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- Commentary from Attorney Jim Lafferty, Host of the Lawyers Guild Show
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The Aftermath And Momentous Turning Points
The year 2020 will be seen as historically momentous, as a turning point in American history. The summer saw mobilizations of tens of millions of people, white and Black, mostly young, from small towns and large cities,under Black leadership and under the banner of Black Lives Matter. This tremendous mobilization was a reaction to the systemic racism and gross inequality that exists in the United States.
The manifestations were followed by the defeat of the cruel racist billionaire demagogue Donald Trump by 6 million votes in the fall election. All the institutions of the ruling elite collaborated to bring about Trump’s defeat. The main stream media, the CIA, the FBI, renegade Republicans, and 131 billionaires all supported Joseph Biden.
Only a tiny number of people refused to support either party candidate. Most of the progressive movement was swept back into the Democratic party seeing it is the lesser of two evils and hoping that change could be wrought from the inside. Will it? Where does social change come from? Historically the Democratic Party has been the graveyard of social movements. Will this continue to be the case?
After he won, Biden posted that “I am the guy that ran against the socialist, OK. I’m the guy that’s the moderate.“
Guest – Jeff Mackler. Jeff is a longtime California bay area socialist activist, he recently authorized “A Manifesto for Our Times: The Challenge to Abolish Systematic Racism“. He is the chair of the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu Jamal and active in the defense of Julian Assange.
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Complaint Filed Against Judge Demanding Release of Attorney In Chevron Case
Dozens of legal organizations representing more than 500,000 lawyers along with more than 200 individual lawyers submitted a judicial complaint against Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in New York. The violations were directed at human rights lawyer Steven Donziger whose case we’ve been following on Law and Disorder. Donziger, listeners will recall, won a historic judgment against Chevron in Ecuador to clean up the pollution caused by decades of oil drilling with no environmental controls.
The complaint was filed by the National Lawyers Guild and the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL). The Chief Judge of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Robert Katzmann, has a duty to read the complaint and determine if he will appoint a committee to investigate and issue findings.
The complaint documents is a pattern of ethics violations committed by Judge Kaplan, a former tobacco industry lawyer.
Kaplan denied Donziger a jury trial, put in place a series of unusual courtroom tactics, severely restricted Donziger’s ability to mount a defense, and detained him at home for more than one year on contempt charges that were rejected by the U.S. Attorney. Kaplan allowed Donziger to be prosecuted by a private law firm that has Chevron as a client. He imposed enormous fines on Donziger that have all but bankrupted him.
The complaint alleges that the “statements and actions of Judge Kaplan over the last ten years show him to have taken on the role of counsel for Chevron … rather than that of a judge adjudicating a live controversy before him.”
Despite accepting jurisdiction in Ecuador, Chevron came back to the US and filed a civil “racketeering” case against the Donziger and all 47 named plaintiffs. They potentially sought $60 billion in damages — the highest personal liability in US history. Judge Kaplan denied Donziger a jury and let Chevron pay a witness at least $2 million while moving him and his entire family from Ecuador to the US. Chevron lawyers coached the witness, Alberto Guerra, for 53 days before Kaplan let him testify against Donziger; Guerra later admitted under oath that he had lied on the stand. Kaplan also refused to let Donziger testify on direct examination.
Twenty-nine Nobel laureates and several human rights organizations have criticized the harassment of Donziger by judicial authorities and have demanded his immediate release.
Guest – Lauren Regan, a member of Steven Donziger’s defense team. She is also executive director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center and a member of the National Lawyers Guild.