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Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 11:57:30 GMT
From: ACLU Newsfeed Owner
Speech, Taped Confession, HIV, Graduation Dress Codes, Abortion, National ID
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05-28-96 ACLU Newsfeed -- ACLU News Direct to YOU!
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TODAY'S NEWS: Sender: owner-news@aclu.org Precedence: bulk- Vote on Immigration Bill Nears- Court Strikes Down Graduation Prayer Vote- Ban on "Offensive" Comments Ruled Vague- D.A. Apologizes for Taping Jailhouse Confession- Odd Bedfellows Pass HIV Testing Law- Feather, Tribal Cloth Cost Diplomas- CA High Court to Reconsider Abortion Ruling- Clinton Expands National ID
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Vote on Immigration Bill Nears
As House and Senate negotiators prepare to iron out the last details of a bill whose chief target is illegal immigration, a battle with the White House is looming over provisions that would drastically restrict public assistance to legal immigrants, The New York Times reports on this morning's front page.
The bill would allow for the deportation of legal immigrants who receive government assistance for more than 12 months and would do more to hold immigrants' sponsors financially responsible for them.
Critics say the legislation unfairly punishes taxpaying immigrants by cutting them off the very programs -- child care, job training, English classes and college loans -- that enable them to stay off welfare and increase their chances of success in the United States.
"This is another example of how the anti-immigration bills go too far," said Lucas Guttentag, Director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project. "If immigrants are such a drain on society, as the bills' sponsors would have us wrongly believe, why would they also deport immigrants who are seeking to become productive citizens? They're trying to have their cake and eat it, too."
In the rush to appear tough on illegal immigration, the ACLU says Republicans and Democrats have fashioned bills that would severely jeopardize the civil liberties of all Americans, including provisions that would create a national identification card for employment verification.
President Clinton said earlier this month that the Senate bill in particular "goes too far in denying legal immigrants access to vital safety net programs." The President has raised the possibility of a veto, although his strongest objections has been to a proposal in the House bill that would deny public education for illegal immigrants.
House and Senate are set to begin working out differences in their bill this week.
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Court Strikes Down Graduation Prayer Vote
PHILADELPHIA -- A federal appeals court has declared unconstitutional a New Jersey school district's policy of allowing high school seniors to vote on whether to include a prayer in graduation ceremonies, Reuter reports.
The ruling by the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a lower court injunction against the policy of the Black Horse Pike Regional Board of Education in Camden County, New Jersey.
The prayer policy was never implemented, Reuter said, because it had been blocked earlier by restraining orders on the grounds it blurred the line between church and state.
"We're quite pleased with the decision," said David Rocah, staff attorney for American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, which sought to block the policy. "The decision comes just in time for the public school graduation season."
The school board adopted its policy in 1993 in the wake of a Supreme Court decision invalidating a public school's practice of including a prayer in its graduation ceremony, Reuter said.
The New Jersey board said it was not endorsing prayer, but that students could decide through a senior class vote on the issue.
However, the appeals court said in its ruling that turning the decision over to students still violated principles of church-state separation.
"Although the state's involvement here is certainly less evident, the student referendum does not erase the state's imprint from this graduation prayer," it said.
Attorneys for the school board could not be reached for comment.
Rocah said Friday's ruling was in conflict with a ruling by the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which could set the stage for the Supreme Court to resolve the issue.
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Ban on "Offensive" Comments Ruled Vague
SAN FRANCISCO -- A state law against "offensive" personal comments by lawyers was ruled unconstitutionally vague Friday for the second time, despite the State Bar's attempt to define it, the Associated Press reports.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals first struck the law down in April 1995, overturning a disciplinary order against a Los Angeles attorney who denounced women lawyers, the AP reported. In a 3-0 ruling, the court said the law was so broad and undefined that lawyers wouldn't know when they were violating it.
The panel granted a rehearing last December to give the state and the State Bar, not previously parties, a chance to defend the law.
The bar cited its new policy, adopted in October, that said the law would be enforced only against conduct in a courtroom or similar setting, such as a sworn deposition, that was so serious as to be "prejudicial to the administration of justice." They also said the law merely enforced an ethical code that lawyers were required to know as part of their profession.
The court was unpersuaded, AP said, reaffirming its previous decision in a 2-1 ruling.
The case involved a disciplinary order against attorney Frank L. Swan, who wrote an angry note in May 1993 to a female prosecutor who had gotten him removed from a case. He attached the following statement to the note, photocopied from a magazine article:
"Male lawyers play by the rules, discover truth and restore order. Female lawyers are outside the law, cloud truth and destroy order."
In overturning the disciplinary order, the appeals court said the note showed a "patently sexist attitude'' but did not impugn the female prosecutor's integrity or interfere with the administration of justice.
The American Civil Liberties Union defended Swan. The National Organization for Women was among those opposing him.
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D.A. Apologizes for Taping Jailhouse Confession
Portland, OR -- A District Attorney who last month ordered the jailhouse taping of a conversation between a crime suspect and a Roman Catholic priest announced on Wednesday that he would not use the tape in court, The New York Times reports.
In a statement, Doug Harcleroad, the D.A. for Oregon's Lane County, apologized for his decision to record Father Tim Mockaitis hearing the confession of a Conan Wayne Hale, a 20-year-old homicide suspect, as they spoke through a glass partition in the jail. He called the taping "legal and ethical but simply not right," and said, "I was wrong to authorize taping that confession."
While the District Attorney did admit being wrong about the taping, he failed to quell the fury of Catholics and civil libertarians who have argued, since they learned of the taping three weeks ago, that confidentiality is integral to confession.
The Archdiocese of Portland said it would petition the County judge, who now has the only copy of the tape, to destroy it. But Hale's lawyer, Terri Wood, does not want the tape destroyed. Since she is the only one representing the defendant, legal experts said arguably she is the only one with a reasonable chance at success, for the tape's destruction.
But the Catholics may fare better in Congress than in Court, the New York Times reported. Rep. Peter T. King, a Long Island Republican, plans to introduce legislation that would protect the clergy-penitent relationship by outlawing the practice of taping confessions.
Dave Fidanque, executive director of the Oregon ACLU said that similar legislation would be introduced in Oregon in January. But the case "is far from over," he added.
Even though the jailhouse authorities have said they will not tape any more conversations between prisoners and clergy, they have not guaranteed that they will give clergy access to confidential meeting places that would preclude any surreptitious taping. Oregon law makes it a crime to tape lawyer-client communications, Fidanque explained, but clergy-penitent relationships are not included in the law -- leaving their confidential exchanges open to abuse.
Fidanque said that the ACLU is still "looking at the possibility" of filing an friend-of-the-court brief in Mr. Hale's case, as well as "exploring other legal avenues to protect all such confidential relationships in the future."
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Odd Bedfellows Pass HIV Testing Law
WASHINGTON -- The Hill, an influential journal of Capitol Hill, reported this week that the enactment of the Ryan White Care Act, including a mandate to increase HIV testing of infants, marked the end of a legislative battle that paired Reps. Pat Schroeder with Bob Dornan and "caused several poster children of the American Civil Liberties Union to temporarily fall from grace."
Those who have fallen from the ACLU's grace, the Hill said, supported a provision that originally required mandatory HIV testing of infants. The ACLU and several gay rights, women's and health groups objected to the mandatory testing of one section of the population, saying it would not only violate the constitutional rights to privacy, but could lead to the widespread mandatory testing of the population at large, the Hill said.
Opponents further argued that the requirement would keep women from seeking prenatal care and force them to deliver their children away from hospitals.
The ACLU said it was still "very concerned" about the legislation. "We're concerned that this goes back on what we believe to be a proven strategy of making the public health system non-coercive," Alexander Robinson, Senior Legislative Representative for the ACLU, told The Hill. "We are very concerned that there is a mandate included in the law."
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Feather, Tribal Cloth Cost Diplomas
MUSKOGEE, Okla. -- An American Indian who hung an eagle feather from her mortarboard and two blacks who wore a multicolored African tribal cloth with their graduation gowns were denied their high school diplomas, the Associated Press reports.
The school district said they violated a policy against wearing ethnic symbols at graduation, the AP said. The district is withholding their Muskogee High School diplomas and transcripts until they complete 25 days in summer school as punishment.
``I'm not going to be defined by the white man anymore,'' Danaj Battese Trudell, an American Indian, said Wednesday.
Ms. Battese Trudell and the two others, Garrica Johnson and Sydney Watts, are seeking the American Civil Liberties Union's help.
``We do feel these young ladies have had their rights violated,'' said ACLU lawyer C.S. Thornton, who plans to meet with the students and the district. Thornton said he was told other students had been allowed to wear crosses.
In an article in The Washington Post, Thornton added that "we back the right of those students to wear crosses. But if that's okay, then why in the world would they punish these girls so severely?"
"There's an impermissible discrimination going on here," Thornton told the Post. "People are being treated differently."
Muskogee Schools spokeswoman Derryl Venters told AP that the school board approved the dress code May 14 to restore dignity to a ceremony that had taken on ``a carnival quality.'' Students participating in Saturday's ceremony were required to sign a statement saying they understood the dress code.
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CA High Court to Reconsider Abortion Ruling
In an unexpected move, the California Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to reconsider its April 4 ruling upholding the state's parental consent law for minors' abortions, the Associated Press reported.
The court voted 4-3 last month to allow enforcement of the 1987 law which would require unmarried women under 18 to get consent from a parent or approval from a judge to have an abortion.
But since the ruling, two of the ruling's majority -- Chief Justice Malcolm Lucas and Justice Armand Arabian -- have retired.
Their successors, Justices Ming Chin and Janice Rogers Brown, both appointed by pro-choice Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, joined the three previous dissenters Wednesday to grant the ACLU's request for a rehearing. (No new hearing date has yet been set.)
Legal observers say the court seldom agrees to reconsider its rulings but occasionally does so when a new justice is appointed before the ruling becomes final. Usually, the second ruling differs from the first.
The ruling was not scheduled to become final until July 3. The consent has never been enforced because of a court challenge brought by the ACLU of Northern California, along with several other groups.
An attorney with the ACLU applauded the ruling: "The court has acted wisely in taking a second look at this profoundly important case," said Margaret Crosby. "We hope that on reconsideration, the court will protect the right of all women, including teenagers, to decide whether to become parents."
The case is American Academy of Pediatrics vs. Lungren, S041459.
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Clinton Expands National ID
Seeking to further demonstrate its tough stance against illegal immigration, the Clinton Administration announced Thursday a national expansion of a pilot program in California that requires participating employers to verify the legal status of job seekers, according to a front page article in the New York Times.
Specifically, the Immigration and Naturalization Service reached agreement with the nation's four largest meat-packing companies (representing 80 percent of the industry's 70,000 employees) to use a computerized data system at 41 plants in 12 Western and Midwestern states to determine if job applicants are documented workers.
The ACLU and other civil libertarians have long criticized the plan, saying it would lead to an costly, intrusive and error-prone national identification card.
The effort announced today builds on the seven-month-old pilot program in two Southern California counties, Santa Ana and the City of Industry.
Meanwhile, immigration bills approved by the House and the Senate, and now awaiting resolution in a conference committee, include differing provisions that would expand pilot programs even further to allow the INS to more quickly evaluate among different systems.
"These pilot programs all lead down the same path," said Greg T. Nojeim, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "Unless the public steps up its pressure to stop them from proceeding, the government will build a giant computer registry that will require every single hiring decision in this country to be cleared through a centralized database."
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ONLINE RESOURCES FROM THE ACLU NATIONAL OFFICE
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