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Reuters: Trump sues committee investigating Jan. 6 attack on Capitol.
Committee members Liz Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming, and Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, said in a written statement issued in response to Trump's lawsuit that the former president was seeking to "delay and obstruct" their investigation. "It's hard to imagine a more compelling public interest than trying to get answers about an attack on our democracy and an attempt to overturn the results of an election," Cheney and Thompson said in the statement. Marijuana Moment: Americans want to live where cannabis is legal, real estate survey finds. AP: Train riders held up phones as woman was raped, police say. Police do not believe a single witness on the train dialed 911. They are investigating whether some bystanders filmed the assault. Both the man and woman got on the train at the same stop Wednesday night in North Philadelphia. Officers pulled the man off of the woman at the last stop. They responded within about three minutes of a 911 call from a transportation authority employee, authorities said. “What we want is everyone to be angry and disgusted and to be resolute about making the system safer,” SEPTA Police Chief Thomas J. Nestel III said at the news conference. SCOTUSblog: U.S. Supreme Court upholds qualified immunity for police in two cases, adds two others dealing with Native American issues. Nextgov: Coming to the border: thermal body scans! The new Pedestrian Detection-at-Range system will take video and photo images of travelers, then overlay those images with thermal scans looking for items hidden under clothing. Suspicious scans will lead to secondary physical searches and maintained as evidence for any potential criminal actions, according to a privacy impact assessment. Non-intrusive scanning technologies have been in use at ports of entry for some time, mostly to search vehicles, shipping containers, parcels and other baggage as they move through the border checkpoints. The scans allow CBP officers to keep lines and goods moving while picking out suspicious items for additional searches. The detection-at-range system for pedestrian entry will work the same way. More links and stories on our Facebook page!
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The Atlantic: Reduce police violence by ending traffic enforcement by police.
Law360: Low pay keeping would-be public defenders away. "It pops up within not only the different states but within a state," said Steve Zeidman, at the City University of New York School of Law. "So a state like New York, for example, depending on where you are, there's either a public defender system, there's an individually assigned counsel system where you get paid an hourly rate, there are contract offices ... and they all have different salary ranges." Zeidman said that as a professor, he feels a responsibility to encourage law students to consider the public defender route despite the inherent difficulties — "to say that you can make it, it will be a challenge, and hopefully there's loan forgiveness programs that will make it easier for you to do this work," he said. (That loan forgiveness program does not exist in Wisconsin.) Reuters: Johnson & Johnson uses bankruptcy court to shield itself from baby powder claims. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) on Thursday put into bankruptcy tens of thousands of legal claims alleging its Baby Powder and other talc-based products caused cancer, offloading the potential liabilities into a newly created subsidiary. J&J put the talc claims into an entity called LTL Management LLC, which filed for bankruptcy protection on Thursday in North Carolina, according to the company and court records. J&J and its affiliates were not part of the bankruptcy filing. Tens of thousands of plaintiffs have alleged J&J's Baby Powder and other talc products contained asbestos and caused cancer, which the company denies. The plaintiffs include women suffering from ovarian cancer and others battling mesothelioma. Marijuana Moment: Study says marijuana legalization impact on crime reduction is underestimated. Law360: Why law schools should require a justice reform curriculum. More links and stories on our Facebook page! Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Prison gerrymandering give rural areas more electoral clout.
Politico: Another right-wing sheriff gravitates toward the spotlight. The New Yorker: A shadowy, abusive corrections system for kids. Each year, some fifty thousand adolescents in the U.S. are sent to a constellation of residential centers—wilderness programs, boot camps, behavior-modification facilities, and religious treatment courses—that promise to combat a broad array of unwanted behaviors. There are no federal laws or agencies regulating these centers. In 2007, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that, in the previous seventeen years, there had been thousands of allegations of abuse in the troubled-teen industry, and warned that it could not find “a single Web site, federal agency, or other entity that collects comprehensive nationwide data.” The next year, George Miller, a member of Congress from California, championed the Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act, which tried to create national safety standards and a system for investigating reports of abuse and neglect at the schools. But the law never passed the Senate. Slate: President's Supreme Court commission walked right into the legitimacy trap. The Washington Post: A woman was missing for 12 days before police found her inside a police van, dead. WAOW: New bill would fine, jail the homeless for living temporarily on public property.
Under the proposal, anyone living on public property could face a $500 fine and 30 days in jail. The rule is drawing the concern of area homeless advocates. They are saying they hope people won't go into hiding and instead seek them out for help. "We have a shelter facility that can serve 32 people including a family room where it can accommodate six. So hopefully the people will come to our door and the door of other agencies in the community that can serve people," said Ann Chrudinsky, Salvation Army Development Director. Salon: This U.S. Supreme Court was built on dark money. During Chief Justice John Roberts' tenure, the Court has issued more than 80 partisan decisions, by either a 5-4 or 6-3 vote, involving big interests important to Republican Party major donors. Republican-appointed justices have handed wins to the donor interests in every single case. The decisions greenlit rampant voter suppression and bulk gerrymandering (Shelby County v. Holder and Husted v. Randolph Institute); closed courthouse doors to workers wronged by their employers (Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis); unleashed floods of dark money to corrupt our politics and foul our democracy (Citizens United v. FEC and Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta); and more. Eighty to zero is a pattern so strong that it could serve as compelling evidence in a trial alleging bias and discrimination. This pattern did not just happen. It is the fruit of a half-century-long operation by right-wing donors to win through the Supreme Court what they can't win through elected branches of government. In 1971, a corporate attorney from Virginia named Lewis Powell wrote a memo for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce laying out a game plan for corporations and right-wing ideologues to use "an activist-minded Supreme Court" as an "instrument for social, economic, and political change." (Within months, Powell himself would be appointed by Richard Nixon to the court to advance the plan from within. His memo was never disclosed to the Senate.) ABA Journal: Judge's blatant anti-Semitism leads to recommendation for new trial for Jewish death row inmate. NPR: Fired FBI official Andrew McCabe wins back pay, reinstatement of retirement benefits in lawsuit settlement. The settlement will resolve a civil lawsuit filed by McCabe, who argued that his ouster was the result of a "years-long public vendetta" driven by the former president (Trump). The Justice Department demoted and then dismissed him on the eve of his 50th birthday in March 2018, when his FBI annuity would have vested. "I think the message that you get loud and clear from the terms of the settlement is that this never should have happened," McCabe said. "It feels like complete vindication, because that's what it is." The agreement follows a scathing online campaign by the former president to tarnish McCabe, who spent 21 years in service at the bureau. BuzzFeed News: 100 defendants in the Jan. 6 riot have pleaded guilty so far. Most of the 100 rioters to take a deal have pleaded guilty to the least serious crime they were charged with: parading, demonstrating, or picketing in the Capitol, a class B misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of six months in jail. Defendants pleading guilty to that crime or disorderly conduct in the Capitol (also a class B misdemeanor) are getting a few benefits: avoiding a trial on multiple charges, some of which carried more potential prison time; a chance to argue to a judge for credit for accepting responsibility early; and, in some cases, an agreement from prosecutors to advocate for a light sentence. The US attorney’s office in Washington, DC, is clearing some of the least complicated prosecutions — nonviolent offenders who in many instances documented their trek into the Capitol online — from its ever-growing caseload. The government has required some defendants to give the FBI access to their cellphones and social media accounts as investigators continue to search for more evidence from that day. In the smaller pool of felony plea deals, the government has been lining up cooperators in connection with a conspiracy they’ve alleged involving the far-right extremist group the Oath Keepers. More links and stories on our Facebook page! Balls and Strikes: Courts are making the climate crisis worse.
The role courts play in making climate change worse is often overlooked, because it is not as dramatic as, for example, Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s proud opposition to the Green New Deal, or West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin’s mind-bending declaration that the infrastructure bill’s efforts to reduce the use of fossil fuels are “very disturbing.” But when handing out “I Accelerated the Climate Crisis” participation trophies, the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts should not be spared. For decades, the “least dangerous branch” has wielded its considerable power to shield from responsibility the corporate giants that would rather consign the planet to a fiery doom than find a different way to pay for mega-yachts. Bloomberg Law: U.S. Supreme Court Sonia Sotomayor bemoans lack of professional diversity on the court. Sports Illustrated: This pro basketball and Nike exec hid this from his past: At 16, he shot another teen to death. Wisconsin Watch: Wisconsin incarcerates one in 36 Black adults, tops in the nation. WBUR: Discipline recommended for prosecutors linked to drug lab scandal. More links and stories on our Facebook page! WDJT: Wisconsin brewery helps parents sue school districts that don't follow CDC COVID guidelines.
The Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC announced they will sue "every school board in Wisconsin that doesn't follow CDC guidelines" on Sunday, Oct. 11. The effort comes as many schools are battling a surge of COVID-19 infection that has led some districts to temporarily close, shift to online learning and quarantine students. Kirk Bandstad, owner of Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC, is funding the lawsuits to help parents sue school districts after their child became infected with COVID-19. "I got flooded with parents across Wisconsin who are super upset, scared and felt powerless to protect their children," said Bandstad. "If they had masks in these schools, these kids could actually get an education." The Washington Post: Biden administration orders end to ICE raids at workplaces. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s memo ordered a review of enforcement policies and gave immigration officials 60 days to devise proposals to better protect workers who report on their bosses from facing deportation. Mass arrest operations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly referred to as ICE raids, have been used primarily against industries that employ large numbers of immigrants, such as meatpacking. Immigrant advocates and many Democrats who oppose the raids say they punish vulnerable workers, sow fear in immigrant communities and rarely result in consequences for employers. Reuters: U.S. Supreme Court considers reinstating death sentence for Boston marathon bomber. Governing: Chicago police give out lots more tickets for bicycling violations in Black, Latino neighborhoods. In the neighborhoods most affected, high cycling ticket rates could put a damper on jobs, residents’ health and efforts to reduce violence, said Olatunji Oboi Reed, president and CEO of racial equity-focused nonprofit Equiticity, which partnered on the study. “There’s a role for cycling to play in improving our neighborhoods,” he said. “And when these types of inequities are in existence, from lack of infrastructure in our neighborhoods to enforcement inequities by (the Chicago Police Department), they serve as a dampening effect on more Black and brown people turning to bikes as a form of travel, as a form of recreation, as a form of physical fitness.” The study raises questions about where and why police stop and cite cyclists. Its publication comes as the Chicago Department of Transportation is expanding bike lanes and resources amid a surge of interest in biking during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study, published in September by the journal Transportation Research Part D, found that between 2017 and 2019, Chicago police issued tickets for cycling on the sidewalk in majority Black neighborhoods at eight times the rate in majority white areas. In Latino areas, they issued tickets three times as often. WILL: WILL, Scott Walker urge U.S. Supreme Court to accept press conference case. More links and stories on our Facebook page! AP: Gun violence claiming more lives of children.
The U.S. saw 991 gun violence deaths among people 17 or younger in 2019, according to the website Gun Violence Archive, which tracks shootings from more than 7,500 law enforcement, media, government and commercial sources. That number spiked to 1,375 in 2020 and this year is on pace to be worse. Through Monday, shootings had claimed 1,179 young lives and left 3,292 youths injured. FBI data backs that up. The agency released a report on Sept. 28 showing homicides in the U.S. increased nearly 30% in 2020, and homicides among people ages 19 and younger rose more than 21%. Vox: A better way to legalize marijuana. There are genuine concerns that the current commercial model of legalization will lead to “Big Marijuana”: a large industry that, similar to the tobacco, alcohol, and opioid industries, has a powerful financial incentive to market and sell its product to as many people as possible, no matter the consequences for consumers or the public more broadly. But marijuana legalization — and alcohol regulation, for that matter — doesn’t have to look like this. As other states move to legalize cannabis, it’s possible to follow an alternative model that might be able to achieve the same goal with fewer downsides. The Washington Post: Another incident of forensic fraud exposed and an innocent man goes free after 28 years in prison. Governing: North Carolina's driver's license suspensions compound hardships. (Wisconsin's, too!) Public Source: There's a labor shortage, but people with criminal records face hurdles in finding a job. More links and stories on our Facebook page! Wisconsin Examiner: Disability rights activist Dorothy Dean says state building code violates federal law.
Section SPS 362.2902 of the Wisconsin building code states that businesses don’t need public restrooms if there won’t be more than 25 occupants in the building, other restrooms are available nearby and the omission is approved by the local government... But disability rights experts say there isn’t a provision in the ADA that allows states to grant exemptions and doing so causes real harm. “I know of nothing in the Americans with Disabilities Act that allows states to waive the requirements it imposes,” Monica Murphy, the managing attorney for Disability Rights Wisconsin, says. “Obviously anything that limits accessibility limits access for people with disabilities. The ADA was signed into law in 1990. There is no excuse for building inaccessible buildings 31 years later.” The Washington Post: Why is a prominent federal judge hiring a clerk who said she hates Black people? Austin-American Statesman: Texas' bounty hunter abortion law is temporarily reinstated by federal appeals court. The three-judge appeals court panel gave no reasons for its action in a one-page order. Two panel members were Republican appointees — Judges Catharina Haynes, nominated by President George W. Bush, and James Ho, named by President Donald Trump. The third, Judge Carl Stewart, was nominated by President Bill Clinton. Tomahawk Leader: Bills would allow unlicensed concealed carry, sandhill crane hunting. CBS News: U.S. Department of Justice won't charge officer who shot Jacob Blake. Slate: Decision blocking Texas abortion law is a meticulous rebuke to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Perhaps most importantly, (U.S. District Judge Robert) Pitman chose not to center the sufferings of the Supreme Court justices who feel beleaguered by the demands of the shadow docket, or of Texas, which seeks to overturn Roe v Wade without being hassled by precedent or legal arguments. Instead, in footnote after footnote, Pitman centers the pregnant people who have relied on the courts to vindicate their rights, and excoriates the state for hurting them, for lying about it, and for its cynical attempts to circumvent the rule of law. “From the moment S.B. 8 went into effect, women have been unlawfully prevented from exercising control over their lives in ways that are protected by the Constitution,” he wrote. “That other courts may find a way to avoid this conclusion is theirs to decide; this Court will not sanction one more day of this offensive deprivation of such an important right.” The Washington Post: White House restoring key elements of major environmental law, reversing Trump. Channel 3000: Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul asks people to stop with the vigilante stuff already. Texas Public Radio via KERA News: Eleven Republican governors call for national immigration plan based on those of Trump, Abbott. The plan includes defunct policies from the Trump administration and executive orders enacted by Texas Governor (Greg) Abbott. Many of these measures have been ruled unconstitutional by federal judges. “We believe the states are authorized by the United States Constitution to do exactly what Texas is doing under the ten point plan that we are already acting on right now,” said Governor Abbott. Channel 3000: WILL threatens to sue UW-Madison on discrimination grounds. More links and stories on our Facebook page! Reuters: U.S. Justice Department reopens probe into FBI's botched investigation into sex abuser Larry Nassar.
Wisconsin State Farmer: CAFO fined $86,000 for wastewater violations. Attorney General Josh Kaul says Jon-De Capital, Inc. of Baldwin, Wis., was fined for allegedly allowing one of its manure storage facilities to overflow in September 2017 causing it to flow into a tributary of the Rush River. Kaul also notes that Jan-De Capital failed to install permanent markers in its waste storage facilities in 2017; constructed a facility without approval from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in 2017; and stored manure in unapproved locations and facilities in 2017 and 2020. NPR: Federal appeals court blocks California's ban on private detention centers. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the ban into law in 2019. It sought to curtail California's cooperation with the federal government on immigration detention by slowly closing private detention facilities in the state by 2028. A lawsuit challenging the rule was brought by the Trump administration and GEO Group Inc., a company that operates two private immigration detention centers. The Biden administration pursued this lawsuit after Donald Trump left office, despite campaign promises by Biden that he would close privately run detention centers. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Judge gives a "do-over" to potential juror who walked out of courthouse due to lack of COVID protections. Ms.: A record 106 abortion restrictions have become law so far this year. More links and stories on our Facebook page! |
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The Wisconsin Justice Initiative Inc. does not endorse candidates for political office. The Wisconsin Justice Initiative Inc. is a 501(c)3 organization.
The Wisconsin Justice Initiative Inc. does not endorse candidates for political office. The Wisconsin Justice Initiative Inc. is a 501(c)3 organization.