Last week PJ Media reported on the liberal ideologues hired in the Special Litigation Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. This week provided a good example of how they can force local and state authorities to waste lots of taxpayer dollars and land the Department in a lot of trouble.
The example features Alyssa Lareau, one of the lawyers highlighted in the Pajamas article. She came to Justice from the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. She had also volunteered for the ABA’s Detention Standards Implementation Initiative, which attacked the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security for not providing sufficiently luxurious detention facilities for illegal aliens.
Flash forward to today. Lareau is one of the Division attorneys who filed a complaint against Erie County, New York, making numerous claims that prisoners in the local county jail were being deprived of constitutional rights.
Erie County decided to fight DOJ rather than just roll over, which is what too many local jurisdictions do even when they have not done anything wrong.
A person involved in the case told me that the SLS lawyers used a ruse to get access to inmates. They had U.S. Marshalls falsely claim that federal inmates being held at the Erie County jail were required to appear in court. In fact, they took the inmates to meet with SLS attorneys to interview them about the conditions at the jail.
All of these inmates have counselors of record, yet none was present at the SLS interviews. Indeed, none of the inmates knew the real reason why the Marshalls had removed them from jail until they arrived at the meeting with the SLS lawyers. Speaking to an individual who is represented by counsel without that counsel being present is a per se violation of the professional codes of conduct governing lawyers. That didn’t dissuade the SLS lawyers, however.
Now the Buffalo News reports that Justice has agreed to settle the case and dismiss the lawsuit.
By not going guppy (fins up), Erie County has done every community throughout the country a service. It’s demonstrated that when challenged the DOJ backs down.
I look forward to learning more DOJ targets are growing a spine and fighting the DOJ’s often specious charges.
Are bogus slip and fall cases against local counties coming next? Former KGB handlers of our political leaders are probably rolling their eyes at the amateur soviet-style antics. Maybe we should just directly elect the professionals.
gestapo
Proreason. How about, extreme progressive leftwing liberal terrorist, holding everything that is constitutionally fair and good hostage. To me that sounds more like what it really is in todays world.
Where is government oversight on the issue of “planting” false claims, steal taxpayer money and fraudulently use the US Marshall’s office for improper purposes and aiding and abetting perjury?
This type of abuse will not end until the courts are asked for and agree to sanctions against the individual lawyers and administrators involved. Additionally the County should be asking for costs. This will be very important after January 21, 2013 when a new administration can purge those that were hired into the civil service.
They are protected by law from everything but the very rawest and most obvious malfeasence in office, and they only lose then when they make a mistake in claiming “they meant well”.
“But then, that’s par for the course. The Special Litigation Section has a history of bringing unjustified, unwarranted, and frivolous claims. Considering its most recent hires, that record will probably just get worse.”
There is a term for a government that uses the law as a weapon to promote a partisan agenda. A government that counts on the fact the average people or municipalities will simply roll over to its demands because they cannot afford the legal costs of taking the Federal Government to court. A government that wants to crush all opposition to what it sees as the way things should be. Yes, there is a term for all of this. It’s called TYRANNY.
Isn’t it comforting to know that the Attorney General of the United States of America is a subversive.
Publish a list of all the specaial unit and any information you have on them
Where it is really insiduous is when a Democrat interest group, a Democrat state or local government, and a Democrat US agency conspire to bring federal charges and then settle or accept a consent decree. These are very common with FLSA claims, various discrimination claims, and even environmental complaints. Billions changed hands and continue to do so as the result of fraudulent overtime claims in the Clinton administration and even somewhat thereafter. The bulk of public employees didn’t get overtime compensation until Garcia v. San Antonio in ’86. Congressional action and regulation took place during late Bush I and early Clinton. Frankly, the FLSA is an outdated law and its minimum wage and overtime provisions don’t really relate to the modern workplace and are simply bizarre when applied to a white collar workforce, the bulk of public employees. Unions and employee groups found ready allies in the USDOL during Clinton and governments were presented with USDOL findings of massive overtime backpay liabilities. There were attempts to fight back late in Bush I and some success in the federal courts, but by Clinton the thing was in full song and became a money laundry for unions and unionized employees. Democrat governments in the main just went along or even encouraged the “settlements.” Today, you’ll find websites for legal firms soliciting overtime claims, so it must still be a paying proposition. And once a government accepts that a class of employees is hourly and overtime eligible, they keep paying forever and the payoffs leak into the supervisory and managerial ranks, e.g., if the average police officer is making $100K or more because of the overtime he gets, $100K or so becomes the minimum starting salary for the overtime exempt lieutenants, captains, and the political level managers.
Ergonimic accomodations under the ADA have caused goverments and even some private employers to spend enormous sums on special chairs, desks, keyboards, and other amenities to employees who claims some sort of disability and the ADA administrators in EEOC or the state or local cognizant agency went along with it.
And, of course, the worst recent example is the “black farmers” scam in which black farmers were allegedly discriminated against in federal loan programs. The settlement of that was simply a payout to a Democrat constituency many of whom had never set foot on anything resembling a farm.
Aside from the obvious points made in the article, as a retired DEA agent, I see a couple of other glaring problems in this action.
The US Marshals, aside from searching for federal fugitives, are also responsible for housing federal prisoners in custody. They do not have their own jails other than a small holding area for prisoners appearing in federal court on a particular day.
When other federal agencies, such as DEA make arrests, they are not turned over to the Marshals until they make their initial arraignment, bail is set, and they are remanded to custody (of the Marshals). Until that is done, the Marshals will only lodge the prisoners during daylight (M-F) hours while the arraignment is taking place. If arrests are made after hours or on weekends, the arresting agency will book them into county facilities until they can be taken to court, arraigned, and remanded to the Marshal’s custody. Even then, the Marshals will book them into the county facility until they make bail. This arrangement is per a contract between the various counties and the federal government. County jails are paid by the federal government for housing federal prisoners pending trial.
All of which is a long explanation to make the point that the Marshals depend on the good relationship they must enjoy with the county authorities. Here you have a situation where the Justice Department has placed the Marshals in a situation of having to hoodwink the county jail, in this case, Erie County, to help DOJ make a case against said county jail.
As pointed out in the article, using ruses that involve prisoners’ counsel is a risky business that interferes with the attorney-client relationship. Once a defendant is represented by counsel, you must go through the attorney in order to talk to the prisoner. If this was not done, it is a grievous violation by DOJ-even if it was done purportedly in the prisoners’ interest.
But what do you expect from this Justice Department under Eric Holder?
Gary Fouse
DEA retired
gary, information is a little one sided. No prisoner was removed or transported by the US Marshal Service WITHOUT a district court order to produce. That spin was put out by the county executive NOT the jail. Erie county has had severe problems and the outcome from this weeks agreement is the same one the DOJ offered two years ago! So who is fooling who? Granted we both know that sometime the US governement is not always acting in good faith in this situation the did what they had to. Federal agencies in this area were getting tired of transporting prisoners to emergency rooms because they were refused medication, that agents gave to the jail, for days. So dont always believe what you read.
As described, and if true, these are per se violations of the Rules of Conduct. We need to see some disbarments, or at the very least serious professional consequences.
Were it up to me, every one of those involved, especially in supervisory roles, would be in the unemployment line and explaining to an ethics panel why they should keep their tickets to practice law in any jurisdiction. What a collection of damnable disgraces.
prisoners …being “deprived of constitutional rights.”
so are the rest of us non-criminal citizens!!! and “justice” is doing nothing for any of us
why are these people always out to help the bad guys FOR FREE, and screw the rest of us to pay fdor it, who do not help good nice decent people unless paid into the thousands?
Just like Fast and Furious, all a set up. BP Disaster needs to be looked into, the shooting in Arizona, and everything else that has happened since this Weather Underground/Muslim Brotherhood operative Obama was put in the White House. I’m very worried they are going to orchestrate a terror attack of some kind before the election.
I have a lovely dream – Eric Holder and Barack Obama incarcerated in a jail run by Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Joe would know how to handle them.
That would be awesome. Thanks for sharing that dream.
Is anyone around this thread old enough to remember the times when fighting government bullying was by definition an essential liberal duty? Today’s conservatives are more liberal (as in Thomas Jefferson liberal) than today’s so-called “liberals” (as in John Kerry liberal)! Can we go back to respecting the meaning of words? Remember when gay was a legitimate replacement for of a joyous disposition? How much longer are we going to accept a condemnation to speak in codes, so we can dignify the pretenders? Kudosses to the Erie county for showing the way!
Not a troll and ill keep this short. I know all you people at PJM care about this sort of thing.
I just spent a sabbath as a religious jew in Israel every half an hour checking the screen of my iphone and seeing the reports of a hail of rockets coming down on beersheva, ashkelon, ashdod, ofakim…
BBC middleast page headlines.
“Iran jails US hiker for spying”
“Heavy gunfire erupts in Tripoli”
“Israel ‘regrets’ deaths in Egypt”
“New Syrian protests ‘turn deadly’ ”
“Turkey jets in new strikes against PKK” (btw i wish they would put israeli strikes in such boring terms)
In small writing
Trial ordered for Hariri suspects
Yemen’s Saleh vows to return home
Rights panel shuts Bahrain office
Israeli forces kill two in Gaza
Judge takes Mubarak trial off TV
Israel backs Ariel settler homes
Wave of violence hits Iraq cities
BBC keep up the great news coverage.
On TV they report abuses like this to the bar and get them disbarred.
Can they do that in this case?
Ok. A smart attorney-type like you has found time to point out something that you think is a violation of professional ethics. Just like most attorneys, you’d rather write an article about it than pursue the right side by filing a complaint against one of your own for violation of the “standards”–what a load!!! IF you really believed they were violations of the standards instead of just great filler for your story you would have done something about it at the BAR. Instead, we’re reviewing your story over a beer wondering what happened to ANYbody caring about the downfall of formerly great society. Thanks for nothing.
Wher is the DOJ on flash mobs in Philly or at the Wisconsin State Fair ?
Not a peep as attacks were against whites. The DOJ should be renamed NAACP for the forseeable future
No their off on the important mission of protecting criminal rights of illegals
No suprise given our president tried to stop the execution of a hispanic prisoner in Huntsville on the same merits.
If he cared more about jobs than the rights of criminals the unemployment rate would be in better shape
The violent perpetraitors were black. So no action from the DOJ. Standard operating procedure.
“Special Section” I assume these are the short bus people. Next let’s fight for the right for blind people to drive cars and pilot planes and terrorists to have civilian trials in NY. Idiotic.