretion as exercised by the ICC. Lawyers fromPalestine spoke about the problems of independence of thejudiciary and others addressed threats to lawyers and judgesin the Philippines and Colombia.The commission on Globalization, Economic, Socialand Cultural Rights included several presentations on laborissues from Vietnamese and Japanese lawyers, a presentationby Sandra Edhlund of the NLG on immigrant womenand the U.S. Violence Against Women Act, and a descriptionof the wartime destruction of cultural artifacts in Yugoslavia,Iraq and Afghanistan by Doris Cruz of Cuba. TheDevelopment and the Environment Commission includeddiscussions about the Agent Orange poisoning and its longterm effects.The importance of the gathering and why many of usdo this work is best summed up by incoming PresidentDavid Gespass: “With transnational capital cutting acrossthe planet we must be ready to respond with an organizedand truly connected global movement for social justice andpeace.” □NLG IntroducesOperation BackfireA Survival GuideforEnvironmental andAnimal Rights Activistsnational lawyers guildA pocket-size pamphlet for environmentaland animal rights activists featuring:• Tips on dealing with the FBI• A background on the AEPA and AETA• Important contact info for theGreen Scare HotlineTo order a free copy, contact the NationalOffice at 212-679-5100 or frontdesk@nlg.org.▪ 15 ▪

Guild Notes ▪ Summer/Fall 2009A brief history of the NLG in SeattleSeventy-one years ago, in 1938,activist attorneys founded the SeattleChapter of the National Lawyers Guild,one year after the organization had beenfounded nationally. At that time, a risein unemployment affected nearly twoout of every ten workers. Racism of themost violent kind continued to preventCongress from passing anti-lynchinglegislation.Wars were raging overseas. In1938, following its invasion of theRhineland, Germany invadedCzechoslovakia and Austria; Italy continuedto occupy Ethiopia, and Japancontinued its occupation of Manchuria.The Nazi Party furthered its policy ofviolent anti-Semitism by invading synagoguesand shops in Germany, beatingand killing Jews on what would becomeknown as “Kristallnacht.”In 1938, Seattle was in a financialcrisis. A severe cutback in federalwork relief led to major protests andmass meetings, one at City Hall Parkand one at the Chamber of Commercebuilding. When the state shut down theBlue Ox Lodge at First and Main, ashelter for homeless men (as it remainstoday under a different name), furtherprotests ensued. A group of 300 homelesspeople marched to the City-CountyBuilding and occupied its seventh floorovernight, until the county commissionersordered the county sheriffs to reopenthe Blue Ox Lodge the next morning.Out of the popular upheaval and agitationof this time, the NLG–SeattleChapter was born. One of its foundingmembers, John Caughlan, recalledmany years later that “the Guild ...sustained me personally through thebitter and difficult period following thewar and through the 50s and 60s whenhunting Communists in the schools anduniversities—rooting them out of laborunions and professional organizations,including the bar—became a nationalpastime for Americans, except for thevictims, most of whom were not Communists.”Since its founding, the SeattleChapter has remained deeply involvedin assisting and leading mass strugglesand legal fights throughout the PacificNorthwest: from countering racism,apartheid, anti-Semitism and anti-immigrantsentiment and furthering gay,lesbian, and transgender rights to fightingpolice harassment and misconductand parrying governmental attacks andillegal surveillance on progressive organizations;from championing prisoners’rights and challenging restrictions onthe rights of the homeless to defendinganti-nuclear, anti-war, and anti-WTOprotesters, the NLG-Seattle Chapter hasbeen standing against imperialist militarism,torture, and war from Vietnam toIraq to the Gaza Strip. □Important Convention InformationConvention Dates:October 14 - 18, 2009Location:Marriott Renaissance Hotel Seattle515 Madison StreetSeattle, Washington 98104(206) 583-0300Rates: $169/night, singles and doublesFor directions and transportation information, visit:http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/seasm-renaissance-seattle-hotel/Convention Websitehttp://www.nlg.org/conventionNational Office ContactPaige Cram, Communications Coordinatorcommunications@nlg.org / (212) 679-5100 x15Convention CoordinatorHiedi Simon, convention@nlg.orgChild CareRequests for child care should be sent with specific daysand time to Karen Gilbert at gilbertlaw@earthlink.net nolater than Sept. 15, 2009. Please use the email subjectNLG Daycare.Alternate HousingSend specific requests to Karen Gilbert atgilbertlaw@earthlink.net no later than Sept. 15, 2009with subject line NLG Special Housing.▪ 16 ▪

Convention PreviewConvention scheduleWEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 149am – 5pmNational Immigration Project CLE1 – 5pmMass Defense CLETHURSDAY, OCTOBER 158am – 12pmMilitary Law Task Force CLE8:30am – 5pmNational Police Accountability ProjectCLE1 – 5pmMeiklejohn CLE5:30 – 6:30pmNational Immigration ProjectReception6:45 – 8:45pmKeynote AddressFRIDAY, OCTOBER 168:30-9:45amWorkshops I• Comprehensive Immigration Reform• Out of Africa• Counter Recruitment Strategies• Capitalism in Crisis• Preparing for Mass Arrest• Hot Topic10 – 11:30amMajor Panels• Mass Defense: Surveillance andDomestic Spying• Drug Policy: Ending the War onDrugs: Pre-Booking Diversion• NextGen: Economic Collapse:Surviving the Crisis1:30 – 2:45pmWorkshops II• Effective Strategies for Dealing withImmigration Detainers• What Difference Does a RevolutionMake in an Economic Meltdown?• Legal Workers in the NLG• How to Be Effective in the Courtroomand Not Lose Your Politics• Breaking Down the Wall of Impunity• Hot Topic3 – 5pmPlenary #16 – 7:30pmInternational Committee Reception9pm – onStudent PartySATURDAY, OCTOBER 179am – 12pmTUPOCC TrainingAnti Racism Training1 – 2:15pmWorkshops III• Immigrants and the Military• Student Organizing Workshop• Korea: What Peace Means or 56Years Without an Exit Strategy• Nuts and Bolts of DisabilityDiscrimination Case• Transgendered and Incarcerated• Hot Topic2:30 – 4pmMajor Panels• MLTF: Perpetual War/Rule of Law?• L&E: Economic Crisis, Attacks onWorkers’ Wages, and the Growth ofProtectionism• Mass Defense: Police Occupation ofCommunities of Color4:15 – 6pmPlenary #2 (National Elections)6:15 – 7:30pmReception7:30 – 10pmBanquetSUNDAY, OCTOBER 189 – 10:30amRegional Meetings10am – 4pmDisability Rights CLE10:45am – 12pmWorkshops IV• Deportation Defense: RepresentingImmigrant Detainees• Strategies the NLG Can Implementin the United States to Dismantlethe Israeli Occupation of Palestine• Women and Migration• Enhancing the Right of Workers toOrganize in Tough Economic Times• Defeat Right Wing Ballot Initiatives• Hot TopicMark Your Calendar!!!The next two NLG conventions have already been scheduled and we are pleased to announcethe following dates and locations:September 22-26, 2010: New Orleans, LA, Hotel MonteleoneOctober 12-16, 2011: Philadelphia, PA, Crowne Plaza Hotel▪ 17 ▪

Guild Notes ▪ Summer/Fall 2009Major panelsPolice Occupation of Communities of Color: Litigatingand Organizing to Fight BackFrom military-style seizure and interrogation checkpointslaunched in Washington, D.C. to confiscation and towingcheckpoints in Maywood and Pomona, CA, the police are deployingblockades in communities of color that set a modernstandard for martial law against a civilian population.This panel will discuss the tactics being used by thepolice to put targeted communities in a constant state of siegeand offer tactics and strategies to challenge and stop them.The panel will focus also on the interrelation and coordinationbetween the fight in the court house and organizing in thecommunity. Presentations will be from litigators and activists.Economic Collapse: Surviving the Crisis on the LegalFrontThe economic crisis is claiming victims in all fields ofwork. Attorneys, legal workers and activists are not immuneto the inhumanities of the massive “downsizing” and collapsingmarkets. This panel seeks to propose strategies forsurvival. Although the focus will be on issues faced by newerattorneys, legal workers and activists, the information andtactics presented will also be useful for those who are moreexperienced and are facing similar obstacles. Strategies discussedwill include confronting the shrinking job market andsecuring grants and funding.Ending the War on Drugs: Pre-Booking DiversionPre-booking diversion programs represent collaborationamong law enforcement, service providers, and the communitiesthey serve in support of an effective and cost-efficientalternative to incarcerating low-level drug offenders. Thispanel will provide an overview of the essential componentsof a pre-booking diversion program, describe successfuldemonstration projects in Seattle, and discuss strategies forengaging key stakeholders in exploring this model in othercommunities.Who is to Blame: The Economic Crisis, Attacks onWorkers’ Wages, and the Growth of Protectionism andAnti-immigrant Sentiment?We are currently facing a profound global financial crisiscaused in part by the deregulation of Wall Street. Yet its rootslie in the long-term weakening of the real American economyover several decades in an era of globalization—evidencedby closed factories, outsourcing of high tech jobs, low wagejobs with no benefits, and the building of a credit economy tosustain “middle class” living standards. The current economiccrisis has resulted in billions of federal dollars to banksand automobile companies, while the working class facescontinued plant shutdowns, home foreclosures, and demandsfor wage freezes and concessions. Populist politicians havetapped into workers’ frustrations, blaming the loss of jobs onimmigrant workers and calling for “Buy America” campaigns.The panel will analyze the real reasons for the economiccrisis, address the ideological and practical weaknessesof protectionist and anti-immigrant policies, and providealternative arguments and solutions based on internationaltrade union solidarity and working class unity.Perpetual War or Rule of Law?Presidents Reagan and Bush promised that the collapseof the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War would leadto a “peace dividend,” where the money that formerly went tomilitary preparedness would be saved or spent on improvingour infrastructure. No such luck. The fall of the Soviet Unionushered in the era of perpetual war and successive administrationshave changed the locales but not the fundamentals.There is another way. It requires that all countries, startingwith the U.S., submit themselves to a rule-based regimebased on the UN Charter and international human rightsconventions.This panel will explore the Obama administration’s plansfor continuing the era of perpetual war and an alternativevision, one established by the UN charter, still more honoredin the breach than the observance. The world must choosebetween the law of the jungle and the rule of law and we inthe United States have a special obligation to work toward thelatter. This panel will give us the tools.The Surveillance State and Domestic Spying in theObama Era: Tactics to End the Bush LegacyWith no criminal predicate, millions of people have beenswept into federal and local law enforcement databases, manytargeted because of their political beliefs and activities, theirreligious beliefs, their race and ethnicity or because they inadvertentlyfell into one of the many broad categories used tojustify and execute the sweeping data collection program. Anumber of organizations and practitioners have been activelyworking to identify, expose, challenge and expunge this datacollection.This panel will discuss the political direction of thecountry in terms of the security state apparatus set up underthe Bush Administration and its direction under the ObamaAdministration which has stated it intends to maintain thefocus on law enforcement as an intelligence driven operation.Further, the panel will provide specific tactics and knowledgethat practitioners can use in progressive litigation tofight back and expose domestic spying from different anglesincluding constitutional rights and First Amendment litigationto FOIA litigation. □▪ 18 ▪

Convention PreviewHonoree informationNLG Mass Defense Committee2009 Law for the People AwardIt is important to recognize the impactof the masses that stopped the 1999WTO Ministerial. Not just that peopletook to the streets in such large numbers,but that they were effective whenthey did so. They took to the streets andblocked the ability of the delegates toreach the meeting site emboldened bythe knowledge that legal observers andattorneys would be there to defend theirrights to take such action.In the ten years since “The Battlein Seattle,” all over the country protestersand marchers have known that therewould be legal observers and attorneysfor them. Because the NLG Mass DefenseCommittee epitomizes this work,the Guild believes it is appropriate tohonor them with the Law for the PeopleAward on the 10th anniversary of theprotests that drew worldwide attentionto the power of the masses.G. Flint Taylor, Jr.2009 Ernie Goodman AwardFlint, a founding partner of thePeople’s Law Office in Chicago, haslitigated several landmark cases includingthat of Black Panther member FredHampton and a North Carolina caseagainst the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis.He set a record when he secured a $36million settlement in the case of thewrongfully-convicted Ford HeightsFour, and he has taken on cases of policemisconduct involving city and stateofficials.More recently, Flint is responsiblefor the exoneration of numerousinmates, some of whom were on deathrow; in one prominent case that hasspanned decades he proved that severalprisoners had confessed only after beingtortured.Pat Levasseur2009 Legal Worker AwardA mainstay of the Lynne StewartDefense Committee, Pat organizedscores of meetings with activists andattorneys regarding the political andlegal implications of the trial. She wasthe main contact between Stewart,the media and others, and organizedfundraisers and educational materialsto keep attention on the case. Nevermotivated by the limelight, Pat works asa legal worker for NLG attorneys GeoffreyStewart, Susan Tipograph, MitchellDinnerstein and others and continuesto educate the public about politicalprisoners and government injustices.Extraordinarily committed and compassionate,she cares deeply not just aboutthe political issues but also the peoplesurrounding her.Richard Falk to Open Convention as2009 Keynote SpeakerRICHARD FALK is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of InternationalLaw at Princeton University and Visiting DistinguishedProfessor in Global and International Studies at the Universityof California, Santa Barbara. His most recent books are TheCosts of War: International Law, the UN, and World Order afterIraq (2008) and Achieving Human Rights (2009). In 2001 heserved on a three-person Human Rights Inquiry Commission forthe Palestine Territories that was appointed by the United Nations, andpreviously, on the Independent International Commission on Kosovo.On March 26, 2008, the United Nations Human Rights Council appointedFalk to a six-year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteuron “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupiedsince 1967.” The author or coauthor of numerous books, he serves asChair of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Board of Directors andas honorary vice president of the American Society of InternationalLaw. Falk also acted as counsel to Ethiopia and Liberia in the SouthwestAfrica Case before the International Court of Justice. He receivedhis B.S. from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, L.L.B.from Yale Law School, and J.S.D. from Harvard University. □Richard Falk, Professor at Princeton Universityand 2009 Keynote Speaker. Photo © 2003Richard Lord.▪ 19 ▪

Guild Notes ▪ Summer/Fall 20092009 NLG National Convention electionsDuring the Saturday plenary at the convention, electionswill be held for the following national officers:● Two National Vice Presidents (NVP). NVPs serve atwo-year term. There are a total of three NVPs. NVPsserve on the NEC.All candidates, except for the National Law StudentVice President, must declare their intention to run by submittinga written statement of no more than 500 words no laterthan 5:00 pm on Friday, October 16, 2009. There will be nonominations accepted from the floor. Candidates are encouragedto submit their statements in electronic form as soonas possible so that they can be posted on the NLG website.Candidates who submit their electronic statement by Thursday,October 8, 2009 will have their statements distributedin requested registration packets. All candidates who submittheir statements after that date must provide 400 copies tothe convention registration desk. Email your statement tocommunications@nlg.org, and please write “candidate statement”in the subject line.At the Student Caucus, elections will be held for the followingnational officer:● One National Law Student Vice President. There aretwo National Law Student Vice Presidents who each servea two-year term. The newly-elected National Law StudentVice President will serve on the Executive Council (EC)in the second year of his or her term. Service on theExecutive Council involves near-daily communication byemail. □NOTE: Last day to submit resolutions and amendments is August 17, 2009Submit proposals to the National Office: communications@nlg.org, cc’d to Dan Gregor: djg92107@yahoo.com on orbefore Monday, August 17, 2009 at midnight for consideration at the convention. Proposals must have the name and contactinformation of the person submitting the resolution or amendment. They should also have the name of any NLG committees,projects, or other entities that endorse the resolution or amendment. Proposed resolutions must have a specific implementationclause and must be no longer than three pages in total using 12 point type, though shorter resolutions are encouraged.Only “emergency resolutions” may be submitted after August 17, 2009. For questions, please contact Dan Gregor of theResolutions Committee: djg92107@yahoo.com or tel: 907-229-9742.National Immigration Project ActivitesWEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 149am – 5pmImmigration Law CLE on challenges to deportation andremoval, including crimes and an ethics session.Registration for the immigration skills seminar isSEPARATE from the rest of the NLG Convention. We willpost details on our website, including cost, as they becomeavailable.THURSDAY, OCTOBER 159am – 5pmMembership Meeting (free)5:30 – 7pmCocktail ReceptionHonoring recipients of 2009 Daniel Levy AwardFRIDAY, OCTOBER 16 – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18NLG convention workshops sponsored by the National ImmigrationProject include:• Comprehensive Immigration Reform• Effective Strategies for Dealing with Immigration Detainersand Holds• Immigrants and the Military• Deportation Defense: Representing Immigrant Detainees inBond Hearings (co-sponsored by TUPOCC, NLGSF ImmigrationCommittee)SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17NLG Dinner Banquet and Award presentations, includingpresentation of 2009 Carol King Award.More information on activities will be posted underSeminars & Events at www.nationalimmigrationproject.org.▪ 20 ▪

Committee and Chapter UpdatesPortland sees huge turnout at civil liberties forumby Mark KramerOn June 17, an overflow crowd of100 attended a forum—Civil LibertiesUnder Obama: Are We Still At Risk?—at Portland State University. The eventwas organized by the Portland Chapterof NLG, the ACLU of Oregon, Peaceand Justice Works, the American ConstitutionSociety, and others.Participants included Steve Wilker(ACLU cooperating attorney), TomNelson (NLG attorney), Jo Ann Bowman(Executive Director of OregonAction), Steven Wax (Federal PublicDefender), Ashlee Albies (NLG attorney,Portland NLG Co-Chair) andDavid Fidanque (Executive Director- Oregon ACLU). Although organizersinvited current and former U.S. Attorneysto participate on the panel, thoseoffers were refused.Moderator and former U.S. SenateCandidate Steve Novick opened with achallenge to the panelists, questioningwhether President Bush was as much ofa threat to civil liberties as we believed,whether President Obama had decisivelyturned the page on Bush’s abuses,or whether Obama is as bad as Bush.While the speakers reached no unanimousagreement, there was consensusthat Bush had fundamentally underminedcivil liberties and that Obamahas made some substantial progress incurbing the abuses of the Bush regime,including a commitment to close downGuantanamo, reversing reactionaryexecutive orders, ceasing reference tothe “War on Terror,” and committingto better respect the due process rightsof detainees. However, all agreed thatPresident Obama had not gone farenough and was continuing a number oftroubling Bush policies.Wilker reminded us that Americanhistory is littered with numerousdegradations to our civil liberties, theresponsibility for which lies with bothpolitical parties. Bowman spoke aboutthe parallels between racial profiling inPortland (against Blacks and Hispanics)and the preventive detention ofMuslims and non-whites on sometimesbogus and flimsy or unreasonablegrounds. She critiqued Oregon’s newAttorney General for refusing to considera class action suit to challengeracial profiling in Portland. Nelsonspoke about a number of travesties ofjustice in which innocent people werewrongfully arrested, subject to secretrendition, and, in some cases tortured,including one of his clients who stillawaits justice in the courts. For Nelson,the critical inquiry is whether wewill ever find out what was done in ourAll agreed that PresidentObama had not gonefar enough and wascontinuing a number oftroubling Bush policies.names under the Bush regime. Untilwe find that out, he said, we are still atrisk.Wax spoke of his experience representingGuantanamo detainees withthe Oregon Federal Public Defender’sOffice. He noted that Guantanamowas just the tip of the iceberg; therewere thousands of detainees across theworld languishing, many innocent, andheld on exaggerated charges or noneat all, with little or no prospect of adue process trial. Wax challenged theObama administration’s oppositionto releasing evidence explaining thedetention, even to the detainees or theirattorneys, and the claim that courtsare unable to handle alleged terrorists.He noted a number of cases in whichthe courts have adjudicated claimsinvolving terrorism, mass murder,war crimes, etc. Wax was open to usingmilitary commissions for certainindividuals accused of war crimes, butonly under the due process affordedby the Uniform Code of Justice, ratherthan the commissions set up by Congress,which still hid evidence from theaccused.Albies spoke of the state secretsprivilege, used in the Al Haramain case,in which a Muslim charity is suing thegovernment for the NSA’s warrantlesswiretaps in violation of the law. Despitevociferous attempts by the BushAdministration to dismiss the case, thejudiciary has kept it alive while maintainingthe secrecy of the documentdiscovered by the charity, which allegedlydemonstrates the government’sillegal wiretaps. Albies emphasized thatthe Obama Administration maintainsthe same position as its predecessor onthe use of the privilege, thus maintainingthe shield against transparency andaccountability.Fidanque criticized both theBush and Obama Administrations andmembers of Congress for thwartingattempts at transparency and accountabilityregarding government use oftorture and secret rendition. He calledfor a special prosecutor and independentinquiry to look into the policyorigins to explore the justifications forsuch policies so we can avoid abusesin the future.All speakers agreed that civilliberties are still at risk and will remainso until the history of recent abuses isbrought to light and the architects ofthose abuses are held accountable. Theneed for vigilance has not been reducedby Obama’s election. □▪ 21 ▪

Guild Notes ▪ Summer/Fall 2009San Francisco planning for the futureby Carlos Villarreal, Marc-Tizoc Gonzalez, David Waggoner,and E. Teague BriscoeThe first half of 2009 has been eventful, featuring a rangeof activities from the San Francisco chapter. Perhaps mostimportant has been the realization of our multi-year aspirationto assess comprehensively the state of the chapter and planstrategically for the next decade. With the generous supportof the Kazan, McClain, Abrams, Fernandez, Lyons, Greenwood,Harley & Oberman Foundation and the San FranciscoFoundation, we hired veteran strategic planning consultantMike Wong. Thanks to the active support of the entire NLG-SF staff, executive board and other members of our strategicplanning committee, we are developing a member-informedand external stakeholder-relevant vision for how the NLG-SF can truly serve the social justice movement of the 21stcentury.Of course, doing is as important as planning, and 2009has featured noteworthy human rights activity. For example,the chapter signed onto a bar association amicus curiae briefagainst California Proposition 8, which amended the stateconstitution to discriminate against same-sex marriage,contravening the California Supreme Court’s 2008 decision,which held unconstitutional a similar initiative-instituted law.Also, the NLG-SF Committee Against Torture (C.A.T)has worked tirelessly to make accountable those Bush-eralawyers who abused their licenses to practice law to providelegal cover for heinous human rights violations. Expandingits focus beyond infamous torture memo author, John Yoo,the C.A.T. has led the chapter to file a State Bar of Californiacomplaint against Chevron registered in-house counsel WilliamHaynes and to protest Bush-era appointed Ninth CircuitJudge Jay Bybee. Beyond calling for the legal communityto acknowledge, investigate, repudiate and censure thosewho advised the Bush Administration on violating domesticand international law, the C.A.T. has worked with local andnational activists to educate the broader society on this issue(see article on page 8).The chapter has also continued expanding its membershipservices with a new MCLE committee, which hasalready coordinated a voir dire workshop with the NationalJury Project, designed and started a multi-part elimination ofbias workshop series and plans a mindful lawyering seminarand Alien Tort Claims Act class featuring the Chevron-instigatedmurders in Nigeria.Earlier in the year, the NLG-SF honored legendary legalservices lawyer, Steve Bingham, a past local Guild presidentwho worked in Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committeeon the Freedom Summer (1964) and assisted in the representationof Black Panther Party Field Marshal, George Jackson.The annual Testimonial Dinner featured numerous movementcomrades, who together painted a marvelous picture ofSteve’s persecution for providing legal access to an eminentpolitical prisoner, his sustaining family life and his ongoinglegal services work at Bay Area Legal Aid.Finally, in June the NLG-SF took up the issue of PresidentObama’s historic nomination of Second Circuit JudgeSonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court. Responding tothe neoconservative vitriol against and its taint of mainstreammedia coverage on the first Puerto Rican woman nominatedto the high court in U.S. history, the NLG-SF highlightedJudge Sotomayor’s undeniable judicial qualifications andcalled for the Senate to confirm her nomination.In the second half of 2009, the NLG-SF executive boardlooks forward to furthering a robust dialogue within the Guildon the merits of a multidimensional approach to social justiceand the coalitions and mutual accountability that we believeare necessary in the 21st century.¡Adelante pa’justicia (onward toward justice)! □MIKE CLYBURN NAMED PRESIDENTIAL MANAGEMENT FELLOWMike Clyburn, chair of the student chapter at Seattle University for the past two years, was recentlyawarded the prestigious Presidential Management Fellowship. The fellowship is part of a two-year trainingprogram, leading to a permanent position. Mike will work in the Community Planning and Development officeof the region 10 Housing and Urban Development office in Seattle.The purpose of the fellowship is to attract to the federal service outstanding men and women from a varietyof academic disciplines who have a clear commitment to excellence in the leadership and managementof public policies and programs. The NLG, especially his colleagues in Seattle, want to congratulate Mikeon this great achievement.▪ 22 ▪

Committee and Chapter UpdatesPhiladelphia hard at work and getting noticedby Andrew KelserEducating the VotersThe Elections Committee of thePhiladelphia Chapter created and distributeda voter guide for the MunicipalPrimary election held on May 19,2009. Voters often have little informationabout these local elections, whichinclude candidates for District Attorneyas well as Appellate, CommonPleas and Municipal Court seats andare not heavily covered by the media.The Chapter developed a survey withquestions about the candidates andcollected responses from members ofthe progressive legal community inPhiladelphia. Based on this data, theElections committee wrote “The ProgressiveVoter’s Guide to Candidatesfor Judge and District Attorney” anddistributed it to the survey participants,Philadelphia Chapter members, andlike-minded progressive organizationsand individuals.The guide was well-received andwas covered by several media outlets,including the renowned blog youngphillypolitics.com.Progressive-thinkingvoters thanked local Guild membersfor providing previously-unavailableelection information. In addition, theElections Committee received a greatdeal of helpful feedback that will beused to improve future versions of thevoter guide.Demonstrating to Oppose John YooThe day after the elections, thePhiladelphia National Lawyers Guild,working with several other progressiveorganizations and community-basedgroups, held a demonstration opposingJohn Yoo as a columnist for thePhiladelphia Inquirer. For the secondconsecutive day, we received mediaattention for a local Philadelphia Guildproject. Major local news outlets likethe Philadelphia Metro and Fox Newswere at the event; it is rare to get suchmajor media coverage for demonstrations.The Metro specifically called toget more background information onwhat the Philadelphia Guild Chapterdoes, and what the National LawyersGuild is about.Supporting Medical MarijuanaRecently, in early May, the Philadelphiachapter of the NLG met withrepresentatives from a Pennsylvaniacoalition supporting medical marijuanalegislation, Pennsylvanians for MedicalMarijuana (PA4MMJ). During themeeting, it became clear that PA4MMJwas very serious about working withthe Philadelphia chapter in order togarner support from the progressivelegal community. In mid-June, thePhiladelphia chapter issued a statementin support of HB 1393, a PAHouse Bill to enact a regulated medicalmarijuana program in the commonwealthof Pennsylvania. The statementpraised the bill, stating, “We pledgeour support to this important healthcare initiative. This proposal wouldallow seriously ill patients who findrelief from marijuana to use it withtheir doctor’s approval... It is time forPennsylvania to move ahead and endthe needless suffering of our fellowcitizens.” By the following day, thelocal chapter began receiving majormedia coverage.After learning of Guild support,Representative Mark Cohen, sponsorof HB 1393, commented publicly, “Itis certainly welcome to have any groupendorse House Bill 1393, especially agroup that rarely takes positions on statelegislation... Their doing so reinforcesmy view that dissatisfaction with ourexisting drug laws has been a factor inseparating intelligent, committed peoplefrom active political participation.” Ina press release issued by PA4MMJ,Derek Rosenzweig said, “It’s wonderfulto have such a prestigious group endorsethe Compassionate Use MedicalMarijuana Act. Attorneys see firsthandhow the law affects the lives of patientswho get arrested for their use of medicalmarijuana, and the NLG should bepraised for speaking out about the needto protect patients who use medicalmarijuana from arrest.” The PittsburghThe Philadelphia chapter issued a statement in supportof HB 1393, a PA House Bill to enact a regulatedmedical marijuana program.... By the following day,the local Guild chapter began receiving major mediacoverage.Examiner had an article about the Guildsupport for the bill on the front pageof their website, and since then othermedia outlets have commented on theGuild’s statement of support of HB1393.All of this tells us two importantthings: 1) Philadelphia now knowswhat the National Lawyers Guild isdoing, and 2) Our events are newsworthy.We hope that this means we willcontinue to get extensive coverage ofour activities. □▪ 23 ▪

Guild Notes ▪ Summer/Fall 2009Southern discomfort: Regional meeting a successby Vanessa Lucas“There are certain things in our nation and in the worldwhich I am proud to be maladjusted.” M.L.K., Jr.There are many issues in the south that cause discomfortfor us as progressive legal workers, lawyers and law students.However, we continue to fight for change and refuse to adjustto the myriad wrongs that exist in our society. Hence thetheme for our annual Southern Regional Conference, held on-March 20 and 21 at the University of North Carolina Schoolof Law in Chapel Hill (UNC). The UNC law students steppedup and volunteered to host our conference with impressiveresults.The conference kicked off with the CLE, EthicallyRepresenting Clients When Conflicting Agendas Arise. Locallawyers Mark Dorosin, Travis Payne and Ken Rose made upthe panel. Mark spoke on strategies for effective lawyering indiverse communities. He challenged us to examine our ideasof culture and to identify in ourselves our biases and stereotypes.Travis shared his experiences of representing largegroups of plaintiffs when a strategic decision has been madenot to proceed as a class.We learned of the ethical responsibilities and the positiveand negative aspects of owing a responsibility to eachindividual client. The day ended with Ken Rose telling thestory of a person incarcerated on death row. Zealous advocacyto keep this man alive led to Ken’s discipline by theNorth Carolina State Bar. He cautioned us with the mistakeshe made and explained what he could have done differently.Enlightened, we gathered at Milltown, a local restaurant, tocatch up with out-of-town friends, meet new faces and sharestories of our struggles.The next morning, we came together for panel discussions.Starting the day was a panel on local law enforcementcooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE)―a disaster for our immigrants that has been aggressivelygrowing in the south with the use of 287(g) and otherprograms. There was a silver lining in the story of ChathamCounty’s resolution that the Chatham County Board of Commissionersstands in strong opposition to any local governmentagency contracting with ICE for the purpose of enforcingfederal immigration laws.The second panel discussed strengthening communityvitality through land loss prevention and environmentalprotection. Local activists and an attorney from the LandLoss Prevention Project centered a discussion around specificstruggles and history. After lunch, workers led a debate onwhether the Employee Free Choice Act is good or bad forFrom left front row: Kate and Nick Woomer-Deters, ElizabethHaddix, Beckie Moriello, Barb Fedders, Miriam Haskell, CarolineMcCrae, Marty Rosenbluth and Travis Packer. Photo courtesy ofVanessa Lucas.local unions. Our panels closed with a look at using localresolutions to advance human rights and a call to action tobring these ideas to our communities.We then held our regional meeting, which included thenominations for our next Regional Vice President. AzadehShahshahani was nominated. Because she is strengtheningthe Georgia chapter, which will host the Regional Conferencein 2010, she seemed the perfect fit. We recommendedAzadeh to those who were unable to attend and with no opposition,she became our RVP on April 3. Other highlightsfrom the meeting include the support of law school “Disorientation.”The UNC law students held a Disorientation earlyin the year to introduce the NLG to new students. It wasincredibly well-attended and helped strengthen and growtheir chapter. The model can be used by other chapters, andthe UNC students have a packet for anyone interested. Wedecided to further support Disorientation by awarding fundingto a number of chapters through an application process.The regional newsletter will be resurrected in electronicform so that we can share information more than twice ayear.Reinvigorated, we headed to Carrboro for food and festivities.We thank the UNC law students for all their incrediblyhard work in making this year’s Southern Regional sucha success. We missed those of you unable to attend and hopeto see you in Georgia next year. □▪ 24 ▪

Committee and Chapter UpdatesD.C. chapter hires part-time staffby Ed ElderIn March the Washington, D.C. chapter hired RachaelMoshman as a part-time staff organizer. Rachael, a committedactivist and Guild member, will help communicate andcoordinate D.C. Guild activities with the numerous NLG lawschool chapters in the area. She will also help the chapterproduce its newsletter, expand membership, and serve asa liaison with other chapters and the National Office. Ms.Moshman has already edited three newsletters that were sentto the local NLG members.Ms. Moshman has been actively involved in D.C. chapteractivities since joining the Guild as a law student. As a memberof the chapter’s Demonstration Support Committee andthe D.C. Justice and Solidarity Collective she has presentedknow your rights and legal observer trainings to activistsfrom animal rights, transgender support, and youth groups,AIDS and anti-grobalization activists, and demonstrationsto stop the latest “free” trade agreement with Columbia. Sheworked with the NLG in Minnesota during the 2008 RNC inMinneapolis and has been active with local law student chaptersto create NLG-sponsored programs. Rachael also helpedwrite and appeared in a locally produced “know your rights”video. The video can be seen on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHrV4kzmdlA.The D.C. Chapter board welcomes Rachael and hopesthat her efforts will further improve the work and growth ofour chapter. □OK chapter kicks off with enthusiastic meetingby Rena GuayAfter several months of online outreach and discussionby email, the Oklahoma chapter of National Lawyers Guildbecame official on June 21 with a meeting in Oklahoma City.While only five were able to attend the Fathers’ Daygathering, all were eager to become actively engaged inbuilding the chapter and start providing resources and servicesto Oklahoma’s growing progressive activist community.Several others not able to attend nonetheless expressed theirstrong interest in future involvement with the group. Amongthe attendees were longtime NLG members with service onthe national board or committees.Based on law practice specialties and interests, we seeNLG-OK’s core issues being immigration, prisoners’ rights,military law, labor and First Amendment rights. Since thenew chapter contains a wealth of political organizing andlegal experience, we jumped right into planning some events,including a workshop on legal rights for dissidents/activists inSeptember.Other future plans include training jailhouse lawyers andpossible CLEs in immigration and military law.Also high on the group’s agenda is creating and supportingchapters at law schools in the state. In the recent past,there was a chapter at Oklahoma City University School ofLaw, but it did not continue when its founders graduated – infact, both are now members of the new NLG-OK.The chapter has found Facebook to be a good source foroutreach and membership development, and has also createda website at www.nlgok.org.Overall, we felt very encouraged by the energetic meeting,and look forward to seeing the chapter develop. Contactthe chapter through the website or by email at nlgok@riseup.net. □needs your help!The NLG Green Scare hotline was created in 2006 to assist activists (mostly environmentaland animal rights) who have been contacted by the FBI. If you are a lawyer who canhandle a few calls a year to help, contact Heidi Boghosian at director@nlg.org.▪ 25 ▪

Guild Notes ▪ Summer/Fall 2009Hugh Manes loses battle with emphysema at 84Hugh Manes, 1924-2009. Photo by NikolManes and courtesy of the Los AngelesTimes.The following obituary is excerptedfrom the one written by Elaine Woo andpublished in the Los Angeles Times onJune 18, 2009.Hugh R. Manes, veteran civil rightslawyer and long-time Guild member,died in June after a long battle withemphysema.Manes was born in Chicago on July7, 1924. After graduating high school,he joined the Army as a second lieutenantand served in Europe during WorldWar II. Injured in combat, he was fondof telling people that he was awarded aSilver Star and a Purple Heart while sittingon a bed pan in a military hospital.After the war, he earned a BA atUCLA and a law degree at NorthwesternUniversity in 1952. He began hiscareer at the LA law firm of Wirin,Rissman & Okrand, which was headedby A.L. Wirin, the longtime chief counselof the ACLU in Los Angeles.Manes worked on a number of caseswith the ACLU, representing JapaneseAmericans who had lost property as aresult of federal actions after the PearlHarbor attack and individuals who hadbeen targeted as communists by theHouse Un-American Activities Committee.During the 1960s, he workedwith lawyers from the NLG to gatherevidence of the disenfranchisement ofblack voters in Mississippi. He also representedmen seeking draft defermentsand conscientious objector status.Manes began representing victimsof police misconduct in the 1960s.He tried more than 400 cases duringhis career, and was “probably one ofthe finest” advocates for police-abusevictims in Southern California, saidRobert R. Devich, who presided over a1995 police brutality trial that resultedin a record-setting $23-million award toa group of Samoan-Americans representedby Manes and two colleagues.Manes, who looked like WinstonChurchill and could fill a courtroomwith his baritone voice, encouragedand trained dozens of lawyers to handlecases involving excessive force orother allegations against law enforcementofficers. He offered free monthlyseminars for years at his office in themid-Wilshire area and helped establishthe Police Misconduct Lawyers ReferralService, which matched attorneys withpotential clients.According to colleagues, Manesroutinely took on cases with littleexpectation of success or remuneration,particularly in the early years whenfew people believed that police officerscould be guilty of misconduct.Manes is survived by two daughters,Mehgan and Nikol; three sons, Macabee,Ellery and Ari; a sister, AudreyBenesch; and eight grandchildren. □William Moffitt dies—“Empowering the voiceless”by Heidi BoghosianWilliam B. Moffitt died on April24, 2009, at the age of 60, after beinghospitalized for breathing difficulties.He fell into a coma and never regainedconsciousness. In 2000, Bill was thekeynote speaker at the Guild’s annualconvention in Boston, Massachusetts.Bill, along with NLG member LindaMoreno, served as defense attorneyfor Dr. Sami Al-Arian, negotiating aplea agreement with the governmentin 2006. Writing about Bill’s death,Dr. Al-Arian recalled how Bill visitedhim in his daughter’s apartment in aWashington suburb, where he was underhouse arrest. “He was still his old self,a maverick, who deeply cared aboutjustice and civil rights, the constitutionand empowering the voiceless.” Forover three years, from 2003-2006, Dr.Al-Arian was placed in solitary confinement,having no contact with anyoneexcept Bill Moffitt and Linda Moreno.Bill was a highly regarded criminaldefense attorney and a named partnerat the firm Asbill Moffitt & Boss inWashington, DC. He served as presidentof the National Association of CriminalDefense Lawyers from 1999-2000. Hehad been a member of the Board of▪ 26 ▪Directors of the ACLU and had alsoserved as president of the Virginia Collegeof Criminal Defense Lawyers, nowthe Virginia Association of CriminalDefense Lawyers, an NACDL affiliateorganization. He was a member ofthe bars of Virginia and the District ofColumbia, the Alexandria (Va.) BarAssociation, the American Board ofCriminal Lawyers, and the InternationalAssociation of Criminal Lawyers. Heserved as a criminal justice expert onnumerous media programs, including:Today Show, CNN’s Crossfire, ABCand CBS News. He is survived by hiswife, Edna, and daughter Pilar. □

Notes-worthy NewsLegendary Guild lawyer, Susan Jordan, diesby Paul HarrisWhen someone writes a history of great progressivelawyers, Susan Jordan will be included. Tragically, in May,this long-time Guild member died in a small plane crash atthe age of 67.In the 1960s, Susan volunteered to register black votersin Mississippi. This experience sparked her interest in law.She said, “I really admired the lawyers who were engagedin the civil rights movement . . . I knew then that’s what Iwanted to do.”Susan began law practice in 1970 with the People’s LawOffice in Chicago. At the time there were almost no womencriminal defense lawyers in private practice. She experiencedsexism and overt harassment from judges, bailiffs andother attorneys. But she persevered and overcame, eventuallymoving to San Francisco where her skills in federal andstate courts earned her inclusion in the book Best Lawyers inAmerica.While teaching part-time at New College Law School,Susan described herself as “a radical feminist who bringsthat political analysis to all aspects of my legal work.” In1974, she represented Inez Garcia in what would become theseminal case in educating and changing how the legal systemtreats violence against women. Ms. Garcia had been convictedof second degree murder for killing a man who helpedrape her. Hired for the retrial, Susan used a self-defensestrategy informed by the women’s movement and won a juryacquittal. For those who want to read about Susan’s work onthe Inez Garcia case, see Black Rage Confronts the Law.Against legal obstacles, a few years later, Susan began toraise the battered woman syndrome defense in jury trials. Sheis considered one of the pioneers of this now successful andconsciousness-raising strategy.Susan split her time between living and practicing in theSan Francisco Bay Area and in the Redwoods of MendocinoCounty. She represented Earth First!, political prisoner MarilynBuck, members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, andeveryday people in trouble with the law. She also co-foundedWomen Defenders, an organization of women criminaldefense lawyers. To deal with the negative aspects of the adversarialsystem, she practiced and taught yoga and organizedmeditation sessions grounded in the Theravada tradition ofBuddhism.Susan and her husband, R.C. Wong, adopted a daughter,Jennifer, when she was 7 years old. Jennifer, with the collaborationof photographer Roslyn Banish, wrote a beautifuland enlightening book titled A Forever Family. The movingphoto of Susan, R.C. and Jennifer on the cover is, by itself,Susan B. Jordan. Photo © Roslyn Banish.worth the purchase.Heartfelt messages of solidarity and courtroom storiesfrom friends and colleagues are traveling throughout theInternet. Susan’s long-time friend Jennie Rhine wrote, “I firstmet Susan Jordan early in the 1970s, soon after she relocatedto the Bay Area from Chicago, at the National LawyersGuild’s annual convention outside of Boulder, Colorado. Theburgeoning women’s movement made sexism a hot issue atthe time, and Susan caught my attention at the meeting whenshe publicly told a male colleague to ‘put it away and zip itup!’ Susan was always ready to tell you what she thought!”Another fierce advocate of the dispossessed, LynneStewart, wrote, “I miss Susan presently and forever, as mymentor, my sister lawyer, but mostly as a kindred spirit lovinglife and fighting for justice.”Paul Harris had the privilege of working with Susanon numerous cases. He teaches “Guerrilla Lawyering” atGolden Gate Law School. □▪ 27 ▪

Guild Notes ▪ Summer/Fall 2009Doris Brin Walker: a celebration of 90 yearsby Terry Koch“The NLG should pay more attentionto global warming.”This is where my conversation withDoris Brin Walker (Dobby) started ona July afternoon, just a few weeks afterher 90th birthday celebration.As a 16 year-old in Dallas in 1935,Dobby’s parents decided that she wouldstart college in Austin, Texas. Criticalpolitical understandings occurred whenthe Texas House Unamerican ActivitiesCommittee subpoenaed her geologyprofessor. She later transfered to Universityof Southern California, but aftertaking the train there with her father andlooking at the school, she said, “Notfor me.” She crossed town to the publicschool, University of California-LosAngeles (UCLA).When asked who she looks up to,Dobby replies: “Larry Sperber. Wemet at UCLA and he made me a Marxist.”While at UCLA, Dobby attended apeace demonstration, her first politicalactivity. She took philosophy withProf. Piatt and became an atheist. Shethen joined Alpha Epsilon Phi, married(and later divorced) a member of ZetaBeta Tau, and learned to love music(especially Bach), which she says “hasmade an enormous difference in mylife, having grown up without music athome.”On a train from Los Angeles toTexas, Dobby picked up a discardedcopy of The Nation and had an epiphanywhile reading an article about theACLU. It was then that she decided tobecome a lawyer. After she graduatedPhi Beta Kappa from UCLA, she wasaccepted to UC Berkeley―Boalt Hall,graduating in 1942. She was the onlywoman in her law school class.After her graduation from Boalt,the Office of Price Administration hiredher. Once she was sworn in as an attorney,Dobby joined the Communist Party(CP-USA). In 1944, she moved on towork at the Gladstein labor law firm.By 1946, she had joined her comradeJessica Mitford as an organizer for theFederal Workers Union.In Oakland, she worked in theHeinz, Del Monte, and Gerber canneries;she was consistently fired for hernon-surreptitious and blatant organizingactivity. Cutter Laboratories hiredDoris Brin Walker and Marjorie Cohn atDoris’ 90th birthday party. Photo courtesyof Marjorie Cohn.her as a clerk-typist in 1947 and firedher after a strike in 1949. That incidentgave rise to her status as a namedplaintiff in the 1956 Supreme Courtcase, Black v. Cutter Labs. Cutter Labsostensibly fired her from her positionin 1949 because she did not discloseher past union activity on her application.In truth, she was fired for herunion activity at Cutter Labs, a practicethat is still prohibited and yet stillhappens all the time.Dobby’s appeal was not upheld bythe Court, but Justice Hugo Black wrotean eloquent dissent supporting her position.By the time the Supreme Courtrendered its verdict in her case, she hadbeen a litigator for six years in the SanFrancisco Bay area, one of only twowomen doing such work.Also, by 1956, the Office and ProfessionalWorkers Association/Unionhad succumbed to the Landrum-GriffinAct’s anti-communism. For Dobby, discriminationand persecution for politicalbeliefs subsumed the discriminationwhich occurred because of gender. Althoughshe has never viewed her statusas a woman as a handicap, Dobby didencounter problems of gender discriminationwithin the CP-USA.Some of her favorite cases are thePowell Sedition Case, Nancy Stoller’sUC Santa Cruz tenure case, the successfuldefense of Professor Angela Davisfrom a charge of murder, and a CaliforniaSupreme Court victory in Edwardsv. Steele.Throughout her life, dialecticshave helped her understand differentsides of cases, and she would like to beremembered as honest and a “left-wingradical.”Dobby gets her news by readingthe San Francisco Chronicle, the NewYork Review of Books, the Guardian,The Nation, and the internet. She doesnot watch television, but got her firstcomputer at the age of 88.She continues her NLG activitiesyearly at the Conference of Delegatesmeeting. Still an active debater, shewas honored by diverse bar groups andcounty associations for more than 50years of participation in the conference.At the 1970 convention in WashingtonD.C., Dobby became the firstwoman president of the NLG. At thetime, a young man speaking from thefloor called her “a man in a woman’sskirt,” and no NLG member, man orwoman, said anything. A bitter memoryof this occasion still remains withher after nearly 39 years. This shouldremind people that politics, more thangender, divides people. □▪ 28 ▪

Notes-worthy NewsMourning the loss of an NLG legend: firstfemale president diesby Marjorie CohnLong-time NLG member and first woman president ofthe Guild, Doris “Dobby” Brin Walker, died on August 13at the age of 90. Doris was a brilliant lawyer and a tenaciousdefender of human rights. The only woman in her Universityof California Berkeley law school class, Doris defied the oddsthroughout her life, achieving significant victories for laborand political activists. She was beloved by Guild memberswho would hear Doris’ passionate, principled, and compellingvoice at and between conventions.Doris’ legal and political activism spanned several decadesand some of the most turbulent but significant periodsin U.S. history. She organized workers, fought against JimCrow and McCarthyism, was active in the civil rights andanti-Vietnam War movements, and actively opposed the currentwars in Iraq and Afghanistan.At UCLA, Doris became a Marxist. After she was swornin as a member of the California State Bar, Doris joined theCommunist PartyUSA, remaininga member untilher death. Upongraduation fromlaw school, Dorisbegan practicinglabor law; but afew years later, she went to work in California canneries asa labor organizer. When Cutter Labs fired Doris in 1956, thecase went to the Supreme Court. Although the Court refusedto hear the case, Justice Douglas, joined in dissent by ChiefJustice Warren and Justice Black, wrote, “The blunt truth isthat Doris Walker is not discharged for misconduct but eitherbecause of her legitimate labor union activities or because ofher political ideology or belief. Belief cannot be penalizedconsistently with the First Amendment . . . The Court todayallows belief, not conduct, to be regulated. We sanction aflagrant violation of the First Amendment when we allowCalifornia, acting through her highest court, to sustain Mrs.Walker’s discharge because of her belief.”Doris returned to the practice of law and representedpeople charged under the Alien Registration Act of 1940(the Smith Act) in California. The Act required all residentaliens to register with the government, enacted procedures tofacilitate deportation, and made it a crime for any person toknowingly or willfully advocate the overthrow of the governmentby force or violence. The work of Doris and other Guildlawyers led to Yates v. United States, in which the SupremeCourt overturned the convictions of Smith Act defendants in1957. After Yates, the government never filed another prosecutionunder the Smith Act.During the McCarthy era, Doris was called to testifybefore the House Un-American Activities Committee andshe also represented several HUAC witnesses. From 1956 to1961, Doris successfully defended William and Sylvia Powell,who faced the death penalty, against Korean War seditioncharges. The U.S. government charged that articles Powellhad written reporting and criticizing U.S. biological weaponsuse in Korea were false and written with intent to hinder thewar effort. When a mistrial ended the sedition case, the governmentcharged the Powells with treason. Attorney GeneralRobert Kennedy dismissed the case in 1961.A partner with the Guild firm of Treuhaft & Walkerin Oakland, California from 1961 to 1977, Doris’ practicefocused on civil rights, free speech and draft cases during theVietnam War. She also defended death penalty cases. Perhapsbest known for her defense of Angela Davis, Doris was partof a legal team that secured Angela’s acquittal on charges ofmurder, kidnappingand conspiracy. Inthat case, whichHarvard ProfessorCharles Ogletree in2005 called “clearlythe trial of the 20thcentury, and onethat exemplified the vast and diverse talents of the true DreamTeam of the legal profession,” the defense pioneered the useof jury consultants.Doris was elected president of the Guild in 1970 after abruising battle during which one opponent labeled her “a manin a woman’s skirt.” She paved the way for the election offive women Guild presidents in the ensuing years.Serving as Vice President of the International Associationof Democratic Lawyers from 1970 to 1978, Doris supportedthe struggles of victims of U.S. imperialism throughout theworld and was instrumental in the development of internationalhuman rights law. In 1996, Doris served as one ofeight international observers at the South African Truth andReconciliation Commission hearings led by Desmond Tutu.In 2004, Doris submitted a resolution on behalf of theNational Lawyers Guild Bay Area Chapter to the Conferenceof Delegates of the California Bar Association asking for aninvestigation of representations the Bush administration usedto justify the war in Iraq, for possible impeachment.Noted writer Jessica Mitford and Doris were close friendsfor years; Jessica was married to Robert Truehaft, Doris’ lawpartner. When Doris invited Jessica to join the CommunistDoris was elected president of the Guild in 1970 after abruising battle during which one opponent labeled her“a man in a woman’s skirt.” She paved the way for theelection of five women Guild presidents in the ensuingyears.▪ 29 ▪

Party, the latter replied, “We thought you’d never ask!” Thereis speculation that author J.K. Rowling, who cited Jessica asher main literary influence, named her Harry Potter houseelf “Dobby” after seeing Dobby Walker’s name in Jessica’sbooks. On a recent visit to her home, Doris showed me theDobby references in works by Jessica on her bookshelf.Doris frequently called me with her concerns and opinionsabout the issues of the day and in the Guild. Two and ahalf months before her death, Doris enjoyed dim sum withher family and friends at her 90th birthday party.Doris “Dobby” Walker inspired generations of progressivelawyers, law students and legal workers to struggle unrelentinglyfor justice and equality. She was a friend, comradeand role model to scores of people in and out of the Guild.We will never see the likes of her again.Doris is survived by her daughter, Emily Roberson, andher granddaughter, Iris Feldman. Doris requested that contributionsin her name be sent to the National Lawyers Guild,132 Nassau St., Room 922, New York, NY 10038. □National Committees, Projects & Task ForcesAmicus CommitteeZachary Wolfezwolfe@gwu.eduAnti-Racism CommitteeMike Flynnrmflynn79@gmail.comAnti-Sexism CommitteeKerry McLeankerrymclean@gmail.comCommittee on Corporations, the Constitutionand Human RightsWard Morehouseward.morehouse@gmail.comDisability Rights CommitteeAaron Frishbergfrishberga@aol.comDrug Policy CommitteeShaleen Aghishaleen@gmail.comSteven Gotzlersteven.gotzler@gmail.comEnvironmental Justice CommitteeJoel Kupfermanenvjoel@ix.netcom.comInternational CommitteeJeanne Mirermirerfam@earthlink.netLabor and Employment CommitteeDean Hubbarddeanhub@gmail.comPolly Halfkennypolly.halfkenny@ranknfile-ue.orgLegal Workers CommitteeSusan Howardnlgnyc@igc.orgLitigation CommitteeBill Goodmanbgoodman@goodmanhurwitz.comMass Defense CommitteeMara Verheyden-Hilliardmvh@justiceonline.orgCarol Sobelcarolsobel@aol.comMilitary Law Task ForceJames BranumKathleen Gilberdinfo@mltf.infoNext Generation CommitteeJ. Ashlee Albiesashlee@sstcr.comBrenna Bellbrenna@tryonfarm.orgPrison Law ProjectAlissa Hullplp@nlg.orgQueer CaucusKaty ClemensLynly Egyescochairnlgqc@gmail.comTUPOCCTori GavitoZafar Shahtupocc@gmail.comNational Immigration ProjectDan Kesselbrenner14 Beacon St., Ste 602Boston, MA 02108617-227-9727dan@nationalimmigrationproject.orgNational Police Accountability ProjectBrigitt Keller14 Beacon Street, Ste 701Boston, MA 02108(617) 227-6015NPAP@nlg.orgNational Lawyers Guild Foundation132 Nassau Street, Rm. 922, New York, NY 10038Tel: 212-679-5100 Fax: 212-679-2811 www.nlg.orgPresident: Bruce D. NestorTreasurer: Petrucelly & Nadler, PCSecretary: Jerome Paun▪ 30 ▪

NLG National Executive CommitteePresidentMarjorie Cohnlibertad48@san.rr.comPresident ElectDavid Gespassthepasss@aol.comExecutive VPsRussell Bloomrgbloom@earthlink.netLynne Williamslwilliamslaw@earthlink.netTreasurerRoxana Orrellaquila-nlg@raptor.netNational VPsThom CincottaDan GregorJudy SombergNational Legal Worker VPSusan HowardJailhouse Lawyer Co-VPsMumia Abu-JamalMark CookNational Student Co-VPsRobert QuackenbushRachel RosnickRegional VPsFar WestRebecca ThorntonNortheastJeff ThompsonCarl WilliamsMideastCynthia HeenanMid AtlanticRyan HancockNorthwestPeggy HermanKenneth KreuscherSouthAzadeh ShahshahaniSouthwestSean McAllisterBrian VicenteTex-OmaRobert SchmidMatt SimpsonNational OfficeExecutive DirectorHeidi Boghosiandirector@nlg.orgCommunications CoordinatorPaige Cramcommunications@nlg.orgMembership CoordinatorZach Campbellmembership@nlg.orgDevelopment AssociateCecilia Amrutefrontdesk@nlg.orgThe National Lawyers Guild Platinum Plus ® Visa ® Credit CardExceptional Benefits and Complete Security:• No Annual Fee• Low introductory Annual Percentage Rate(APR)*• Generous credit lines as high as $100,000• Emergency card replacement• Cash access at thousands of ATMs worldwide• Billing dispute advocates• Complete online account access features• Around-the-clock fraud protection• Zero liability for fraudulent charges• Secure access to your account online, all the time• Common Carrier Travel Accident InsuranceWhat’s more, each time you make a purchase with your credit card, a contribution is made to the NationalLawyers Guild - at no additional cost to you.Learn more--call toll-free 1-866-438-6262. TTY users, call 1-800-833-6262. Please refer to priority codeFAAGCE when speaking with a representative to apply.*For information about the rates, fees, other costs and benefits associated with the use of the card; or to apply, please call the above toll-free numbers.This credit card program is issued and administered by FIA Card Services, N.A. Any account opened in response to this application shall be governedby the laws of the state of Delaware. Travel planning services are provided to Bank of America Customers by an independently owned and operatedtravel agency registered to do business in California, Ohio, Washington and other states, as required. Visa is a registered trademark of Visa InternationalService Association, and is used by the issuer pursuant to license from Visa U.S.A., Inc. Bank of America is a registered trademark of Bank ofAmerica Corporation. © 2006 Bank of America Corporation.

national lawyers guild foundation132 Nassau Street, Rm. 922New York, NY 10038DON’T WAIT!Register NOWfor the2009 NLG Convention in SeattleEarly Bird registration rates end onSeptember 1, 2009.Visit www.nlg.org/convention for more information.