The ruling came as a result of a federal lawsuit filed in early February by Miami Activist Defense (MAD), the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), and Southern Legal Counsel, which challenges the city’s ordinances concerning protests on sidewalks and streets as well as the city’s permit scheme for First Amendment activities. These ordinances were used during the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) protests to unlawfully detain and arrest hundreds of activists. This damage to the "Miami Model," may also have implications in other U.S. cities that have used similar language to craft protest ordinances of their own.The success of the suit also lead to the dismissal of most charges against those arrested at the anti-FTAA demonstration in November and moves to repeal the "Parade and Assembly Ordinance" passed just a week before the protests and clearly geared to hindering them.
The reason I mention this now is that the success of that suit has prompted an additional one, filed Thursday in federal court on behalf of several people arrested in November, challenging the very legal basis of the "Miami Model," labeling it a violation of the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments.
The Defendants named in the lawsuit, accused of 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.May they have as much success this time.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment