JTjaden's blog

[Maybe in reality it's five words, Gang Enhancement and Guilt by Association. And The Rest of the Story tells why Gang Enhancement is flawed. Make sure to scroll down or click the header for the full article]

Two Words That Can Get You Life in Prison

By Raj Jayadev

BEFORE REBECCA RIVERA ENTERED the California courtroom to hear if her son, Joshua Herrera, was going to face a life sentence in prison, she gathered with 40 or so supporters, who were bustling with nervous tension.

“I talked to Joshua last night,” she said, “and he wanted us all to know that whatever happens in there—he is coming home.” She began to weep, then collected herself and walked into court.
Rivera had done everything a mother could do to prevent her son from receiving a life sentence. She had brought his story to politicians, students, church congregations and biker clubs. She had organized marches, rallies and press conferences, and she had facilitated a letter-writing campaign. It paid off. Sort of.
In the courtroom, Judge Arthur Bocanegra delivered Herrera’s sentence: 19 years. Rivera’s deepest fears vanished. The only time a mother can celebrate her son being sent to prison for 19 years is when it could have been for life.

With no significant criminal record, no history of violence and a promising future as a firefighter, 24-year-old Herrera had faced a life sentence in a level-four prison. The stiff sentence was based on what is called a “gang enhancement,” which was tacked onto charges against Herrera as a result of a get-tough-on-gangs law passed in Sacramento, California, in 1988.

U.S. appellate court hears cases at McGeorge

By Denny Walsh
dwalsh@sacbee.com
Published: Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008 | Page 1B

A federal appellate panel, sitting in special session Wednesday in Sacramento, heard California's appeals in two constitutional cases decided in lower courts against the state and its officials.

Click the pic

[No on Props 4, 6, 8, 9 and Yes on 5]

Your Guide to Protecting Civil Liberties at the Ballot Box Nov. 4, 2008

NO on PROPOSITION 4

Amending the California Constitution to restrict teens’ access to reproductive health services would put millions of young people at risk. By voting "no," you are defending teen safety, especially for young women who are vulnerable to abuse at home.

NO on PROPOSITION 6

This dangerous initiative would deepen the budget crisis by diverting billions of dollars annually from schools, hospitals, and violence prevention programs into the criminal justice system. It is a misguided effort to incarcerate more and more people, including youth.

NO on PROPOSITION 8

The right to marry is a fundamental freedom – not one for the government to grant to some Californians and deny to others. By voting "no," you are taking a stand for basic fairness.

[This blog is two articles: the first is an editorial in the LA Times on Prop 4, and the second is from the Feminist Law Profs blog on The Shifting demographics of abortion and the political fall-out which talks about the rate abortions getting lower - which everyone wants - but that the rate among non-white and low-income women have fallen more slowly]

Proposition 4 isn't really about parental notification; it's an attack on the right to an abortion.
September 25, 2008

The story behind "Sarah's Law" says a lot about it. "Sarah" was, according to Proposition 4 supporters, a 15-year-old girl who died from an abortion gone wrong 14 years ago, a death that might have been prevented had her parents been notified beforehand. Much of that is false. The girl's name wasn't Sarah; she lived in Texas, not California; and though she was 15, she already had a child and was in a common-law marriage, which means she wouldn't have been covered by the law Californians are being asked to consider.

That's how far the Proposition 4 campaign reached to come up with a poster girl. The initiative purports to protect California girls from dangers associated with abortions by requiring that their parents be notified. But Proposition 4 attempts to solve something that isn't much of a problem. There's no evidence that California's teenage girls are harmed by abortions with any frequency, whether or not their parents have been notified. The most recent known case of serious injury that might have been prevented by Proposition 4 occurred in the 1980s.

[I haven't had a chance to read the ruling, but I assume the TSA is still using CAPPS or something very similar, which on paper and in gov. and corp. offices sounds like a great idea. But the problem with most ideas that come from well connected people who get to and fro from gov. and corp. offices to the country club in the back of a limo, is that those ideas are mostly about salving someones ego, and not so practical in the real world, i.e. as in using a profiling system to figure out who/m to be afraid of. There was a research paper written a few years ago by some MIT students who used a common-sense approach to explaining why the profiling thesis a.k.a. CAPPS is flawed, called Carnival Booth: An Algorithm for Defeating the Computer-Assisted Passenger Screening System, [make sure to scroll down after clicking] short explanation here

Two articles below: the first is a straight news story on what the ruling was; and the second is an explanation by Anita Ramasastry of findlaw.com]

[~ John]

Court: Passengers can challenge no-fly list

Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Critics of the government's secret no-fly list scored a potentially important victory Monday when a federal appeals court ruled that would-be passengers can ask a judge and jury to decide whether their inclusion on the list violates their rights

[Make sure to click on the link below to read the bill summaries and be able to access the additional information provided]

Enacting Justice: 2008 Legislative Priorities

As we enter the second year of a two-year legislative session, the ACLU’s top priorities reflect our sense that even in a tight budget year, we can gain ground in a number of our core areas. The following bills call for stemming wrongful convictions, ensuring access to disaster-relief services, and protecting Californians from increasing violations of personal privacy. Included below are new bills as well as familiar bills that stalled or failed in prior years.

Part of state's financial privacy law upheld

Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, September 5, 2008

(09-04) 23:29 PDT San Francisco -- A federal appeals court reinstated part of California's financial privacy law Thursday, allowing consumers to prevent banks from sharing information with affiliated companies about a customer's savings account or buying habits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w1eSymFBOg
___________________________

A pay discrimination fix

California lawmakers should seize an opportunity to correct a flaw in gender-discrimination law.
August 26, 2008

A bill to restore to women (and men) the right to fully recover damages for gender-based pay discrimination got stuck in the U.S. Senate earlier this year, but California has an opportunity to move forward with a corrective measure of its own. Unfortunately, that bill too -- AB 437 by Assemblyman Dave Jones (D-Sacramento) -- is in danger of being blocked by critics who brand it a job killer.

That's absurd. Jones' bill simply makes clear that under state labor and fair-employment laws, an oddly reasoned 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision interpreting federal law does not apply.

And it shouldn't. The 5-4 decision in Ledbetter vs. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. undermined Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by impossibly restricting the period during which a victim of unlawful discrimination can try to get full compensation. The employee has to know she's being discriminated against (most victims are women) and must file within 180 days of the gender-based decision to pay her less than men in the same job. If she discovers the unequal treatment only after it has been perpetrated for years, it's too late. A career's worth of inequity turns into less than half a year's worth of compensation.

California Supreme Court: Docs Can’t Refuse to Treat Gays on Basis of Religious Beliefs

Continuing to blaze the way through gay rights law, the California Supreme Court decided yesterday (Monday) that doctors may not discriminate against gays and lesbians in medical treatment, even if the procedures being sought conflict with religious beliefs. Here are reports from the L.A. Times and the Recorder.

“The 1st Amendment’s right to the free exercise of religion does not exempt defendant physicians here from conforming their conduct to the . . . antidiscrimination requirements,” Justice Joyce L. Kennard wrote for the court. Here’s the opinion. [pdf]

Here’s what happened in the case: Guadalupe Benitez, a lesbian who lives with her partner and wants to become pregnant with donated sperm, filed a suit after Dr. Christine Brody said she wouldn’t perform an intrauterine insemination. In her lawsuit, Benitez alleged that Brody said her religious views prevented her from providing the procedure to a lesbian. Benitez also claimed that another physician at the clinic told her that the staff was uncomfortable helping her conceive a child.

[...]

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