For Immediate Release: March 25th, 2004
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Federal lawsuit challenges the "Miami Model" and hundreds of FTAA-related criminal cases
Miami Activist Defense (MAD) and National Lawyers Guild (NLG) attorneys filed a lawsuit in federal court today accusing the City of Miami,
Mayors Diaz and Penelas, Police Chief Timoney, Homeland Defense
Secretary Ridge, US Attorney General Ashcroft and others of violating
people's Constitutional Rights during last November's FTAA protests and
implementing a plan to unlawfully arrest hundreds of people.
Miami, FL - A civil lawsuit was filed today in federal court
challenging the "Miami model," a deliberate and coordinated effort by
local, state and federal "authorities" to silence dissent through an
unwarranted use of force and by unlawfully arresting hundreds of people
engaging in protests against a controversial trade agreement, the Free
Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Attorneys working with Miami Activist
Defense (MAD) and the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) filed the lawsuit to
stop the "model" in its tracks so that it can no longer be used to
restrict mass protests around the country.
The Defendants named
in the lawsuit, accused of First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment Rights
violations, include the City of Miami, Mayors Manny Diaz and Alex
Penelas, Police Chief John Timoney, State Attorney Katherine
Fernandez-Rundle, Secretary of Homeland Defense Tom Ridge, US Attorney
General John Ashcroft. The lawsuit explains how these entities and
others engaged in an orchestrated plan to arrest people on baseless
charges and to hold them in preventive detention thereby prohibiting
First Amendment activity and violating the Fifth Amendment right to due
process.
"This lawsuit blows open the unlawful way in which
police profiled and targeted activists and people who were in Miami to
protest the FTAA," said Carol Sobel, an attorney with the National
Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee. "Anyone who fit the police
description of being anti-FTAA was subject to harassment, abuse, and
unlawful arrest."
The lawsuit states that it "challenge[s] the
mass false arrests of, and unreasonable force against, lawful
demonstrators during the recent protests of the Free Trade Area of the
Americas (FTAA) in November 2003 in Miami." It also conveys how "Law
enforcement coordinated an all out assault on the First Amendment,
engaging in widespread political profiling, and swept the streets of
anyone viewed as being an anti-FTAA activist, effectively suspending the
Fourth Amendment in the city for ten days."
The lawsuit
challenges the local and state statutes used to arrest hundreds of
people as unconstitutional, as well as the way in which they were used
to illegally stifle mass protest. In essence, the lawsuit challenges the
legal justification for, and validity of, the hundreds of arrests that
took place during the FTAA.
"Every FTAA-related criminal case
currently being prosecuted by the State Attorney is a sham," said Kris
Hermes of MAD. "It's time to stop maliciously prosecuting people for
their involvement in the FTAA protests. Taxpayer money could certainly be put to better use."
Despite
the millions of federal dollars used to implement the coordinated
campaign by law enforcement, illustrated in the lawsuit, and the
continuing expenditure to try cases, the State Attorney's fervent
efforts have yet to result in more than one misdemeanor conviction. Less
than half of the over two hundred cases remain.
The plaintiff
group currently consists of 21 people, but is likely to increase as more
allegations become known and are added to the suit. Plaintiffs are
seeking injunctive relief as well as financial damages due to the
numerous rights violations.
Counsel for the plaintiffs includes:
Carol Sobel, Jonathan Moore, Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Carl Messineo of
the NLG Mass Defense Committee; Andrea Costello and Robert Ross are
working with both MAD and the NLG
Click here for an on-line version of the complaint filed in federal court today.
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