Declaring that '''justice has been delayed too long,' California state and county officials this week rushed into court to request execution dates for the first time in almost five years. To some, it might sound like the government is finally doing what it needs to do to get executions moving forward. But in reality, they are ignoring the law, setting up victims' families for yet another painful disappointment, and causing even more delays.
That's because they know full well that the state has a time-out on executions that was put in place in 2006, over concerns that our execution procedures were so plagued by problems that they were unconstitutional. This past Monday, when the Riverside DA's office and state officials asked a judge to set an execution date for Albert Brown, they knew another judge would decide the very next day whether executions could resume. Sure enough, by Tuesday morning, a state court judge in Marin issued an order stating that executions remain on hold.
But prison officials handed Mr. Brown the death warrant anyway. Even worse, they told the press they are moving forward with preparing for an execution, despite the judge's order. State officials also declared on Tuesday they would ask for another execution date, in the case of Michael Morales, even though the federal court order halting his execution remains in place.
Why would the Governor and AG seek execution dates and prepare for executions when there are court orders telling them they can't carry them out?
Their cavalier attitude toward the legal process doesn't serve anyone, least of all the families of homicide victims. Though Monday's news purported to promise an end to this 28-year-long ordeal, Tuesday's ruling only reconfirmed what the last three decades have already proven: the death penalty is as hollow a promise today as it was in 1982.
If Mr. Brown had been sentenced to permanent imprisonment, the legal ordeal would have ended in 1982. Instead, the empty promise of execution has lingered for over a quarter century.
The disregard for the legal process displayed this week by the Governor, Attorney General, and some county prosecutors is nothing new. In fact, it's just the latest in a string of attempts to jump-start the death penalty at the expense of the rule of law. After a federal judge ruled in 2006 that the execution procedures were unconstitutional, state officials drew up a new set. Those procedures were thrown out by the state court because they were created in secret. It would be two years before the state held an open, public process which generated over 20,000 comments from people around the state. Those comments were largely ignored, and a state agency rejected the procedures (again) in June of this year.
Then, in a shocking display of haphazard hastiness, the government had a new set of revisions within 48 hours. These procedures were approved by the state agency last month. The next step, legally speaking, is for a judge to review the procedures, to ensure that California's plan for carrying out executions conforms to state law and the Constitution.
That's the step prosecutors just tried to leapfrog over. A few county DAs, Attorney General Jerry Brown, and Governor Schwarzenegger are trying to bypass the critical stage of independent, judicial review of the execution process, and in so doing, they're bypassing the rule of law altogether. If they can't follow the law, they shouldn't put people to death in the name of law.
The rules are here for a reason. Without a thought-out and constitutional execution protocol, more mistakes will be made. But such a protocol will never be in place if state officials continue to skirt the law and dance around their responsibilities to the voters.
Californians need to stand up and demand that state officials stop ignoring the law. The legal process and the Constitution are not annoyances to be ignored or hurdles to be leapt over, they are essential safeguards that protect all Americans and ensure justice. They cannot be tossed aside when inconvenient and when the government tries to do so, it simply makes the whole process take longer.
Take action now: tell Governor Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Brown you can't leapfrog the law if you want to execute people in its name.

Jennie Pasquarella is a staff attorney with the ACLU of Southern California.

Terra Universal, Inc., is a multimillion dollar U.S. government contractor built on the backs of an immigrant workforce. It contracts with the U.S. Army, Navy and NASA, but for years, its owner, George Sadaghiani, has exploited and discriminated against its workers.

Terra Universal regularly makes employees at its plant in Fullerton, California, work as many as 14 hours a day, but refuses to pay overtime. The company pays workers whom its executives believe to be undocumented far less than everyone else, and denies them benefits. Mr. Sadaghiani verbally abuses workers and flaunts basic health and safety codes, all the while browbeating the employees into believing that if they don't have papers, they don't have basic workplace rights.

Today, the ACLU of Southern California and the law firm of Hadsell Stormer Keeny Richardson & Renick LLP filed suit against Terra Universal and Mr. Sadaghiani today, demanding repayment of all the wages and benefits he cheated from his workers - both citizens and noncitizens alike.

Mr. Sadaghiani is the kind of business owner the Obama Administration has said it would target for breaking the law to exploit its workforce. Yet, until now the most vulnerable workers, who are the victims of these unscrupulous practices, have paid the greatest price.

On June 29, 2010, immigration agents raided Terra Universal. Agents corralled the workers and handcuffed and arrested 43 of them. Although Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been investigating the company for some time and was aware of egregious labor violations, it only informed the Department of Labor of its plans for a raid immediately beforehand. Now, although the Labor Department is investigating wage and hour violations, the victims of those practices face deportation.

Upon learning of the raid, the ACLU of Southern California investigated. What we found was staggering. Terra Universal avoided overtime by creating fake time clocks that forced workers to punch in to make-believe second jobs. Employees injured on the job were sent home without pay, or their pay would be docked. And most troubling was an elaborate two-tier system of workplace rights: a system for workers believed to be undocumented, and another system for everyone else. A red dot on a worker's human resources file meant that he or she could be denied equal pay, overtime wages, vacation, holiday and sick days - and any opportunities for a raise.

Worker exploitation is nothing new - but its brutal reality often goes untold. Such practices are magnified when you have a vulnerable immigrant workforce, unaware of their rights, and employers eager to exploit that fact. U.S. employment laws do not allow for a two-tiered system; instead, they provide the same protections for everyone regardless of their immigration status.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt heralded passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the 1938 federal law guaranteeing that American workers must be paid a minimum wage, and overtime when more than 40 hours are worked in a week, with these words: 'A fair day's pay for a fair day's work."

This has become one of the nation's most revered and time-honored principles. Unfortunately, while there are unscrupulous employers bent on violating the law in order to gain a competitive advantage, the federal government provides little deterrent, devoting diminishing resources to enforcement. And, so long as the federal government fails to aggressively enforce the law against ruthlessly exploitative employers and instead places their very victims in deportation proceedings when it discovers such practices, workers will be reluctant to report abuses, and employers will continue to erode basic employment protections for everyone.

This case is against one company, but it's directed at the many businesses out there who believe they can exploit a vulnerable immigrant workforce without consequence. Every employer must afford all of their workers the dignity they deserve regardless of where they come from and how they got here.

LOS ANGELES — On the eve of Labor Day, the ACLU of Southern California and the law firm of Hadsell, Stormer, Keeny, Richardson & Renick, LLP today filed a class action lawsuit in federal district court against Terra Universal, Inc., charging the multi-million dollar federal government contractor with violations of federal wage and hour laws for requiring employees to work long hours without overtime pay and systematically discriminating against Latino workers based on their race and immigration status.

Terra Universal created a two-tier system, with one set of rules for noncitizens and another for citizens. For instance, it systematically deprived workers believed to be undocumented of equal pay — in some instances paying them half what they would pay a "documented" worker in the same job — and of holiday, vacation and sick days. Terra Universal demanded "undocumented" employees work overtime to make up for days it was closed.

Plaintiff Juan Miguel Real, a manager, was paid at most $17 per hour, while his predecessor, presumed to be a citizen, was paid $32. Terra Universal required Real to work as many as 14 hours a day and on weekends and holidays without overtime wages.

"Our employment laws provide everyone equal workplace rights regardless of what country you came from, how you got here and your immigration status," said Jennie Pasquarella, ACLU/SC staff attorney. "A fair day's pay for a fair day's work is a basic American rule, with no exceptions."

Terra Universal routinely required its largely immigrant workforce — documented and undocumented alike – to work overtime hours without overtime pay. To evade government scrutiny, it created a fraudulent time system, requiring workers to clock out at the end of an 8-hour workshift and clock back in as a “second job.” Workers who complained about workplace issues or who suffered injuries were fired, had their pay deducted or their hours reduced and were verbally abused.

"Terra Universal is just one example of the countless employers nationwide who prey on the vulnerabilities of immigrant workers, believing they will never get caught. Such unscrupulous exploitation hurts all American workers, said Randy Renick, partner at Hadsell, Stormer, Keeny, Richardson & Renick. "We caught Terra Universal red-handed, breaking nearly every wage and hour law in the book."

Terra Universal, based in Fullerton, California, produces "clean rooms" and other high tech laboratory equipment for NASA and the United States Navy, Army, and Air Force, as well as the private sector. Its annual sales range from $50-100M.

Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, said, “This lawsuit represents the many abuses and tribulations immigrant workers experience on a daily basis at the hands of unscrupulous employers. Workers who are perceived to be unauthorized immigrants face even more stark exploitation. We are essentially turning a blind eye to these workers’ plight when our elected officials refuse to enforce labor laws designed to protect all workers. Instead of punishing the real culprits of abuse, what we see is families who must face hunger and homelessness when they speak up about the trials they face in the work place. Something has got to give."

Workers named in the suit include Andres Morales, Juan Miguel Real, Hugo Alcantar Fernandez, and Osfel Andrade.

Mr. Fernandez, who at one point earned the minimum wage of $7.50 per hour compared to $14 earned by U.S. citizens for doing substantially the same work and regularly worked 12 hour days without overtime pay, said: "It is cruel to take advantage of hard-working people, exploiting their need for your profit. Immigrants are people too that deserve equal rights and respect."

Top image: Hugo Alcantar, who has worked as a plastic welder at Terra Universal, Inc. for six years.

Bottom image: ACLU/SC Executive Director Ramona Ripston with (l-r) Carlos Barragan, a three-year employee and supervisor at Terra Universal; Marco Antonio Fraire, a representative from the Consulate of Mexico; Osfel Andrade, former Terra Universal employee; and ACLU/SC Legal Director Hector Villagra.