Alabama Journalist Tells Us What It Was LIke To Spend Five Months In Jail For Reporting A Story

"[The] order included a vague mandate to take down all content related to the alleged affair, without ever deeming which content was actually defamatory."

Alabama Journalist Tells Us What It Was LIke To Spend Five Months In Jail For Reporting A Story
By Nicole Flatow
Think Progress
April 7, 2014

“You get down to survival mode.” That was blogger Roger Shuler’s state of mind after being arrested and hauled off to jail for writing about a politically connected Alabama lawyer.

“Once you’re arrested I mean there’s not much you can do,” he told ThinkProgress in a conversation after his release, explaining that he felt powerless to handle the legal defense of his case. “Your hands are tied literally and figuratively and just to try to figure out how to get out was almost impossible … I really was afraid for my life at times.”

Until last week, Shuler was the only known journalist in the Western Hemisphere jailed for doing his job. Shuler, a former sports reporter and university editor who developed the political blog Legal Schnauzer, is known as a controversial figure in his community. He has fielded other allegations of falsehoods and has been embroiled in numerous lawsuits over his blogging. But even his critics conceded that a court order banning him from writing anything about the alleged extramarital affair of a man rumored to be running for Congress was likely unconstitutional, and a First Amendment outrage.

First, a Shelby County judge ruled that Shuler could not continue writing about the alleged affair of Robert Riley, Jr., the son of former Gov. Bob Riley rumored to be running for Congress. Then, when Shuler refused to comply with the order, police came to his home one evening and arrested him for contempt of court. Contempt of court is a punishment for failure to comply with a court order. In many instances such as this one, it is a “civil” offense, meaning it doesn’t carry long-term criminal penalties. But officials use jail as a means of forcing compliance with the order. So Shuler sat in jail until he complied.

Shuler was initially resistant to the order. But even when he wanted to comply, he didn’t know how.

“At my Nov. 14 hearing, the only hearing I had in the case, the court gave me no direction on how I could purge myself of contempt,” Shuler told the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “I noted that I had no computer or Web access to take down the posts, even though I knew it was unlawful to be forced into taking them down. The court’s response was more or less that I had to resolve that problem myself. With that kind of response from the court I felt caught between the proverbial ‘rock and a hard place.’”

Shuler said if he was lucky, he got to make a 15-minute call three or four times a week. “That’s the only communication I had with anybody,” said.

And getting a lawyer wasn’t easy. While defendants in criminal cases who cannot afford a lawyer have a right to court-appointed counsel, the same is not true in civil contempt cases. Shuler called himself middle class, and said he would “really need either pro bono or contingency type of legal representation and I think it’s a possibility but it’s very slow in trying to make it happen.”

Shuler was supported by legal briefs in his case from the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. But neither organization was representing him directly, and only he had the power to appeal his own case. Shuler didn’t appeal. He said he spent his time in jail fearing for his life, and figuring out how he could comply with a sweeping contempt order and get out of jail. As the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press explained in an October letter, the order included a vague mandate to take down all content related to the alleged affair, without ever deeming which content was actually defamatory.

What ultimately facilitated Shuler’s release was the intervention of his wife, Carol, who drafted an agreement to take down some material that allowed Shuler to be freed at least temporarily. “She was the one that really negotiated getting me out,” he said.

Shuler was perhaps the most prominent inmate in Shelby County jail these last few months, but he says he wasn’t the only one who shouldn’t have been there. Most of the people he met were there for drug and alcohol problems, he said, or for mental health issues the jail didn’t appear suited to handle.

“Jail is I guess by definition a holding facility for people a lot of whom have not yet been found guilty of anything,” he said. (Jails typically hold individuals who have been charged but not yet convicted, or those who receive short sentences, typically less than a year). “I go to bed at night and a lot of times I think there are guys still in there … I get the feeling we’re in a culture right now, it’s sort of like arrest first, and ask questions later.”

Is the San Diego ACLU a rogue organization, or does the national ACLU support attorney David Loy's bad behavior?

So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we'll be called a democracy.

-- ACLU Founder Roger Baldwin

I agree with Mr. Baldwin in theory, but in practice, people need to be able, as well as willing, to fight for their rights. Education is needed in order to have a democracy.

Sadly, San Diego ACLU attorney David Loy seems to be working on two fronts to stop the efforts of San Diegans working to improve the functioning of local schools. Worse still, the local ACLU is supporting him.


San Diego ACLU attorney David Loy

First, David Loy has gone out of his way to support a school attorney law firm (Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Hotlz) which has steadfastly worked to silence education bloggers.

Why? And why would the San Diego ACLU support Mr. Loy in this? In an email, Loy pretended he didn't know that that Judge Judith Hayes' injunction against this blog was unconstitutional. Loy demanded that I take all mention of Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz law firm off my websites. I knew the injunction was unconstitutional, and I'm just an elementary school teacher without any legal training.

So why didn't Loy know this? Answer: of course he knew the injunction was unconstitutional. He just didn't care. He apparently wanted to score some points with school attorney Dan Shinoff. Certainly, Shinoff would have owed Loy an enormous debt if Loy had succeeded in silencing me.


Judge Judith Hayes

Judge Judith Hayes wrote a brazenly unconstitutional injunction in an effort to silence this blogger. When I objected, she told me that I didn't understand constitutional law. The Court of Appeal agreed with me. It's hard to understand why a judge would engage in this type of behavior. She must have had her reasons.

Happily, the injunction was thrown out by the Court of Appeal, and Mr. Loy's efforts to intimidate me into taking down my website failed completely.

But why is the San Diego ACLU working behind closed doors in direct opposition to its stated goals?

My theory is that David Loy tries to get publicity by complaining to the media about, ironically enough, freedom of speech for students in San Diego County, and then getting school attorneys like Dan Shinoff to settle out of court. The problem arises when Mr. Shinoff wants consideration for his cooperation.


Dan Shinoff

The second prong of the San Diego ACLU's efforts to undermine education reform is its startling inaction in cases like the ACLU suit regarding teacher quality in lower socioeconomic schools.

Why were San Diego school districts left out? I suspect that the answer is exactly the same as the answer to why the San Diego ACLU would support silencing education bloggers.

--San Diego blogger Maura Larkins

(See biographies of national ACLU leaders below.)


Steven R. Shapiro, Legal Director of the ACLU

Steven R. Shapiro is the Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, the nation's oldest and largest civil liberties organization. He directs a staff of approximately 90 full-time lawyers who maintain a large and active docket of civil liberties cases around the country. Those cases cover a broad range of issues, including: free speech, racial justice, religious freedom, due process, privacy, reproductive and women's rights, immigrant's rights, gay rights, voting rights, prisoner's rights, and the death penalty.

Shapiro has been the ACLU's Legal Director since 1993, and served as Associate Legal Director from 1987–1993. During that time, he has appeared as counsel or co-counsel on more than 200 ACLU briefs submitted to the United States Supreme Court.

Shapiro is also an adjunct professor of constitutional law at Columbia Law School, and a frequent speaker and writer on civil liberties issues.

After graduating from Harvard Law School and spending one year as law clerk to Judge J. Edward Lumbard of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Shapiro joined the New York Civil Liberties Union in 1976. He was a member of the Board of Directors of Human Rights First for twenty years and is now a member of the Policy Committee of Human Rights Watch, as well as the Advisory Committees of the U.S. Program and Asia Program of Human Rights Watch.



Terence Dougherty, ACLU General Counsel

Terence Dougherty joined the ACLU in 2005 and since then has developed an in house legal team that advises the organization on all internal legal matters, including nonprofit governance, charity law, lobbying and political campaign activities, ethics rules and FEC, intellectual property, contract, endowment fund and litigation matters. In addition to serving as the in-house General Counsel, he is the organization's Assistant Corporate Secretary. Prior to joining the ACLU, Terence practiced law at Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler, where he represented numerous nonprofit organizations, including educational institutions, advocacy organizations, private foundations, museums and donor advised funds. Prior to that, he practiced tax law at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson.

Dougherty has over a decade of experience working with nonprofit organizations on a wide range of legal issues, and he regularly lectures and gives CLE trainings. Dougherty co-authored an article in 2010, "Newspapers as Tax-Exempt Entities: The Newspaper Revitalization Act of 2009," that addresses proposed legislation that would grant tax-exempt status to certain newspaper entities. He assisted in the preparation of a section of the 2005 Independent Sector, Panel on the Nonprofit Sector's Final Report to Congress and the Nonprofit Sector, "Strengthening Transparency, Governance and Accountability of Charitable Organizations." He is the author of a series of policy studies published by the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force in 2004 and 2005 on the economic detriment to same-sex couples resulting from their inability to enter into marriages recognized under federal and state law. He is a contributor to and the coeditor with Martha Fineman of Feminism Confronts Homo Economics, a collection of essays published by Cornell University Press in 2005 that addresses the negative impact of neoclassical economic theory on the study and practice of law.

Dougherty is a graduate of Oberlin College and Columbia Law School, where he was a James Kent Scholar and a recipient of a Human Rights Internship Fellowship. During law school, he interned with Hon. Jack B. Weinstein of the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, and with Hon. Cheryl Valandra of the Rosebud Sioux Tribal Court in South Dakota.

In 2008, Dougherty was appointed as a Commissioner of the Women's Refugee Commission. Since 2005, he has served as a member of the board of directors of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and has sat on the Government Relations Committee of the Non-Profit Coordinating Committee. He is a former member of the boards of the Columbia University School of Law Alumni Association and the Ohio Public Interest Research Group.

Dougherty is a native New Yorker. Prior to attending law school, he worked as writer assistant to feminist cultural critic Bell Hooks and as a kindergarten teacher at a homeless shelter in the South Bronx.


Susan N. Herman, President of the ACLU

Susan N. Herman was elected President of the American Civil Liberties Union in October 2008, after having served on the ACLU National Board of Directors for twenty years, as a member of the Executive Committee for sixteen years, and as General Counsel for ten years.

Herman holds a chair as Centennial Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, where she currently teaches courses in Constitutional Law and Criminal Procedure, and seminars on Law and Literature, and Terrorism and Civil Liberties. She writes extensively on constitutional and criminal procedure topics for scholarly and other publications, ranging from law reviews and books to periodicals and on-line publications. Recent publications include two books, TERRORISM, GOVERNMENT, AND LAW: NATIONAL AUTHORITY AND LOCAL AUTONOMY IN THE WAR ON TERROR, editor and co-author, with Paul Finkelman (Praeger Security International 2008) and THE RIGHT TO A SPEEDY AND PUBLIC TRIAL (Praeger 2006) (part of a series on the Constitution), and law review articles including The USA PATRIOT Act and the Submajoritarian Fourth Amendment, 41 HARV. CIV. RTS.-CIV. LIB. L. REV. 67 (2006).

Herman has discussed constitutional law issues on radio, including a variety of NPR shows; on television, including programs on PBS, CSPAN, NBC, MSNBC and a series of appearances on the Today in New York show; and in print media including Newsday and the New York Times. In addition, she has been a frequent speaker at academic conferences and continuing legal education events organized by groups such as the Federal Judicial Center, and the American Bar Association, lecturing and conducting workshops for various groups of judges and lawyers, and at non-legal events, including speeches at the U.S. Army War College and many other schools. She has also participated in Supreme Court litigation, writing and collaborating on amicus curiae briefs for the ACLU on a range of constitutional criminal procedure issues, and conducting Supreme Court moot courts, and in some federal lobbying efforts.

Herman received a B.A. from Barnard College as a philosophy major, and a J.D. from New York University School of Law, where she was a Note and Comment Editor on the N.Y.U. Law Review. Before entering teaching, Professor Herman was Pro Se Law Clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and Staff Attorney and then Associate Director of Prisoners' Legal Services of New York.



Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director ACLU

Anthony D. Romero is the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, the nation's premier defender of liberty and individual freedom. He took the helm of the organization just seven days before the September 11, 2001 attacks. Shortly afterward, the ACLU launched its national Keep America Safe and Free campaign to protect basic freedoms during a time of crisis, achieving court victories on the Patriot Act, uncovering thousands of pages of documents detailing the torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody, and filing the first successful legal challenge to the Bush administration's illegal NSA spying program. Romero also led the ACLU in establishing the John Adams Project, a joint effort with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to assist the under-resourced military defense lawyers in the Guantánamo military commissions.

Romero has also led the ACLU in its unique legal challenge to the patents held by a private company on the human genes associated with breast and ovarian cancer; in its landmark lawsuit challenging Arizona’s anti-immigrant law that invites law enforcement to engage in racial profiling; and in its ongoing campaign to end mass incarceration, which has achieved significant victories, including the 2010 passage of the federal Fair Sentencing Act and the implementation of less punitive, evidence-based criminal justice reforms in several states.

An attorney with a history of public-interest activism, Romero has presided over the most successful membership growth in the ACLU's history and a large increase in national and affiliate staff. This extraordinary growth has allowed the ACLU to expand its nationwide litigation, lobbying and public education efforts, including new initiatives focused on human rights, racial justice, religious freedom, technology and privacy, reproductive freedom, criminal law reform and LGBT rights. In 2010, the ACLU completed the largest fundraising campaign on behalf of civil rights and civil liberties in American history. “Leading Freedom Forward: The ACLU Campaign for the Future,” along with the ongoing Strategic Affiliate Initiative, launched an unprecedented effort to build the organization's infrastructure by increasing funding to key state affiliates, enhancing advocacy capabilities nationwide and securing the ACLU's financial future.

Romero is the ACLU's sixth executive director, and the first Latino and openly gay man to serve in that capacity. In 2005, Romero was named one of Time Magazine's 25 Most Influential Hispanics in America, and has received dozens of public service awards and an honorary doctorate from the City University of New York School of Law.

In 2007, Romero and co-author and NPR correspondent Dina Temple-Raston published “In Defense of Our America: The Fight for Civil Liberties in the Age of Terror,” a book that takes a critical look at civil liberties in this country at a time when constitutional freedoms are in peril.

Born in New York City to parents who hailed from Puerto Rico, Romero was the first in his family to graduate from high school. He is a graduate of Stanford University Law School and Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy and International Affairs. He is a member of the New York Bar Association and has sat on numerous nonprofit boards.



Geri E. Rozanski, Director, Affiliate Support and Advocacy

Geri E. Rozanski joined the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in 2002, bringing with her more than 20 years of experience working in nonprofit advocacy.

Currently, Rozanski serves as the Director of Affiliate Support and Advocacy for the ACLU. In this capacity, she develops and implements initiatives and programs that strengthen and maintain the connections between the ACLU and its nation-wide affiliates. Foremost among her responsibilities is ensuring that the ACLU national offices and their affiliates work together as a cohesive nationwide organization that seamlessly promotes and pursues common objectives. Rozanski's supervision of the multi-unit Affiliate Support and Advocacy department also incorporates working with all the ACLU's state affiliates in such areas as organizational development, fundraising, communications, marketing, training, and the advancement of the ACLU's state and federal priorities. As part of this process, Rozanski consults with both professional and lay leaders to establish long-lasting and effective partnerships organization-wide.

Prior to joining the ACLU, Rozanski worked as a public school teacher who also handled community relations issues in New York City and Maryland. She spent a number of years working in traditional and alternative classroom settings. After several years she left public education to pursue a career that would allow her to focus exclusively on community relations, civil rights, and building effective advocacy organizations to advance the progressive agenda. To this end, she joined the American Jewish Committee's ("AJC") Washington, DC chapter office. Working on race and interfaith relations, she eventually moved to the national office in New York City. While at the AJC's National Office, she oversaw program development in field offices on issues ranging from immigrants rights to church-state separation. She subsequently became the director of the AJC's large field operation overseeing thirty-three offices nationwide. This experience gave her a unique understanding of the ways in which a national organization can use its network of offices to leverage its combined strength to create a stronger and more effective organization. Under her leadership, the number of AJC field offices expanded to new geographic locations; fundraising campaigns in the offices reached record numbers; leadership development programs designed to attract young leaders were successfully implemented, and an advocacy network was created. Rozanski left the AJC to help the ACLU build its new Affiliate Support Department.



Emily Tynes, Communications Director

Emily Tynes is Communications Director of the national American Civil Liberties Union, the nation's premier defender of liberty and individual freedom. Tynes returned to the ACLU in 2009, resuming her role as the organization's Communications Director, which she previously held from 2002 to 2006. She currently supervises a three-unit department at the ACLU: media relations, publications and website development. She was most recently Executive Vice President of the Communications Consortium Media Center, a public interest media group that she co-founded in Washington, D.C.

Tynes has over 30 years of experience in communications regarding strategies for achieving policy and social change. She began her communications career as a news reporter with several Gannett Company newspapers, followed by four years as an account executive in the Washington, D.C., office of Ruder & Finn public relations.

In 1983, Tynes became the first communications director for the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) — now NARAL Pro-Choice — where she guided the organization's communications program during a highly volatile era of historic abortion rights battles. After that, she co-founded the Communications Consortium Media Center (CCMC), where she designed and implemented strategic communications campaigns on women's rights, racial equality, national energy policy and immigrants' rights. She has conducted strategic communications workshops for social justice advocates in the United States, Senegal, Jordan and Argentina.

Tynes initially joined the ACLU as Communications Director in 2002, shortly after the 9/11 terrorists attacks — a period of unprecedented assaults on civil liberties. As Communications Director, Tynes managed all communications functions of the organization and its state affiliates, including brand development, paid advertising, media relations and the development of multifaceted campaign strategies. She was responsible for several successful communications efforts and was the lead architect of the Safe & Free campaign, the organization's communications strategy on civil liberties post 9/11. She also spearheaded the production and distribution of the first-ever ACLU television series, the Freedom Files.

Tynes rejoined the Communications Consortium Media Center in November 2006, and returned to the ACLU in 2009.

Tynes is the editor of two reference books for journalists, The Newsroom Guide to Civil Rights and The Newsroom Guide to Abortion and Family Planning. She is co-author of the Jossey Bass Guide to Strategic Communications, a reference book for nonprofit communication professionals.

[Maura Larkins' comment: I notice that Ms. Tynes came back to the ACLU at about the same time that the organization switched its focus from civil liberties to "relationships".)

San Diego ACLU new executive director Norma Chavez Peterson (and her senior staff David Loy, Jeff Wergeles, and Rebecca Rauber)

Norma Chavez Peterson
Executive Director ACLU San Diego
P.O. Box 87131
San Diego, CA 92138-7131
Phone: (619) 232-2121
Email: info@aclusandiego.org

ACLU STAFF BIOGRAPHIES
Senior Staff

Executive Director, Norma Chavez-Peterson

The ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties’ new executive director, Chávez-Peterson has long been an integral part of San Diego’s organizing community. Chávez-Peterson has nearly two decades of experience in community leadership and nonprofit management, advocating for affordable housing, neighborhood revitalization, and immigrant rights. Since starting with the San Diego ACLU in February 2012 as organizing director, Chávez-Peterson was promoted to associate director to oversee legal, communications, policy, and organizing programs in December 2012. In Chávez-Peterson’s short time as the associate director, she has been instrumental in creating integrated advocacy campaigns advancing priority issue areas, such as criminal justice, immigrant rights, and voting rights. Before coming to the San Diego ACLU, Chávez-Peterson was the co-founder and executive director of Justice Overcoming Boundaries, a network of faith, community, education, business and labor partners working together to advance social justice in San Diego. She has a Bachelor’s degree from SDSU in political science and Chicano/a studies.

Deputy Director, Jeff Wergeles

Wergeles joined the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties in February 2011 as the development director, and in November 2013 was appointed deputy director. In this position he leads our development work, and oversees the organization’s finances and operations. Prior to joining the ACLU, Wergeles was the director of development at the San Diego LGBT Community Center and before at KPBS, public radio and television for San Diego. He has an extensive resume of community involvement, serving as president on the boards of Mama’s Kitchen and the Greater San Diego Business Association. Prior to working at KPBS he was a member of their community advisory board, and also served as vice president of the Diversionary Theater and on the boards of the June Burnett Institute and the Association of Fundraising Professionals. He holds a degree in economics from UCLA.

Communications Director, Rebecca Rauber

Rauber has devoted her professional and personal life to community organizing and community development. She is the former San Diego director of an international hunger relief organization, and program director for the Central American Refugee Organizing Project of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, helping to create the Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s. While with the archdiocese, she led delegations of North Americans to see and live the reality of the region’s civil wars. She was a reporter and news anchor for KPFA and has written for numerous publications, including The Daily Cal, San Diego Lawyer, and Boston Phoenix. Rauber has a degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley and a certificate in Marketing and Media from San Diego State University.

Legal Director, David Loy

After graduating law school, Loy clerked for the Hon. Dolores K. Sloviter on the Third Circuit and then worked as a staff attorney with Office of the Appellate Defender in New York City and as a public defender and a civil rights attorney in Spokane. He has served on the Southern District Lawyer Representative Committee and previously served on the board of California Appellate Defense Counsel. Loy was named one of San Diego’s Top Attorneys 2009 and 2010 by San Diego Daily Transcript. Loy has a law degree from Northwestern and a B.A. from Brown, and is licensed to practice in California and New York (with inactive licenses in Illinois and Washington).


Norma Chávez-Peterson Takes the Helm at the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties
Nationwide Search Promotes South San Diego County Latina Leader
San Diego ACLU website
September 17, 2013

SAN DIEGO – Effective today—the birthday of our Constitution—Norma Chavez-Peterson is the new executive director of the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties, the organization’s board of directors announced. She will celebrate her new role by giving Constitution Day presentations at her alma mater Chula Vista High School at 8:15 a.m., and a presentation in Spanish at Lincoln High School at 10:30 a.m. (Open to the media; contact Jess Jollett for details.) Also, this Thursday night, Chavez-Peterson will receive an award on behalf of the ACLU at the Center on Policy Initiative’s gala.

[Lea este artículo aquí en español.]

“We know Norma’s excellent work, and we were deeply inspired by her vision for the organization,” said board president and Qualcomm senior vice president Greg Rose. “We are excited about the ACLU expanding its fight for civil rights and liberties for all people in San Diego.”

A search committee of the board conducted a national search and interviewed excellent candidates. Chavez-Peterson, who started with the ACLU in February 2012 as organizing director, was promoted to associate director in charge of legal, communications, policy, and organizing programs in December 2012.

As organizing director, she led the organization’s Latino voter mobilization campaign in Escondido, which turned out seven percent of that city’s electorate, and the San Diego component of the statewide campaign to replace California’s death penalty (Proposition 34). In Chavez-Peterson’s short time as the associate director, she has been instrumental in creating integrated advocacy campaigns advancing priority issue areas, such as criminal justice, immigrant rights, and voting rights.

She has also been a key leader for the ACLU of California’s efforts in favor of comprehensive immigration reform. Chavez-Peterson was one of the leaders who created an unusual and groundbreaking coalition of San Diego leaders, which included law enforcement, business, and labor leaders, that called upon Congress for commonsense immigration reform.

Chavez-Peterson has nearly two decades of experience in community leadership and nonprofit management, advocating for affordable housing, neighborhood revitalization, and immigrant rights. Previously, Chavez-Peterson served as a senior manager at MAAC Project, a social service nonprofit that promotes self-sufficiency for low- and moderate-income families.

Chavez-Peterson was the founder and director of Justice Overcoming Boundaries, a faith-based leadership development and community organizing nonprofit that addresses issues of people historically excluded from decision-making and political power. She also played a lead role in previous fights for comprehensive immigration reform, leading to massive demonstrations, including a 2006 march of more than 100,000 people through the streets of San Diego. At JOB, Chavez-Peterson worked closely with the ACLU during the 2007 wildfires when false reports of an immigrant family looting goods from the Qualcomm evacuation center led to abuses and intimidation of immigrants and people of color throughout the county.

Key allies shared enthusiasm for the decision. Assemblymember and majority leader Toni Atkins said, “I’m excited for San Diego and California to have yet another strong woman in charge of such an important organization serving our communities.” Nora Vargas, vice president of community and government relations of Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest, said, “Norma is one of those exceptionally strong, strategic, inspiring leaders who also draws on a depth of personal experience to inform her work.”

Former Assemblymember and Republican floor leader George Plescia said, “I got to work with Norma in bringing diverse voices together to support commonsense immigration reform at an unprecedented press conference at Qualcomm headquarters. I appreciate her leadership in that effort, her advocacy, and her ability to look beyond labels to find common ground.”

“Building on the steadfast foundation created by our outgoing executive director, Kevin Keenan, I am eager to deepen our roots in communities directly affected by the civil rights and civil liberties issues of our day,” said Norma Chavez-Peterson, executive director of the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties. “It is tenacity and heart that makes our organization powerful, and I am excited to continue to work with our excellent staff, board, allies and community partners to build a better region and country for all.”

Chavez-Peterson succeeds Keenan who will move to New York City in December due to his wife being hired by the prestigious Union Theological Seminary as an assistant professor of social ethics. During his eight-year tenure, Keenan helped grow the organization from seven to 24 staff and achieve other accomplishments.

In the role of strategic projects director, Keenan will assist with the organization’s transition during the coming months.

Know Your Rights – An Activist’s Guide
Free Speech, Protests & Demonstrations in California
ACLU San Diego website

Download a comprehensive guide for people who care as much about free speech as we do.

In large part created by our sister affiliate, the ACLU of Northern California, we produced a guide for people who are not afraid to stand up for what they believe and those who may never have thought of themselves as protester but who are forced into action to protect a precious freedom or right.

You are part of a vigorous tradition of protest that dates back generations in our state: from the founders of the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties who marched alongside of farmworkers in the Imperial Valley in the 1930s to workers who went on strike against exploitative labor conditions on the docks in San Pedro in 1923 to the repressive Red Scare years, when demonstrators were hosed down by police outside House Un-American Activities Committee hearings in San Francisco City Hall; to the civil rights protesters of the 1960s and 70s who helped end segregation throughout the state.

Both the California Constitution and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protect your right to free expression. But there are questions you face when you decide to organize and speak out:

When do you need a police permit?
Are there things you cannot say or do?
Are there any limitations on when or where you can demonstrate?
What about civil disobedience?

We hope this guide will help answer these questions for you.

For more than 75 years, the ACLU has supported the rights of individuals from all walks of life to dissent, demonstrate and make their voices heard. Whatever you believe, we urge you to stand up and speak out.

Legal AS THE LAWYERS FOR THE BILL OF RIGHTS we’re committed to defending everyone’s freedom. Yours too.

Take Action Today “SO LONG AS WE HAVE ENOUGH PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY WILLING TO FIGHT FOR THEIR RIGHTS, WE’LL BE CALLED A DEMOCRACY.” -ROGER BALDWIN, ACLU FOUNDER

(All the above downloaded on Feb. 3, 2014)

Attorney Candace Carroll doesn't flinch in her support of Dan Shinoff's efforts to silence me

Former San Diego ACLU board member Candace Carroll
has been steadfast in ignoring my complaints to the ACLU
about the efforts of David Loy, chief counsel
of the San Diego ACLU, to protect his pal
Dan Shinoff from exposure on my website.

Ms. Carroll hasn't flinched in her determination to ignore violations of the First Amendment by the San Diego Superior Court. Well, perhaps she flinched a little bit. Instead of simply ignoring me, she caused me to be notified that she did not want to learn about recent revelations in the San Diego Union-Tribune about Mr. Shinoff. At least she's acknowledging my existence, right? And making sure that I can't prove that she knows about the witness tampering in San Ysidro Schools.

Attorney Candace Carroll was an ACLU San Diego board member when the organization tried to shut down my website exposing school attorney Dan Shinoff.

Yes, you heard it right. The San Diego ACLU tried to silence a citizen's speech on matters of public interest. Clearly, all the people who told me to go to the ACLU for help when Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz law firm sued me for defamation didn't know the truth about the San Diego ACLU. And neither did I until I got this message from ACLU attorney David Loy.

Attorney Candace Carroll does not want to revisit her long term support of Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz' and David Loy's efforts to force me to remove all mention of Dan Shinoff and friends from my website. It would have taken me months and months to go through my large website, so essentially the San Diego ACLU was telling me to take down my website completely. Instead of helping me, the San Diego ACLU tried to force me to obey an exceedingly unconstitutional anti-free speech injunction by Judge Judith Hayes in San Diego Superior Court. The Court of Appeal had this to say about that injunction.

I thought Ms. Carroll might change her attitude after the FBI caught Dan Shinoff on tape sitting by while his client tampered with a witness.

Yesterday I sent her this email:

In the light of new revelations, does the San Diego ACLU board and legal team stand by your efforts to silence my blog re Dan Shinoff?

(Email was sent to "Candace M. Carroll" )

Today I got a message that Candace Carroll had reviewed my email and rejected it!

Intended Recipient : carroll@sullivanhill.com (Candace Carroll)

Message Subject : In the light of new revelations, does the San Diego ACLU board and legal team stand by your efforts to silence my blog re Dan Shinoff?

Message Date : Mon, 3 Feb 2014 15:29:22 -0800

Reviewer : carroll@sullivanhill.com (Candace Carroll)

Rejection Reason : Message goes Against Email Policies

Apparently Ms. Carroll's "Email Policies" include support for friends of San Diego ACLU officials, no matter what they do. It seems Ms. Carroll isn't a true believer when it comes to the First Amendment.

But I do notice that Ms. Carroll is no longer on the board of the San Diego ACLU. Did she get disgusted and leave? Or was she just trying to escape from responsibility?

I sent the same email to Greg Rose, president of the ACLU San Diego board. I wonder if I'll hear from him.

ACLU OF SAN DIEGO & IMPERIAL COUNTIES BOARD OF DIRECTORS - 2013 Term
Board of Directors

Mark Adams
Nasser Barghouti
Warner Broaddus
Elizabeth Camarena
Jeff Chinn
Debra Coplan
Michele Fahley
Deborah Fritsch
David Higgins
Jonathan Lin
Jim McElroy
Udoka Nwanna
Norma Rodriguez
Greg Rose, Board President*
Madison Schockley
James Stiven [Retired judge! I talked to him personally and he refused to look into the matter.]
Joanna Tan
Luz Villafana
Stephen Whitburn
Andy Zlotnik


Board President, Greg Rose

Brief Biography
Greg Rose recently retired from QUALCOMM Incorporated, where he was a Senior Vice President of Engineering working on cryptographic security and authentication for mobile phones and other technologies. He holds a number of patents for cryptographic methods and has successfully cryptanalyzed widely deployed ciphers. Rose was program chair of the 1996 and 2000 USENIX Security Symposia, and General Chair of Crypto 2003. Rose has been an active participant in the ACLU’s Constitution Day program since its founding in 2007. He is also on the board of the International Association of Cryptologic Research.

Skimming money off the top is penny ante corruption.

Subverting the purpose of an organization in exchange for favors or friendship is true corruption.


I found this article about Candace Carroll. Perhaps Dan Shinoff is one of the people she loves, and she trusts him to do the right thing.

Attorney Candace Carroll says great public schools brought her family to La Jolla
La Jolla Light
April 13, 2012

Candace Carroll has lived in La Jolla for more than 20 years and is an appellate practitioner with Sullivan, Hill, Lewin, Rez & Engel. She has more than 30 years experience handling appeals in the federal and state courts, and has handled cases on a wide range of subjects, including contract disputes, insurance and indemnity issues, wrongful termination, intellectual property, personal injury and family law matters.

She has taught seminars in Advanced Legal Writing at Duke University and the University of San Diego Law Schools, and supervises a Ninth Circuit Legal Clinic at the University of San Diego Law School.

Carroll chairs Senator Barbara Boxer’s Judicial Appointments Committee for the Southern District of California. She is a past president of the San Diego County Bar Association and of California Women Lawyers, the statewide women’s bar association. She is a life member of the Duke University Law School Board of Visitors, and serves on the California Western Law School Council of Visitors. She is married to attorney Leonard Simon, with whom she has raised three sons, Dan, David, and Matt Simon. She sits on the board of the San Diego International Rescue Committee.

What brought you to La Jolla?
It was the public schools. Len and I are both the product of public schools and wanted that for our kids.

What makes this area special to you?
The weather; our boys could play outside 12 months a year and never need snowsuits!

What might you add, subtract or improve in the area?
I would paint over the garish and unnecessary red curbs that have eliminated about a third of the parking in the Village.

Who or what inspires you?
People who devote their lives to helping others inspire me.

If you hosted a dinner party for eight, whom (living or deceased) would you invite?
I would send invitations to President and Mrs. Obama, Sean Penn, Tiger Woods, Elizabeth Warren, Barney Frank, Bono and Hillary Clinton.

[Maura Larkins' comment: What about Dan Shinoff?] What are your five favorite movies of all time?
“The Phantom of the Paradise,” “Almost Famous,” “Casablanca,” “The Usual Suspects,” and “Body Heat.”

What is your most-prized possession?
That would be my wedding ring.

What would be your dream vacation?
I would love to take our extended family someplace exotic like Tahiti.

What is your most marked characteristic?
My optimism.

What is your philosophy of life?
Trust the people you love to figure things out and do the right thing.

Kevin Keenan says ACLU used to focus on civil rights, now it focuses on "relationships"

See all posts on San Diego ACLU from this blog.

Kevin Keenan says ACLU used to focus on civil rights, now it focuses on "relationships".

Unfortunately, the "relationships" that ACLU lawyers focus on are too often with lawyers, such as school attorneys, who are defending violations of civil rights.

San Diego ACLU attorney David Loy has gone out of his way to support violations of the First Amendment such as Judge Judith Hayes' December 11, 2010 injunction. Mr. Loy gave me legal advice without being my lawyer. He told me to erase all mention of Stutz Artiano Shinoff and Holtz from my website. Also, see this update on that case.

from: ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties
date: Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 2:48 PM
subject: New year, new ACLU

"We've changed from the local civil-rights powerhouse that you know to a more community-connected, relationship-based, comprehensive advocacy organization. I don't have a good name for what that is...It may just be the new ACLU." – Kevin Keenan, Executive Director.

As you may have read in the San Diego Union Tribune last week, the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties will celebrate its 80th anniversary this year. To put it simply, "We've come a long way, baby."

Thanks to a long legacy of members, volunteers, board members, and staff in San Diego, we have had a solid foundation on which to build. Thanks to your most recent support, we have been able to triple in size over the past six years. We are now a staff of twenty-one, including teams of legal, policy, and organizing experts who work proactively on the issues most affecting our community today.

With this growth, we are adapting to our new proactive, community orientation and keeping up with changes in the area. We've promoted our organizing director Norma Chavez-Peterson to the new position of Associate Director in charge of supervising our array of justice-making programs and tools.

Norma's ability to build strong relationships with the community to affect positive change reflects a new emphasis in the way we work. It was exemplified most recently in a campaign to enlist local volunteers to mobilize thousands of Latino voters in Escondido – a city fraught with civil liberties abuses.

Our relationships with you, the community, and lawmakers, combined with our organizing, litigation, and advocacy capacity, will help us move closer to our vision of an equitable and just society.

Please share your thoughts and ideas on the new ACLU with us. You can respond to this email, "like" us and post on our Facebook page, and follow us on Twitter.

Thank you again for making us more effective through your consistent support. Happy New Year!

Kevin Keenan
Executive Director
ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties

Comments on ACLU Facebook page:

James Thinkstoomuch
decent article, but the local ACLU has seriously dropped the ball on local police accountability issues - especially with respect to their illegal and criminal acts during the suppression of Occupy San Diego. December 31, 2012 at 3:14pm ·

Maura Larkins
Unfortunately, the "relationships" that San Diego ACLU lawyers focus on are too often with lawyers who are defending violations of civil rights, such as school attorneys. San Diego ACLU attorney David Loy has gone out of his way to support violations of the First Amendment such as Judge Judith Hayes' December 11, 2010 injunction. The Court of Appeal disagreed with David Loy that I should remove all mention of Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz from my website.

Is the ACLU actively supporting the suppression of free speech in schools?

See all posts on the San Diego ACLU.

Why is the San Diego ACLU trying to silence free speech for teachers at the same time that it is protecting free speech for students? I understand why school attorneys want to keep the public unaware of what goes on behind closed doors in our schools, but why is ACLU attorney David Loy so interested in helping them?

I have long wondered if the ACLU was doing California Teachers Association little favors by refusing to take free speech cases for teachers. The recently-retired CTA head counsel Beverly Tucker had previously worked for the ACLU.

I got my answer on April 28, 2010 (see email below from David Loy). Yes, I learned, the ACLU definitely tries to silence teachers who don't speak through the union.

I attended the Annual Membership meeting of the San Diego ACLU today, and listened to ACLU attorney David Loy boast about how the ACLU had protected student free speech.

I asked him, "What about free speech for teachers?"

Mr. Loy responded with only one case, Johnson v. Poway, a case in which the ACLU supported a teacher who draped huge banners with religious admonitions across his classroom. The ACLU's victory in the district court was overturned by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal:

"We thus reverse and remand with instructions that the district court vacate its grant of injunctive and declaratory relief, as well as its award of damages, and enter summary judgment in favor of Poway and its officials on all claims. Johnson shall bear all costs. Fed. R. App. P. 39(a)(3)."

Daniel R. Shinoff, Jack M. Sleeth, Jr. (argued), Paul V. Carelli, IV, Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz, APC, San Diego, California, for defendants-appellants Poway Unified School District, et al

David Blair-Loy, ACLU Foundation of San Diego and Imperial Counties, San Diego, California, for Amicus Curiae American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial Counties in Support of plaintiff (Johnson)

Apparently California Teachers Association didn't take part in this case.

Neither David Loy nor Kevin Keenan could think of another case in which the ACLU had defended freedom of speech for teachers, but they noted that the ACLU frequently defends the free speech rights of law enforcement officers. Is this perhaps because the police unions don't donate to the ACLU like the teacher unions do?

Even Lori Shellenberger, the San Diego ACLU's "civic engagement" attorney, is vehemently uninterested in free speech for teachers. She spoke at the Annual Membership meeting about the voting rights workshops she held for parents throughout the school district, and giving parents the chance to speak about what they wanted from schools. I told Ms. Shellenberger, "What good are voting rights when parents don't know what is going on in schools? Democracy requires an informed electorate. You want to expand parent participation, but you keep parents ignorant by silencing teachers who know what's going on in schools." Ms. Shellenberger said she wasn't interested in free speech. Her associate Vince Hall specifically told me he wasn't interested in my letter to the ACLU board.

It would seem to me that Shellenberger and Hall are unlikely to improve schools unless they're willing to work toward transparency in schools, to reveal the secret life of schools. They are basically asking parents to stand up and address the powers behind the curtain of secrecy in schools in the manner in which Dorothy, the Tin Man and friends addressed the Wizard of Oz. The ACLU wants to make sure the curtain is not pulled back revealing a charlatan pulling strings.

Interestingly, Mr. Keenan is convinced that the U.S. Supreme Court will overrule the Ninth Circuit. "We always win," said Kevin Keenan. If the ACLU wins in the U.S. Supreme Court, it will not be with the aid of the civil libertarians on the court, I believe. It will be with the aid of those who want the U.S. to be a Christian nation. Mr. Keenan's goal is apparently to win, not to stick to the ACLU's principles. He spends years trying to get the cross taken down from Mount Soledad in San Diego, only to turn around and try to get it erected (figuratively speaking) in a classroom in Poway.

Not so. The ACLU tried to silence my website discussions about Stutz law firm, which represented the school district in this case. The Court of Appeal didn't go along with the ACLU's position, ruling instead that an injunction completely silencing my discussion of Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz was "exceedingly unconstitutional."

Mr. Keenan bemoaned the fact that the San Diego Zoo has more members that the ACLU does, even when counting all ACLU members in the entire country. The reason might be that the ACLU compromised its principles a bit too often, pushing out ordinary people who demand equal treatment with the good old boys and girls in the ACLU power structure. In fact, Mr. Keenan said to me, "I'm surprised you're still a member." I'm not the one who has a problem with equal treatment for everyone, Mr. Keenan. But I'm curious, how many ordinary people has the ACLU intimidated into giving up their civil rights? They tried to get me to take down my website, but I didn't think much of their exhortations.

Mr. Loy tried to get me to obey an obviously unconstitutional injunction:

from dblairloy@aclusandiego.org
to Maura Larkins
date Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 9:18 PM
...However, the law does not allow anyone - a government official or a private person - to disobey a court order because they believe it is illegal. Under the law, the proper course is to seek appellate review of an order, and/or a stay of the order,rather than to disobey it. The rule of law in our system depends on compliance with court orders until or unless they are stayed or reversed...
David

Mr. Loy must also have known I was not legally required to de-publish the information about Stutz law firm on my website while the injunction was under appeal. (The mandative aspects of an injunction are staying during that time.) Either Mr. Loy was shockingly ignorant of the law, or he was intentionally deceiving me about the law to protect Stutz law firm when he said, “The rule of law in our system depends on compliance with court orders until or unless they are stayed or reversed...”. Why would he do this? To earn “civility” awards from the Bar Association? As a sort of trade-off of free speech rights, helping Dan Shinoff silence a teacher in exchange for Mr. Shinoff’s agreeing to settle student speech cases? To please donors to the ACLU who care less about education than they do about preserving the power of certain individuals in schools?

The Court of Appeal didn’t agree with Stutz law firm and the ACLU; on August 5, 2011 it ruled that the injunction Mr. Loy wanted me to obey was “exceedingly unconstitutional.” Of course, Mr. Loy knew perfectly well that the injunction was unconstitutional when he insisted that I must obey it.

But here’s the larger question: why did the ACLU board support Mr. Loy’s actions?

JUDGE JAMES STIVEN

I asked this question of ACLU board member Hon. James Stiven. He said, "I'm not getting involved because I'm a part of this organization." Wait a minute. Isn't that exactly why he has an obligation to get involved? He's on the board! He's in charge!

I said, "So if ACLU lawyers do something hostile to civil rights, you wouldn't intervene?"

He said, "I don't know that they have done anything wrong."

I said, "Yes you do. You're a judge."

Here's what they've done wrong:

1) To start with, David Loy aided and abetted a violation of my constitutional rights. I believe he intentionally gave me false legal advice in an effort to silence me.

2) The San Diego ACLU seeks and gets money by false advertising. I have heard ACLU speakers around town repeating what Kevin Keenan said at the 2012 Annual Membership meeting, "We guarantee rights for all people, not just the people we like. We stand up for equal protection of all people."

3) The above tactics have been approved at the highest levels of the San Diego ACLU. The San Diego ACLU Board knows about and tacitly approves the above actions.

The San Diego ACLU's odd relationship with local schools

ACLU's David Loy and Darren Chaker

See new posts re David Loy and earlier posts under his former name of David Blair-Loy.

The ACLU claims that it does not give legal advice regarding cases it refuses, but it turns out that this is false. The ACLU refused my case, but I was given very specific legal advice by San Diego ACLU attorney David Loy (formerly Blair-Loy) regarding the defamation case against me by Stutz law firm. In 2010 Mr. Loy wrote to me in an email that I must remove every mention of the names of Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz law firm, Daniel Shinoff and all the other Stutz attorneys from my website; he has never modified his position, even when I won in the Court of Appeal.

Why was Mr. Loy so determined to make sure that I obeyed the obviously unconstitutional order of Judge Judith Hayes? I'm a third-grade teacher, and I knew the injunction was unconstitutional. Clearly, Mr. Loy knew perfectly well that he was insisting that I obey an unconstitutional order. I did not follow Mr. Loy's legal advice; I would rather go to jail than obey that order. (And, in fact, Stutz law firm asked Judge Hayes to put me in jail, but she declined.) Instead, I appealed to the California Court of Appeal without the ACLU's help. Stutz law firm attorney Jack Sleeth argued before the Court of Appeal that my appeal should be dismissed because I disobeyed the trial court's order. Attorney Shawn Martin argued on my behalf that no Appeals Court had ever dismissed a case because an appellant disobeyed the very order that was being appealed.

The Court of Appeal asked Mr. Sleeth if he knew of any case law to back up his argument that since the injunction was a sanction, it therefore was not constrained by the Constitution. He said he had not been able to find any such case law, but he added, "I tried, believe me, I tried!" On August 5, 2011 the California Court of Appeal in San Diego ruled that Judge Hayes' (and Mr. Loy's) demand was "exceedingly unconstitutional."

As I walked out of the Court of Appeal after oral arguments, I was approached by Darren Chaker, who has a website sporting a photo of himself posing with a smiling David Blair-Loy. Mr. Chaker advised me to take down my website in exchange for Stutz law firm's agreement to not to make me pay attorney's fees. (Note to Mr. Chaker: the law does not allow attorney's fees in defamation cases.) I told Mr. Chaker that I would rather go to jail. He said, "I'm just advising you to do this because they are so nasty." Then Mr. Chaker went over to Jack Sleeth, and walked out of the building chatting with Mr. Sleeth!

So the question remains, why on earth would David Blair-Loy try to silence someone who criticized public school attorneys? Was he serving his own agenda, or the agenda of the board of the San Diego ACLU? Perhaps both. Loy's goal seems to be to maintain a reputation as "highly civil" with his fellow attorneys in San Diego, particularly Daniel Shinoff, who is often tasked by local schools with the job of limiting free speech.

But the ACLU board supported Mr. Loy's actions. Why? Were they trying to please big donors? I talked to board president David Higgins about this, but he claimed that he understood nothing about the law. I explained it to him carefully, but he continued to insist that he understood none of it. Why is such an individual in the position of board president of the San Diego ACLU? My guess is that he was chosen because he's willing to rubber-stamp every decision that David Loy makes, no matter how hostile it may be to civil rights. I conclude that Mr. Higgins does not really care about the constitution. I suspect he has a personal agenda that is limited to his own interests.

Here is the email sent to me by Mr. Loy:

from dblairloy@aclusandiego.org
to Maura Larkins
date Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 9:18 PM
...However, the law does not allow anyone - a government official or a private person - to disobey a court order because they believe it is illegal. Under the law, the proper course is to seek appellate review of an order, and/or a stay of the order, rather than to disobey it. The rule of law in our system depends on compliance with court orders until or unless they are stayed or reversed...
David

In fact, Mr. Loy gave bad legal advice. The truth is that once I filed my appeal, the mandatory aspects of the injunction were automatically stayed, and I was not required to take down my web pages about Stutz. I think Mr. Loy knew this. What was your motive for giving me legal advice, Mr. Loy?

Following is the 2010-2011 ACLU board in San Diego, each member of which tacitly or actively supported Mr. Loy's actions:

William J. Aceves
Candace M. Carroll--Sullivan Hill Lewin Rez & Engel
Paula Doss, J.D.--Director of Human Resources for Equal Opportunity at UCSD
Ruben Garcia
David R. Higgins, Ph.D.
Gregory G. "Greg" Rose
Hon. James Stiven--California Western University
Stephen Whitburn
Mary Cruz
Mark Adams
Pat Boyce
Linda Cory Allen
Michele Fahley
Deborah Fritsch
Kevin "KJ" Greene
Dwight K. Lomayesva
Mark Niblack
Susan Pollock
Yvonne Sanchez

Here is the 2011-2012 ACLU board in San Diego, some of whom are new and were not involved in Mr. Loy's actions:

Mark Adams
Nasser Barghouti (NEW)
Elizabeth Camarena (new)
Candace Carroll
Jeff Chinn (new)
Paula Doss
Michele Fahley
Ruben Garcia
Kevin "KJ" Greene
David Higgins, Board President
Jonathan Lin (new)
Dwight Lomayesva
Jim McElroy (new)
Mark Niblack
Susan Pollock
Greg Rose
Hon. James Stiven
Joanna Tan (AIG!!!) (new)
Stephen Whitburn
Paul Wong SDSU(new)
Andy Zlotnik (new)

Shields is not the only person arrested in Oceanside whose recorded interview has disappeared

Defendants’ Lost Voices
San Diego Reader
By Dorian Hargrove
May 26, 2010

On March 23, after deliberating for 40 minutes, a jury emerged from the jury room inside the courthouse in Vista. The 12 members had reached a verdict. As they filed into the jury box, the defendant, Michael Shields, stood beside his attorney, David Boertje. Shields’s heart pounded as the foreman announced the verdict: not guilty of assault with a deadly weapon. It was a quick and easy end to a long and difficult year.

It started on the evening of February 25, 2009, when Shields, a licensed mortgage broker and full-time college student, was driving his red Jeep Liberty southeast on Barnard Drive in Oceanside after attending guitar class at MiraCosta College.

...“I almost took the plea to avoid a very scary prison sentence,” said Shields. “I stuck to my guns against the advice of my parents and attorney. They all said the risk is too great. I knew I was innocent.”

Two days before the trial began, Boertje said, he received news from deputy district attorney Elisabeth Silva that a notation in an evidence log saying “audio CD” had been discovered. Silva told Boertje that she didn’t know what was on the audio CD.

“The recorded statement should have been something that was disclosed immediately,” Boertje said. “In the report, there was no mention of a recorded statement, no mention that they had the tape.”

“Before they released the recording, it was basically my word against the Oceanside police,” interjected Shields. “Who is the jury going to believe, the police officer or the ‘baby punching’ criminal?”

At 8:30 on the morning of March 15, the first day of the trial, Boertje went to the district attorney’s office, located one floor above the courtroom in the North County Regional Center, to listen to the audio CD. He confirmed that it was Shields’s missing statement. Silva asked Boertje if his client would like to reschedule the trial. He said no.

On the second day of trial, Officer Dominique took the stand. During cross-examination, Boertje asked him about the audio statement. Deputy district attorney Silva objected. The lawyers and judge met in a sidebar. Silva indicated that she was filing a motion to exclude the recorded statement from evidence.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Boertje. “I said, ‘First off, you didn’t give [the recorded statement] to me until yesterday, and now you don’t want the jury to hear what my client said right after the incident?’ There was no basis to exclude it.”

The judge allowed the statement to be used in court. A week later, Shields was exonerated.

“The judge in my case was completely outraged at the district attorney,” Shields wrote to the Reader on March 23, the day of his acquittal. “[He] scolded the District Attorney and asked her why the audio statement was disclosed the day of trial. [Silva] claimed that she ‘read the police officer the riot act.’… My audio statement was crucial evidence that proved I was innocent.”

Shields, however, is not the only person arrested in Oceanside whose recorded interview has disappeared...


COMMENT:

...The cops, while not all bad guys, have tacit permission to conduct these phony arrests, perpetrate the most heinously violent brutality on innocent, law-abiding citizens, falsify police reports and tamper with evidence, and the DA's are corrupt as hell.

...Threatening the falsely accused victims with long jail sentences, and talking them out of their right to a fair trial is the terrorism the DAs use to put innocent people away and ruin their lives with criminal records that will never be allowed to be cleared, which is a Constitutional right.

Because this is big government at the highest levels, Woody Higdon's attempts to apply justice to the misconduct and corruption within the Oceanside Police Department via complaints to the FBI, etc., will also nowhere. Most complaints of this nature go nowhere, not even with the ACLU.

The ACLU will spend hundreds of thousands to defend someone whose Islamic religious rights are violated because someone looked at them sideways, but innocent people being grossly victimized every day are s*** out of luck.

What kills me is that the police had NO EVIDENCE against Mr. Shields, and yet he was going to be CONVICTED???