The Pittsburgh chapter of the National Lawyers Guild is pleased to announce the release of our new publication, Know Your Rights in Allegheny County. In addition to the web version displayed here, we have a printable PDF. For bulk orders of hard copies, please email us at pittsburgh AT nlg DOT org.

Know Your Rights in Allegheny County

The United States is known for imprisoning more of its citizens than any other country in the world, surpassing even authoritarian regimes like Russia or China. There are currently about 1.7 million prisoners in the US, with another 3.9 million on probation or parole, for a total of 5.6 million under some form of correctional supervision. These numbers are actually down from the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, meaning things used to be even worse. Many observers attribute this dire situation to an epidemic of racist policing that disproportionately targets poor people of color, but there is another way to look at it – as an epidemic of ignorance about basic constitutional rights. Most of those 5.6 million owe their predicament, not to being informed on by someone else, but to informing on themselves, either by confessing to crimes or at least voluntarily giving police enough information to build a case. If everyone knew and exercised their civil rights under the Constitution, arrest, conviction, and imprisonment rates would plummet, and communities would be freed of an enormous financial and emotional burden. This pamphlet is an attempt to alleviate this problem by presenting civil rights information in an easily readable and distributable format.

The reader should be aware of a few things to begin with.

First, nothing in this pamphlet is legal advice. We aren’t just saying that to avoid being sued – it’s the literal truth. Legal advice is advice you get from your lawyer about your particular legal situation. This is not that.

Second, be aware that just because you know your rights does not mean the police will respect them in any given confrontation. Nonetheless, if you know what your rights are you will be more able to recognize when they’re being violated and make better-informed decisions concerning what to do about it.

Third, it’s important to remember that everyone’s rights are different. This might seem like a strange assertion, considering that everyone in the country is supposedly governed by the same laws and the same constitution. However, enormous swathes of the population have had various rights stripped from them under different pretexts. Parolees, for example, are often required to allow warrantless searches of their homes. Members of the military give up much of their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and First Amendment right to free speech, among others. Minors have no right to refuse searches of their bedrooms unless it is asserted by their parents. Even medical professionals can have their licenses to practice suspended by the government for merely getting arrested, in violation of their right to due process under law. Such exceptions to the Bill of Rights are so numerous that books could be written about them, but for now just note that the contents of this pamphlet in many ways represent a best case scenario. Your mileage may vary.

Continued…

Version 5 of our manual for legal support hotline operators is available for download! Revisions include post-pandemic updates, changes to court contact information, new docket search tricks, and more.

PDF for reading

The late Supreme Court justice Robert H. Jackson (1892 – 1954) was known for his commitment to due process under the law. A famous speech of his to rookie federal prosecutors in 1940 contained this classic passage:

“Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted. With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone.

In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him. It is in this realm — in which the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass, or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense, that the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies.”

Jackson’s “great assortment of crimes” has ballooned to ever more enormous proportions since 1940. Congress and state legislatures have spent the last 82 years busily creating new felonies, but almost never repealing existing laws, making “a technical violation of some act” virtually impossible for anyone to avoid. Picking the man and pinning offenses on him has become standard practice at all levels of law enforcement – if indeed it was ever otherwise, Jackson’s plea not withstanding. Nowhere more so than in Pittsburgh. Our city has been proven to yield the most unequal outcomes for Black residents, particularly women, of any major US metropolis, in large part due to racist policing and prosecution (1, 2). Pittsburgh law enforcement is based, not on a Jacksonian commitment to prioritizing the most serious offenses without fear or favor, but on wholesale railroading of poor and Black residents for whatever crimes can be hung on them. The 2020 protests against the murder of George Floyd provide an instructive case study.

Continued…

The National Lawyers Guild of Pittsburgh is hosting this fundraiser to provide badly needed financial support to protesters in our city who are being charged and in some cases held in the Allegheny County Jail on unsubstantiated felony charges. In some cases, protestors are being held with exorbitant bail demands designed to keep them in holding, and at times, denied bail all together. We believe that these severe and unprovoked charges are being used to intimidate with the intention of repressing protests against police brutality in our city. 100% of funds raised will be used directly for the legal defense and expenses of these individuals. It will also provide much needed commissary funds while they are in jail.

While there is some legal support being provided to protestors in Pittsburgh, those facing the most serious charges and have the greatest needs are unfortunately the least likely to receive pro-bono legal defense. There are upwards of 30 (and counting) protestors and organizers who have been targeted, sought out, and charged by local and in some cases federal authorities — sometimes days or weeks after the protest in question has occurred, and usually without any tangible evidence. We hope to raise as much as we possibly can to offset the insurmountable financial burden they are facing, and appreciate your support through donating and/or sharing this link far and wide. Unfortunately, it will require a great deal of money to ensure the protestors being charged with felonies receive the legal defense they truly need to fight back.

The NLG is dedicated to the need for basic change in the structure of our political and economic system. The NLG anti-imperialist and anti-racist and we strive to bring in anti-oppressive practices to all aspects of our organization. The Guild is best known for our work defending the rights of protesters through our Mass Defense and Legal Observer Programs , which have been providing legal support for movements for social justice for 50 years. Guild lawyers, law students, and legal workers observe police actions during protests, provide Know Your Rights training, track arrestees through the legal system, and provide free attorneys for protest-related cases.

Please donate to our GoFundMe!

Edition 4 of our manual for legal support hotline operators is now available! Changes include updates to docket search instructions to reflect changes in the PA court’s web site, slightly more detailed court watching instructions, and changes to county court procedures post-Covid (according to them anyway…).

Screen version

Print version (double sided, short edge)

We are happy to announce that the third edition of the hotline operators manual is now available. This edition reflects procedural changes at Allegheny County Jail and Pittsburgh Municipal Court in response to Covid-19, as well as lessons learned during the mass protests last spring against the police murder of George Floyd. The web version of the new edition is after the jump. A printable PDF in zine format is coming soon.

Continued…

In the weeks since the George Floyd uprising erupted, multiple individuals have been charged with felonies in Pittsburgh for protesting against police brutality. Most of these charges have received little coverage in the media, who preferred instead to focus on DA Stephen Zappala’s decision to drop misdemeanor charges against those arrested on May 30th and June 1st. More recently the police have expanded their focus to include various protest organizers and support people.

Most of these charges have little evidence behind them, but we should not draw too much comfort from this fact. The purpose is as much to intimidate protesters and drain their resources as to obtain convictions. Solidarity is paramount in the face of state repression. Accordingly the Pittsburgh NLG has established a felony support group to assist those facing felonies for protesting. The felony group has issued the following statement.

The Pittsburgh NLG felony support group is working to raise money for those facing felony charges from recent protests. In the interest of transparency and accountability we would like to make our intentions and priorities clear.

Anyone who is facing state or federal felony charges in the Pittsburgh area as a result of protesting since the murder of George Floyd is eligible for our help. However, our top priority is making sure our incarcerated defendants are supplied with commissary funds and reading material. Any money remaining after this need is met will be distributed equitably among those who request assistance, bearing in mind that Black people, trans people, and other marginalized identities face heightened repression from the criminal “justice” system.

The Pittsburgh chapter of the National Lawyers Guild is happy to announce our first know-your-rights training tailored to the needs of minors. This event will take place at the Braddock Carnegie library on Monday July 1st at 4:30.

Rights trainings specifically for minors are important because their constitutional situation is very different from that of most adults, and because minors are usually ignored in traditional KYR trainings. We hope to conduct more such trainings in the future.

Map

We are happy to announce the second edition of our manual for legal support hotline operators.! The new version adds a section on long term prisoner support at Allegheny County Jail, as well as a new docket search link, some additional tips for holding down the hotline, and editing for grammar and flow. Check it out here!

National Lawyers Guild legal observers have a simple purpose – to make note of police activity at protests in order to create a record of events. These records aid in the legal defense of protesters who get arrested. Bitter experience has taught us that the police cannot be trusted to tell the truth, often fabricating testimony in attempts to convict protesters of crimes, even when their only offense was opposing the status quo. Having an unbiased record of what actually happened can be crucial in counteracting such false testimony.

The NLG requires organizers who want LOs to request them in advance of the protest. This request creates an attorney-client relationship between the organizers and the NLG. That means LOs’ notes are considered attorney work product and cannot be subpoenaed by the prosecution. In Pittsburgh an LO request can be made by filling out the form at tinyurl.com/nlgpgh. Please try to give us as much notice as possible! The more lead time we get, the more likely it is that LOs will be available.

Things NLG legal observers do:

– Take notes on police activity. (Note that in Pittsburgh they will not be taking video or photographs of the police).

– Wear florescent green hats for easy recognition.

– Coordinate legal support with hotline operators. (See our hotline operators manual for more details).

– Identify other potential witnesses to police misconduct, particularly those who have video footage.

– Identify victims of police brutality, and possibly take pictures of their wounds for later use as evidence.

– Testify in court proceedings for protesters.

Things NLG legal observers DO NOT do:

Pretty much anything not on the above list. In order to be effective as witnesses LOs have to be neutral. That means they cannot take part in the protest in any way, including but not limited to…

– Chanting, holding signs or banners, linking arms.

– Acting as police liaisons.

– Acting as marshals.

– Accepting (let alone handing out) any literature.

– Wearing any clothing with political slogans.

– Helping with logistical tasks like carrying sound equipment.

In addition, NLG legal observers do not record activity by protesters, or anyone except the police. This means they don’t take notes about counter-protesters, hecklers, or breakaway marches. They also don’t talk to the media. NLG legal observers do not testify for the prosecution.

LO_basics