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Law and Disorder is a weekly independent civil liberties radio program airing on more than 150 stations and on Apple podcast. Law and Disorder provides timely legal perspectives on issues concerning civil liberties, privacy, right to dissent and practices of torture exercised by the US government and private corporations.
Law and Disorder February 6, 2023
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The Movement To Stop “Cop City”
Less than two weeks after Atlanta police fatally shot an environmental activist, officials held a news conference to announce they are moving forward with plans to build a massive police and firefighter training center. Protesters have dubbed the $90 million Atlanta Public Safety Training Center “Cop City.”
Plans to build the training center have met with opposition from the local community and out-of-staters. Trees would be felled, undermining the city’s efforts to save its tree canopy and increasing the risk of flooding. Others oppose the center for its practice of “urban warfare” and its proximity to poor and majority-Black neighborhoods. The Atlanta Police and Fire Chiefs claim the center will replace substandard trainings and boost morale. The police department especially has had difficulty hiring and retaining officers.
The January 31 news conference came nearly two weeks after the January 18 police killing of an activist known as Tortuguita, after officials claimed that the 26-year-old shot a state trooper. Officers said they fired in self-defense, but protesters question the police narrative, noting the lack of body camera footage of the shooting. Joining us to talk about Stop Cop City and the national epidemic of police violence is Kamau Franklin.
Guest – Kamau Franklin is a former practicing attorney from New York, the founder of the national grassroots organization Community Movement Builders, and co-host of the podcast “Renegade Culture.”
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No Equal Justice: The Legacy of Civil Rights
Professor Peter Hammer is the Director of the Damon J Keith Center for Civil Rights at Wayne State Law School, and has long been a strong advocate for shining light on the intersection of race, class, power and the law. He has published scores of articles and books covering such critical issues as the Flint Water Crisis, the Detroit Future Cities, healthcare, education, racism and capitalism, among others.
What brings us here today is that he and his colleague, Professor Emeritus Edward Littlejohn, recently wrote a critically acclaimed book No Equal Justice: The Legacy of Civil Rights Icon George W. Crockett Jr, just released in 2022. This book tells the amazing story of George W. Crockett and his trailblazing life. He was the grandson of a slave and son of a carpenter. Crockett became the only Black graduate of University of Michigan Law School in 1934, the first Black man to work as a staff attorney for the United Auto Workers in the 1940’s, the first Black law partner in the first integrated law firm in the country in the 1950’s, one of the first Black men to be elected as a judge on Detroit’s criminal court in the 1960’s, and the oldest African American ever elected to the U.S. Congress.
He was also, along with Ernie Goodman and Maurice Sugar, one of the founders of the National Lawyers Guild, the first integrated bar association in the country, in which he played a critical role during the civil rights movement of the 1960’s, including the creation of the NLG Committee to Assist Southern Lawyers.
Hosted by Attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Marjorie Cohn and Julie Hurwitz
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Law and Disorder January 30, 2023
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The January 6 Report
The January 6 Report” by the House January 6 Committee has just been published by Harpercollins. It is a page turner. Most strikingly, the report documents the multi-pronged attack that Trump plotted. The crucial point made by the January 6 Committee report is demonstrating the profound misconception to view the January 6 invasion of the Capitol as merely a group of Trump supporters gone wild. The plot was not limited to the January 6 violence at the Capitol.
Rather, as the report documents, January 6 was a culmination of months of plotting by Trump to overthrow a lawful election and stay in power. He came very close to accomplishing a coup d’état, a blow against the state. Democracy in the United States, however limited, would’ve ended.
The American constitution was written in Philadelphia in 1787. Benjamin Franklin was there. When they concluded Franklin famously said “we have a republic, if we can keep it.“ Can we keep it? Will Trump be indicted by the Department of Justice and convicted for the criminal activity he orchestrated in order to keep himself in power, after losing the election two years ago by seven million votes? If he is not indicted, what will be the impact on the future of democracy in the United States?
Guest – attorney Stephen Rohde who recently reviewed The January 6 Report with a forward by the author Ari Melber. Rohde’s review appeared in “ Truthdig” and in the LA Progressive“. Attorney Stephen Rohde is a constitutional scholar, past Chair of the ACLU Foundation of California, an author of books on the Constitution, who frequently reviews books for the Los Angeles Review of Books. And Mr. Rohde is a leader in the national campaign to free the imprisoned investigative journalist Julian Assange.
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Martin Luther King Jr. : A Dream Realized
We take a look at where the long struggle to end racial injustice stands in the United States today. Oh, some progress has surely been made, but to say we’ve a very long way to go before Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream can be considered “realized” is both true and also a sad and gross understatement; a sad commentary on the role that white privilege and racial hatred continue to play in the United States, hundreds of years since our founding.
Guest – Attorney Sharon Kyle is the publisher and co-founder of the LA Progressive on-line newsletter and a former president of the Peoples College of Law, a law school in Los Angeles established by the National Lawyers Guild and other minority bar associations. Sharon Kyle is a member of the board of the ACLU Affiliate of Southern California and is its representative to the national board of the ACLU. Sharon Kyle is also an active member of the Los Angeles area Julian Assange Defense Committee; a member of the editorial board of the Black Commentator.com. Years before immersing herself in the law and social justice, Sharon Kyle was a member of several space flight teams at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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Law and Disorder January 23, 2023
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The Supreme Court Is About To Eviscerate The Right To Strike
Sixty-four years ago, workers and unions gained protection from state lawsuits while pursuing unfair labor practice claims with the federal National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). On January 10, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that threatens to unravel those protections. A company called Glacier Northwest is suing the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local Union No. 174, after 85 truck drivers walked off the job. If the high Court rules in favor of Glacier, unions will have to defend against costly lawsuits. And that will likely discourage them from going on strike. A Court decision is expected by the end of June.
Seventy-one percent of the U.S. public supports labor unions. That’s the highest number since 1965. And with an increase in economic inequality, union strikes are on the uptick.
Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.2 million workers in the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico. Teamsters President Sean O’Brien remarked that: “Workers in America have the fundamental right to strike, and American workers have died on picket lines to protect it.” In recent years, however, the ultra-right-wing Supreme Court majority has issued decisions systematically eroding these rights.
Guest – Attorney Marjorie Cohn is a legal and political analyst who provides commentary on local, national and international media. She is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, a member of the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and the board of Veterans for Peace. Her most recent book is “Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues.” Marjorie Cohn at Truthout
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You may have heard about the shaming of parents who let their son or daughter walk to school by themselves, or ride public transportation alone. They’re often ridiculed on social media and cast as neglectful. But in some instances, the consequences have gone beyond public shaming.
In 2015 parents in Silver Spring, Maryland made national headlines they were investigated for child neglect for letting their children, ages 6 and 10, walk home from a park by themselves.
In another case Lenore Skenazy, a former New York Daily News columnist was called America’s worst mom after writing a column in 2008 about why she let her 9-year-old son ride the subway by himself.
Last year, Utah passed a law making it not a crime for parents to let their children play in a park without supervision or walk home alone from school. This is hopeful news for our guest Lenore Skenazy who has been advocating for so-called free range parenting laws for many years.
Under the law, neglect does not include allowing a child, whose basic needs are met and who is of sufficient age and maturity to avoid harm or unreasonable risk of harm, to engage in independent activities such as going to and from school by walking, running or bicycling, going to nearby stores or recreational facilities and playing outside.
A recent U.S. Census showed that 7 million of the nation’s 38 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are left home alone on a regular basis, while the average time spent alone is six hours per week. Only a few states legislate an age under which kids may not be home alone.
Guest – Lenore Skenazy – New York City columnist-turned-reality TV show host got that title after letting her 9-year-old son take the subway, alone. In response to the enormous media blowback, she founded the book and blog, “Free-Range Kids,” which launched the anti-helicopter parenting movement. She has lectured internationally, including talks at Microsoft Headquarters and the Sydney Opera House, and has written for everyone from The Wall Street Journal to Mad Magazine. Yep. The Mad Magazine. And she’s a graduate of Yale.
Hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian and Marjorie Cohn
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