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CamilleRanadiveFirstPaper 4 - 20 Jun 2013 - Main.EbenMoglen
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< | | | | A Legal Thought on Operation Streamline and the Type of Attorney I Don't Want to Be
In 2005 the Department of Justice began treating undocumented immigrants captured crossing into the United States as felons. So desperate to keep them OUT, we decided to lock them IN our country; so eager to prove to voters that we wouldn't allow them to enter the United States illegally and become a drain on tax payers' money through "inevitably" ending up in the welfare system, we shoved them into federal prisons for months. Once JUSTICE was served, who cares about the tax money it takes to implement that so-called justice. Punishment is certainly more important to our society than acting in a fiscally rational way. | | | The dehumanizing aspects of Operation Streamline have significance for the American justice system in general. Illegitimacy and acceptance of a system that functions in illegitimate ways leads to increased tolerance for similar policies. Though I believe many of the attorneys representing clients who were being "Streamlined" were working within the system in the only way they knew how, as opposed to leaving their clients wholly without representation, the ability to treat these men and women as sub-human contributed to an environment in Arizona that led to the passage of xenophobic laws that cemented the idea of sub-human classes of persons. | |
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< | Though the United States District Court for the district of Arizona ruled that the en masse questioning by the judge violated FRCP 11, the group trials still persist (see, for instance United States v. Escamilla-Rojas, 640 F.3d 1055). I don’t wish to give the impression that I would not perform the work of a public defender; instead, I insist on doing work where I can adequately devote attention to my client. There are some attorneys, like Hannan in United States v. Roblero-Solis, who are working within the system to effect procedural change. If I were to be a defender, however, I would only do so with a knowledge of who my client was, and only if I didn’t feel as though my presence was a mere farce. That may sound naïve, but maintaining a bit of naivete while going through law school, something that seems designed to crush all of my hopes and beliefs about my own personal abilities, could be beneficial, if only to my splintered confidence. | >
> | Though the United States District Court for the district of Arizona ruled that the en masse questioning by the judge violated FRCP 11, the group trials still persist (see, for instance United States v. Escamilla-Rojas, 640 F.3d 1055).
First, plea hearings
are not trials. "Group trials" is wrong. Second, your citation
doesn't prove what you claim: the hearing discussed in
Escamilla-Rojas occurred in December 2009, before the decision in
Roblero-Solis, which the Circuit upheld. The Court only held there
was harmless error with respect to this defendant, not that the
decision in Roblero-Solis was wrong or could be ignored. You may be
right that mass hearings continue, but you haven't shown that at
all.
I don’t wish to give the impression that I would not perform the work of a public defender; instead, I insist on doing work where I can adequately devote attention to my client. There are some attorneys, like Hannan in United States v. Roblero-Solis, who are working within the system to effect procedural change. If I were to be a defender, however, I would only do so with a knowledge of who my client was, and only if I didn’t feel as though my presence was a mere farce. That may sound naïve, but maintaining a bit of naivete while going through law school, something that seems designed to crush all of my hopes and beliefs about my own personal abilities, could be beneficial, if only to my splintered confidence.
This says that what
you are writing is happy music designed to cheer you up. I
understand the need to escape real, but what use are you to anybody
if you can't look the truth of your role, and your clients' roles,
in reality? | | |
Where to Go Now? |
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