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Miami police Chief John "make my day"
Timoney put on quite a show during the Free Trade Area of the Americas
meeting in November. He coordinated more than three dozen police
agencies, putting 2,500 officers in riot gear on the ground in downtown
Miami. Armed with truncheons, tear gas, stun guns and rifles loaded with
rubber bullets, the officers then descended on 8,000 to 10,000
predominantly peaceful protesters.
The result was a horrifying scene
where police indiscriminately assaulted defenseless union members,
retirees, activists and students, most of whom engaged in no violence
and complied with police orders. Eyewitnesses called Miami on Nov. 21 a
"police state."
Richard Margolius, a 60-year old
circuit judge who witnessed the police response, said in open court that
it was "a disgrace for the community." "(I saw) no less than 20
felonies committed by police officers," said Margolius. "I probably
would have been arrested myself if it had not been for a police officer
who recognized me."
During the FTAA summit, law
enforcement officers in Miami acted as if they were released from
constitutional constraints. Now we'll see if they will get away with it.
No surprise, but don't look for any
review from our sniveling political leaders. From Gov. Jeb Bush on down,
they rushed to Timoney's side, tossing verbal laurels at him for a job
well done. Bush, through a spokesperson, called law enforcement's
efforts "a phenomenal job," and Miami Mayor Manny Diaz characterized the
storm trooper assault as "a model for homeland defense."
Timoney is ostensibly reviewing the
FTAA operation himself, and there is a chance that local police
oversight boards may investigate. But clearly, the best hope for the
protesters to get some semblance of justice is through the civil rights
lawsuits being put together by the Florida affiliate of the American
Civil Liberties Union and the National Lawyers Guild, among other
groups.
But even as those efforts are under
way, the Miami-Dade County state attorney's office is moving to
undermine them. It is doing so by trying to block those protesters who
were arrested from having access to public defenders. Protesters who
plead guilty because they don't have a lawyer's assistance to fight the
charges would later be barred from challenging the legality of their
arrest.
Two hundred and twenty five people
were arrested during the FTAA summit, most of whom were charged with
only misdemeanors. Since then, dozens have had their charges dropped,
such as Miami New Times reporter Celeste Fraser Delgado, who documents
her abusive arrest in a piece titled "Jailhouse Crock"
Others have pleaded guilty - at least in some cases, to get the ordeal
behind them. As it stands, about 100 cases remain. Primarily, these
represent protesters who are fighting their charges, claiming that their
arrests were baseless.
Many people would be surprised to
know that there is an asterisk over our constitutional right to counsel.
While it is true that counsel must be provided to anyone who cannot
otherwise afford it, the courts have (inexplicably and unfortunately)
ruled that this only applies if a defendant is facing a potential
deprivation of liberty. In cases that are so minor that there is no
possibility of jail, no lawyer has to be made available. According to
Miami-Dade County Public Defender Bennett Brummer, this loophole in our
justice system is being exploited through a "deliberate policy" by the
state attorney's office.
Prosecutors are promising judges that
protesters will not face jail time and then asking judges to remove the
FTAA protesters' public defenders. It is a tactic designed to leave
these defendants, many of whom are out-of-state students with few means,
without representation. Once stripped of counsel, they would be far
more likely to take a plea and not fight the charges.
Ed Griffith, spokesman for Miami-Dade
County State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, defended the
decertification requests. He said that providing public defenders to the
protesters gives them a special status, since other similarly situated
defendants wouldn't receive such services. "If all people should be
treated equally then why should some people be treated more equally?"
Griffith asked.
Yeah. Whatever. The real point is, of
course, to squeeze guilty pleas out of as many FTAA protesters as
possible, enabling the city to claim that a bulk of the arrests were
lawful. The state attorney's office isn't willing to win these
convictions by proving the protesters guilty as charged; it wants to win
by stacking the deck. The lawyered-up state vs. college students.
So far, only about half of the eight
local trial judges handling protester cases are going along with the
decertification requests; and volunteer criminal defense lawyers are
being lined up for those who find themselves without counsel. So this
tactic may not work as intended. But it is another example of how public
officials are trying to whitewash the illegalities that occurred.
Florida's leaders have no interest in pursuing some reckoning for
Timoney. They are too busy licking his boots.
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