Roy Morris describes his struggles in getting D.C. government agencies to comply with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests as "Kafkaesque."
"They use these exceptions to deny anything," Morris told D.C. Councilmembers at a hearing this week on open government and transparency at the Wilson Building . “I don’t want to pick on the attorney general," Morris added. To which, [...]
In this morning's hearing in U.S. District Court, Judge Emmet Sullivan edged ever closer to referring the Pershing Park case to the Department of Justice—signaling he's close to handing the matter over to Attorney General Eric Holder.
But first, Sullivan wants to order up one more investigative tool at his disposal: some serious tech support.
Following up [...]
On September 27, 2002, D.C. Police surrounded some 400 individuals in Pershing Park. Those individuals were rounded up without warning, arrested, and transferred to the police academy where they were hogtied for hours [See our Boss Hogtie cover story on the incident].
Sally Norton, a nurse in town for a conference at the nearby Marriott, had [...]
D.C. AG Peter Nickles has reached a settlement in one of the two remaining Pershing Park cases. The deal, which came together last night, includes a District payout of approximately $8.25 million to the roughly 400 plaintiffs in the Barham class action lawsuit.
The deal mirrors the recent settlement in the historic Becker case in which [...]
In early 2009, the Partnership for Civil Justice filed a lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court in the hopes that the D.C. Police Department would get its act together and comply with a very basic FOIA request. What did the civil rights lawyers want?
They wanted the D.C. Police to cough up their operational procedures and general [...]
On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan slammed the District's lawyers for how it has severely mishandled evidence in a civil case brought by plantiffs who were arrested in Pershing Park in September 2002.
Sullivan focused particularly on AG Peter Nickles. The Post writes:
"Sullivan ordered D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles to submit a sworn [...]
The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund recently filed a complaint in D.C. Superior Court demanding the D.C. Police Department comply with established Freedom of Information Act statutes. According to the Partnership for Civil Justice, the department has been stonewalling them on producing the most basic police information.
Just a few minutes ago, I talked with Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, attorney and co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice, about the inauguration, security, and, and the Secret Service. She says that trained legal observers will be out and about for Tuesday's big events just in case the police start forgetting about your civil liberties. We [...]
While the Obama Inauguration promises to be filled with hope, optimism, and Pepsi, there is still a chance that you could be messed with by the gazillion cops filling up the protected security zone. You could get patted down for no reason, arrested on some dumb charge (failure to obey, loitering, whatever).
Anyone remember Pershing Park? [...]
