COSTA MESA - Orange County Superior Court Judge Kelly MacEachern dismissed criminal charges against Coyotl Tezcatlipoca, an Orange Coast College student at the center of a much-publicized free-speech case in Costa Mesa. The judge questioned prosecutor Danny Peelman's credentials and found that the local private attorney had not been appointed or sworn in as a public prosecutor as required by the California Constitution. Judge MacEachern stated that Mr. Peelman's failure to follow the law amounted to 'a denial of due process' for Tezcatlipoca.

The ACLU of Southern California, which is representing Tezcatlipoca along with private attorney B. Kwaku Duren, raised doubts about Peelman's impartiality during the trial, which began last week and ended abruptly Monday afternoon with the dismissal.

'Prosecutors must be held to the highest standard, but from start to finish this prosecution failed to meet even the most basic tests,' said ACLU/SC staff attorney Belinda Escobosa Helzer. 'These criminal charges were part of a politically motivated campaign against our client for exercising his free-speech rights to criticize the city council.'

Tezcatlipoca, who is also known as Benito Acosta, was testifying at a Costa Mesa city council meeting in January 2006 when he was cut off by Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor, then surrounded by police officers, dragged out of the meeting room, and arrested. The ACLU/SC and Duren filed a civil lawsuit in March 2006 against the city of Costa Mesa for violating Tezcatlipoca's free-speech rights. Disqualified prosecutor Peelman works for the same law firm that represents the city in the civil lawsuit.

'I'm relieved that I can resume my life and studies, and I'm glad that the court has sent a message to Costa Mesa public officials that they are not above the law and they must be held accountable,' said Tezcatlipoca.

Tezcatlipoca was picked to speak at the January 2006 meeting by a group of more than 100 people opposed to Costa Mesa's proposal to deputize city police to enforce civil immigration laws. Tezcatlipoca asked members of the audience to stand if they too opposed the City's proposal, a custom that was accepted in Costa Mesa as a way for the audience to express its opinions about City policies. The group stood up to demonstrate their solidarity.

A representative of the Orange-County-based Minutemen group spoke first in support of the plan. Mansoor, who had accepted honorary membership in the group, allowed the group to stand up in council chambers, as Tezcatlipoca's group planned.

Yet when Tezcatlipoca's turn came, Mansoor first cut him off then attempted to shout him down before he could ask his supporters to stand. Tezcatlipoca was tackled by police officers and later taken by the police to the hospital for treatment.

LOS ANGELES - In a breakthrough ruling that affects more than 25,000 California children suffering from serious mental illness, U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz has ordered an expert to oversee the expansion of home- and community-based mental health services for children who would otherwise end up in costly group homes and institutions.

The order was handed down this week in the case of Emily Q., a young Latino woman whose problems escalated rather than improved as she was shuttled from placement to placement.

When disability rights advocates met Emily in 1997 at Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk, she was 18 and had spent more than half her life in mental institutions, in isolation and restraints or heavily sedated because of her violent behavior. Emily said her outbursts came out of her desperation. 'I am terrified that I might end up here forever," she said.

In 1998, advocates filed a lawsuit, Emily Q. v. Bont', against state officials, arguing that children in mental institutions and group homes could be better served by offering one-to-one behavior aides or 'coaches' in their homes and communities. In 2001, the federal court granted a judgment in favor of the plaintiff children, ordering the state and counties to offer a new Medi-Cal mental health service known as Therapeutic Behavioral Services.

This week Judge Matz found the state program still did not comply with his judgment. The court-ordered reforms seek to shift children from expensive group homes to cheaper and more effective home-based services. Currently more than 9,000 children are in group homes, at a cost to taxpayers of $500 million a year. In contrast, behavior coaches cost less than $15,000 per year and enable children to remain safely at home with their families.

'Emily's case opened the state's eyes to the tragedy of abandoning children in institutions where their mental illness often worsens,' said ACLU/SC senior counsel Melinda Bird, lead attorney in the case. 'The court's decision this week means California must increase its efforts to keep children in home-like settings, where research shows they are more likely to improve.'

Emily was finally released from state hospital into outpatient care in October 2003. Today she is living in a small house outside Los Angeles, where she volunteers in the community and has joined a church group. In nearly four years she has not had a single hospitalization, nor has she injured herself or anyone else.

'Emily's success story shows both the desperate need for reform, and the wonderful possibilities that emerge when it occurs,' said Bird.

Judge Matz has ordered the parties to report back to him by October 15, 2007 with names of the proposed special master to oversee future compliance. Other counsel in the case are Robert Newman of the Western Center on Law and Poverty, Michael Kluk and Maggie Roberts of Protection and Advocacy, Inc., Jim Preis of Mental Health Advocacy Services of Los Angeles and Ira Burnim of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.

LOS ANGELES - More than a year ago leading Muslim Americans requested basic information about FBI surveillance in Southern California, seeking to calm community fears of spying at mosques and surveillance of community groups and community leaders. To date, the government has turned over only four pages of documents.

Today, the ACLU of Southern California filed a federal lawsuit claiming the government's incomplete and long-delayed response violated the Freedom of Information Act.

'The government has squandered an opportunity to build trust with Muslim Americans and broken the law by failing to release information in a timely and complete way,' said ACLU/SC staff attorney Ranjana Natarajan. 'If the FBI is serious about addressing the concerns of Muslim Americans in Southern California that their religious rights are protected, they should release the records this lawsuit seeks.'

In May 2006, 11 Muslim American leaders and community groups filed a joint FOIA request to the FBI for all records concerning the agency's surveillance and investigations of themselves or their groups since January 2001. They hoped to shed light on practices that have been reported in the press, such as nuclear radiation monitoring at mosques and alleged spying on mosques by federal agents.

'We are disappointed in the government's response, particularly because community understanding is crucial to the goals we share,' said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations of the Greater Los Angeles Area. 'National security is a great concern for American Muslims, and we take it seriously. In the same way, we take our religious freedom seriously.'

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the FBI has stepped up its counter-terrorism investigations, particularly of Muslim Americans. After the attacks, the FBI interviewed thousands of Muslim men and detained many who had not been accused of a crime. Several of the plaintiffs in the ACLU/SC's lawsuit have been personally questioned by federal agents.

'We are only exercising our Constitutional right and fulfilling our civic duty in demanding transparency and accountability by filing this lawsuit as a last resort," said Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California.