News & Commentary

Assembly Speaker Antonio R. Villaraigosa has appointed Ramona Ripston, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, to the state Commission on Judicial Performance. The eleven-member commission is an independent state agency that handles complaints about California judges involving judicial misconduct or wrongdoing. The commission has authority over active judges and also over former judges for their conduct before retirement from the bench. Commissioners receive no salary but are reimbursed for the expense of serving on the commission.

The ACLU of Southern California has sent letters to the Presiding Judges of both the Municipal and Superior Courts of Los Angeles County calling on the courts to ensure that judges or other court personnel will terminate use of stun belts to punish or subdue non-threatening defendants.

On June 30 Long Beach Municipal Court Judge Joan Comparet-Cassini ordered a bailiff to send 50,000 volts of electricity through a bound defendant because he was talking too much.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, in cooperation with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, is filing an amicus brief on behalf of a 17-year-old gay man who fled to the United States from Mexico after being subjected to repeated beatings and harassment by Mexican police and others.

The ACLU of Southern California sent a letter to the Kern County Board of Supervisors on June 25 urging that body to terminate County Human Relations Commissioner Douglas Hearn for making anti-gay remarks at commission meetings that the ACLU says make it impossible for the Human Relations Commission to fulfill its stated purpose to, "promote and safeguard the equal rights of and respect for all people within Kern County."

The ACLU of Southern California today filed for a preliminary injunction in federal court to force the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) to meet the basic transportation needs of mobility-impaired bus riders. The order sought would require the MTA to keep its wheelchair lifts and safety equipment in proper working order, promptly repair broken equipment, and provide alternative transportation for mobility-impaired passengers who are not able to board. The ACLU is also calling on the MTA to voluntarily make improvements in its service for disabled riders so that a court order will not be necessary.

This morning plaintiffs in Mochizuki vs United States announced settlement of the federal class action lawsuit filed in August 1996 seeking reparations and a formal apology from the United States government for the forcible kidnaping and imprisonment of Japanese Latin Americans during World War II.

Public interest advocacy groups including Multicultural Education, Training and Advocacy (META), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, the Asian Law Caucus, the Employment Law Center, and Public Advocates, announced today that they are filing a class action lawsuit in federal court to block implementation of Proposition 227.

Today's decision by the United States Supreme Court absolving police officers from any liability in the deaths of innocent people who are killed or severely injured as the result of a reckless police chase is extremely unfortunate.