Narrative and Non-Legal Intervention for Lawyers [In-Person]

DESCRIPTION

Sponsored by Palestine Legal.

As our legal remedies are limited, it's important to understand the ways in which narrative interventions can be made. Here, panelists plan to discuss strategies and experiences of how narrative and the media is utilized to bring about change that the law cannot. Panelists will also discuss what to look out for when defending and framing a communication strategy when taking on Palestine-related cases.

SPEAKERS

Radhika Sainath (senior staff attorney at PL)
Danya Zituni (comms director at Pal Legal)
Rifqa Falaneh (legal fellow at Pal Legal)

DETAILS

DATE/TIME:
Friday November 1, 2024 9:00am - 10:00am CDT

LOCATION:
Skipworth Ballroom

How NLG Can Support in the Unhoused Crisis [In-Person]

DESCRIPTION

This workshop will highlight the many ways that NLG can be involved in supporting our unhoused community members and countering the effects of discriminatory and traumatizing policies that continue to place folks in harm's way. Expanding on organizing efforts happening in the Far West at the local and state levels, participants will learn how individuals from different areas of intersect can engage, from direct outreach and services to ticket defense clinics, legal observation, and the development of impact litigation.

SPEAKERS

Legal Worker Vice President Khanstoshea Zingapan (They/She)
Far West Regional Representative Dee Mouton (She/Her)
Far West Regional Representative Carie Martin (They/Them)

DETAILS

DATE/TIME:
Friday November 1, 2024 9:00am - 10:00am CDT

LOCATION:
Hamilton Ballroom

Wrongful Conviction and Community Activism: How Non-Litigation Advocacy in Individual Cases Can Spotlight Egregious Systemic Injustice [In-Person]

DESCRIPTION

Sponsored by Greater Birmingham Ministries.

Toforest Johnson is a Black man who has spent more than 25 years on death row in Alabama and is at risk of being executed for the 1995 murder of Jefferson County Deputy Sheriff William G. Hardy despite the fact that even the prosecutor who put him on death row believes he should have a new trial. The Birmingham community has rallied in support of Mr. Johnson, whose case illustrates the tragically daunting challenge of undoing a “settled” murder case – even when almost everyone involved has serious doubts about the integrity of the conviction.

We intend the workshop to focus on two related topics: (1) the failure of the legal system to provide remedies in the postconviction context, even when the jurisdiction’s own law enforcement leaders no longer stand by a conviction; and (2) the role that community organizing efforts can play in complementing litigation efforts to raise awareness about injustice in the criminal legal system and capital cases in particular.

The current Jefferson County District Attorney recently publicly called for a new trial, based in part on the fact that prosecutors presented five different and mutually exclusive theories at various proceedings for the murder of Deputy Hardy. His most recent filing (from May 20 of this year) also identified his interviews with the lead trial prosecutor, interviews with alibi witnesses, and recently discovered information that the state’s primary witness received payment for her testimony (which was not known at trial and was withheld from Mr. Johnson’s attorneys for over 17 years) as reasons for his decision to request a new trial. Mr. Johnson has always maintained his innocence. (https://www.toforestjohnson.com/).

SPEAKERS

Akeriya Terry (“Muffin”), Toforest Johnson’s daughter [she/her/hers]
Scott Douglas, Executive Director at Greater Birmingham Ministries [he/him/his]
Beth Shelburne, Investigative Reporter [she/her/hers]

DETAILS

DATE/TIME:
Thursday October 31, 2024 3:30pm - 4:30pm CDT

LOCATION:
Skipworth 2

Canary in the Coal Mine: Exploring the Intersection of Environmental Justice and the Labor Movement through Alabama’s Black Warrior River [In-Person]

DESCRIPTION

Sponsored by the NLG Environmental Justice Committee.

This panel will bring together Alabamians with different relationships to the environmental justice movement in order to explore the aftermath of the strike at Warrior Met Coal, the longest strike in Alabama history. During the strike, Warrior Met’s Mine 7 discharged large amounts of pollutants into Black Warrior River, a major source of drinking water for the area. We will discuss the lawsuit brought by Black Warrior Riverkeeper against Warrior Met as well as the strike, and will explore the intersections of workers’ rights and environmental justice.

SPEAKERS

Eva Dillard, Black Warrior Riverkeeper
Nelson Brooke, Black Warrior Riverkeeper
Ryan Anderson, Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC)

DETAILS

DATE/TIME:
Thursday October 31, 2024 3:30pm - 4:30pm CDT

LOCATION:
Hamilton Ballroom

[CLE] Fighting Confederate Monuments [In-Person]

DESCRIPTION

Approved for 1 General CLE credit through the Alabama State Bar.

Sponsored by the Alabama NLG Chapter.

There has been a growing movement across the South to remove or remove monuments to the Confederacy or to place them in historic context. Many have been removed, many more remain and many defend them. Alabama has passed a "Monument Preservation Act," making it unlawful to remove or alter monuments, schools, streets, etc. This panel will discuss both political advocacy and potential litigation around Confederate monuments and how the two can augment each other.

CLE Materials Attached: 
1) Amicus Project Say Something and NLG
2) Monument Preservation Act research
3) Pleasant Grove City v. Summum
4) Progressive Magazine Article
5) State v. City of Birmingham

SPEAKERS

David Gespass (past NLG president)
Haley Czarnek (NLG member who, as student researched possible constitutional challenge to Monument Preservation Act)

DETAILS

DATE/TIME:
Thursday October 31, 2024 9:00am - 10:00am CDT

LOCATION:
Skipworth 2

[CLE] Challenging Court Secrecy in Prison Litigation [In-Person]

DESCRIPTION

Approved for 1 General CLE credit through the Alabama State Bar.

Prison and detention litigation often involves matters of life and death, public policy, and major local, state, and federal expenditures. It is far too common that critical evidence and rulings about such matters are kept from public disclosure via protective orders and orders to seal. In this workshop, facilitators will discuss the scope and predominance of non-public filings in prison litigation; explore the reasons why practitioners often acquiesce to secrecy; offer insight into how such information, if made public, can be useful to movements and the media; and share practical guidance to litigators seeking to maximize transparency. The workshop will highlight recent efforts to unseal court records in a prison conditions case against the federal Bureau of Prisons as a case study (California Coalition for Women Prisoners v. BOP). Written materials will include sample briefs and a model protective order. Finally, workshop participants will practice crafting sample protective order provisions aimed at maximizing access to matters of public interest while fervently protecting litigants' sensitive personal information.

CLE Materials Attached:

  1. Motion to Intervene in a case California Coalition for Women Prisoners, et al v. Bureau of Prisons, et al (Doc. 316)
  2. Motion to Unseal court records in the same case (Doc. 317)
  3. Declaration of correctional expert ISO motion to unseal in same case (Doc. 328)
  4. Hernandez v. Cnty. of Monterey, No. 13-CV-02354-BLF, 2023 WL 4688522 (N.D. Cal. July 21, 2023) (denying request to seal in their entirety neutral monitor reports in jail conditions case)
  5. Hernandez v. Cnty. of Monterey, No. 13-CV-02354-BLF, 2023 WL 5418753  (N.D. Cal. Aug. 21, 2023) (granting a motion to intervene by community newspaper, a nonprofit, and family of people who died at the jail for the limited purpose of moving to unseal court records)
  6. Braggs v. Dunn, No. 14-cv-601, 382 F.Supp.3d 1267 (M.D. Ala. Jan. 2, 2019) (holding those reports showing correctional understaffing in Alabama prisons should be publicly accessible following a five-month period under seal)
  7. Privacy Act Order and Protective Order in Ortiz, et al v. Orange County, New York, et al
  8. A model protective order – not specific to prison conditions

SPEAKERS

Jackie Aranda Osorno (she/her) is the Zitrin Anti-Court Secrecy Senior Attorney at Public Justice, where she focuses on increasing public access to court records and proceedings. Jackie has represented advocacy organizations, reporters, and community members in efforts to intervene in litigation to unseal court records or lift confidentiality restrictions. Before joining Public Justice, Jackie litigated class actions challenging unconstitutional conditions in Alabama's prisons and various county jails in California, including Braggs et al. v. Dunn et al., and Murray v. County of Santa Barbara.

CJ Sandley (they/them) is based in Birmingham, Alabama. As a Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, and previously at the Southern Poverty Law Center, CJ focuses primarily on prison and detention litigation, including Braggs et al. v. Dunn et al. (mental health care and disability accommodations in Alabama prisons); Ashker v. Governor of California (indefinite solitary confinement in California prisons); Barrientos v. CoreCivic (forced labor at Stewart Detention Center); and Stanley v. Ivey (slavery and involuntary servitude in Alabama prisons). CJ has also litigated dozens of habeas corpus petitions on behalf of detained immigrants.

Beth Shelburne (she/her) is journalist and writer with more than 25 years of experience. She’s done extensive reporting on Alabama’s prison system with work appearing in The Daily Beast, The Los Angeles Times, The Bitter Southerner and The Appeal. She publishes a newsletter on Substack called Moth to Flame that includes my reporting and essays written at the intersection of justice, injustice and life in Alabama.

DETAILS

DATE/TIME:
Thursday October 31, 2024 9:00am - 10:00am CDT

LOCATION:
Skipworth 1

Solidarity with Uhuru 3: Rising Political Repression in the US [In-Person]

DESCRIPTION

Sponsored by the NLG Mass Incarceration Committee.

The Uhuru 3 are Omali Yeshitela, Chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP); Penny Hess, Chair of the African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC); and Jesse Nevel, Chair of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM). In April 2023, the Uhuru 3 were indicted by the U.S. government on bogus charges of being “agents of a foreign government”. The charges came nine months after the FBI and local police violently raided seven homes and properties of the APSP and Uhuru Movement in St. Louis, MO and St. Petersburg, FL on July 29, 2022.These charges carry prison sentences of up to 15 years each. The case came to trial on September 3rd in a federal courthouse in Tampa, Florida and the jury repudiated the foreign agent charges. However, according to one of the defendants… “the prosecutors unleashed a barrage of lies and distortions of the law, along with deliberately confusing jury instructions, to mislead the jury into returning an inconsistent verdict, convicting us on the lesser charge of “conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States,” ‘

This workshop will feature a small panel of defendants and one lawyer to present on the details of the prosecution of the UHURU 3 and the abuse of FARA and Conspiracy laws. Panelists will talk about this in the context of growing political repression and rising number of civil and criminal charges targeting several movements in the United States with a focus on how to fight back.

SPEAKERS

Audrey Bomse, NLG Mass Incarceration Committee Chair
Dr. Aisha Fields, All African People’s Development & Empowerment Project
Jesse Nevel, Uhuru Solidarity Movement
Penny Hess, African People’s Solidarity Committee
Leonard Goodman, Uhuru 3 Attorney

DETAILS

DATE/TIME:
Thursday October 31, 2024 9:00am - 10:00am CDT

LOCATION:
Hamilton Ballroom