Civil Rights Groups Achieve Agreement to Overhaul NM Juvenile Justice System

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Friday, February 17, 2006
CONTACT:
Peter Simonson, Executive Director, ACLU of New Mexico, 505-266-5915 or (cell) 505-620-0775
Daniel Yohalem, ACLU-NM Cooperating Attorney, 983-9433

ALBUQUERQUE - Civil rights groups have agreed to hold off on a major class action lawsuit against New Mexico’s Children Youth and Families Department in return for promises of major reform in the juvenile justice system. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico and the Youth Law Center (San Francisco) signed a settlement agreement with CYFD last Wednesday that requires sweeping improvements in security, mental health programming, and rehabilitation services in juvenile detention facilities across the state. It also mandates the closure of the New Mexico Boy’s School in Springer.

“The ACLU had two key aims in this litigation,” said ACLU executive director Peter Simonson. “Protect the safety of children in CYFD’s facilities and make sure that youthful offenders in our state get a fair shot at putting their lives back on a positive track. We think this agreement has the potential to transform our juvenile detention facilities from warehouses of problem kids to centers of genuine rehabilitation.”

ACLU cooperating attorney Daniel Yohalem said, “While the threat of the ACLU’s litigation was the spur to action, CYFD Secretary Mary Dale Bolson and her team have shown great leadership and responsibility in agreeing to redraw the future for New Mexico’s juveniles. If CYFD faithfully implements the ground breaking plan of action contained in the Agreement, fewer children will need to be in placed in custody because new community-based services will be available. Rehabilitation and safety will become much more available to those children who are placed in custody.”

Highlights of the 36-page settlement agreement include:

• Transfer of all 107 youth currently housed at Springer to other facilities around the state;

• Improved security in all CYFD facilities, including the installation of security cameras, increased ratios of staff to youth in all living units, and elimination of the practice of isolating youth from programs and general population as the means for ensuring safety;

• Development of comprehensive behavioral health screening and treatment programs headed by separate directors for facility-based and community-based behavioral health services and adequately staffed by psychiatrists and other mental health professionals;

• Requirements that female youth be granted comparable access to services and programs as male youth;

• Creation of classification and placement procedures to ensure that youth are located in the most appropriate settings in CFYD facilities.

• Creation of an Office of Quality Assurance that will independently monitor compliance with CYFD policies and investigate all serious internal grievances;

The settlement will affect over five hundred youth that are now on probation or housed in juvenile facilities run by CYFD.

Yohalem described the settlement agreement as “comprehensive and innovative.”

“In many ways, what this agreement does is break open the ‘closed’ corrections approach and put decision making in the hands of mental health and corrections professionals rather than in the hands of jailers,” Yohalem said. “From now on CYFD will try to place kids in facilities that allow them to keep in touch with their families and communities. And they will have to provide behavioral health services and other programming in the least restrictive setting possible.”

In addition to Yohalem, ACLU attorneys included Peter Cubra, Phil Davis, Larry Kronen, and Lee Hunt. Alice Bussiere represented the Youth Law Center.

“Even though we settled the lawsuit, the ACLU’s job is just beginning,” Yohalem said. “For the next four years, we’ll be monitoring CYFD’s progress very carefully to make sure that all the reforms are fully implemented.”

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Peter G. Simonson
Executive Director | ACLU of New Mexico
PO Box 566 | Albuquerque, NM 87103
Tel: (505) 266-5915 | Fax: (505) 266-5916

Thank you, ACLU Friends, for your many phone calls and e-mails this legislative session. The prospect for civil liberties looked pretty grim right up to the end. But much happened in the crush of closing the session:

The bill expanding the collection of DNA from conviction to arrests for felonies did pass.
Please call Governor Richardson’s office @ 1.505.476.2200 to veto this bill.

We opposed several bills requiring tougher, mandatory penalties (rather than treatment programs) for certain
gang-related crimes
sex offenders.
We are happy to report these bills did not pass.

However, the increased penalties for trafficking of meth did pass.

Other Good News:

Medical Rights: “Kendra’s law” on court-ordered treatment for mentally ill people, in spite of much publicity, did not pass
Gay Rights: no bills or Constitutional amendments proposed on the Defense of Marriage Act
Womens’ Rights: no bills or Constitutional amendments proposed on limiting abortion or defining when life begins
Students’ Rights: no bills or memorials on intelligent design were proposed
Voter Rights: strict voter identification requirements did not pass
although we anticipate fighting all these issues next session.

Once again, it isn’t over until the Governor is done. Please call the Governor concerning the DNA bill at 1.505.476.2200.

Diane Wood, our Most Excellent Lobbyist, and I will be reaching out and touching you before the next legislative session. This year, we want to involve you in gathering support for our civil liberties issues, especially privacy issues, statewide well before the 2007 session begins!

Joyce Briscoe
Legislative Advocate
ACLU of New Mexico
PO Box 566
Albuquerque, NM 87103
go to our website at www.aclu-nm.org (the web blog is in the upper right corner)

ACLU Members – especially in Gallup and Espanola areas:

Please call Senator Rainaldi @ 1.505.986.4310 and Senator Martinez @ 1.505.986.4389 to oppose Representative Tom Swisstack’s Bills (# 60 and # 65) adding additional, mandatory penalties for crimes involving gangs.

These bills will be in the Senate Judiciary Committee. We are opposing Representative Swisstack’s bills because

1. Generally the ACLU opposes mandatory sentences and enhancements of any kind because they lessen the judge’s ability to consider individual cases and their specific circumstances – such as the age or mental ability of the defendant, or the past criminal history (or lack of one) of the defendant, and especially the rehabilitative potential of the defendant through education or treatment programs.

2. These bills threaten the individual’s right to freedom of association primarily because they are vague in defining what a gang is. In addition, the bills do not define what constitutes being a member of a gang; e.g., Is being in the same room with other gang members who have felony records “membership” in a gang?

3. In practice, we believe these bills would most negatively impact Hispanics and African- Americans and would increase the use of racial profiling

4. We believe the taxpayers’ monies are better spent on educational and treatment programs than on additional prisons.

Please call State Senators Rainaldi and Martinez today to oppose HB 60 and 65

Joyce Briscoe
Legislative Advocate
ACLU of New Mexico
PO Box 566
Albuquerque, NM 87103

ACLU Members – especially in Las Cruces, Carlsbad, Roswell
& Santa Fe:

Please call Representative Andy Nunez @ 1.505.986.4233, Representative Joe Stell @ 1.505.986.4423
and House Speaker Ben Lujan @ 1.505.986.4782

to vote YES on SB 258, Medical Marijuana,
the Lynn Pierson & Erin Armstrong Compassionate Use Act.

This bill is in the House Agriculture & Water Resources Committee; Representative Joe Stell is the Chairman of this committee.
1. This bill would not legalize marijuana. Sponsor Senator Cisco McSorley emphasizes, “It allows doctors to recommend for clients who have severe ailments – to obtain medical marijuana from a licensee of the state of New Mexico. It is strictly regulated.”

2. New Mexico has a precedent for this bill. In 1978, New Mexico had a law establishing a controlled program allowing glaucoma and cancer chemotherapy patients to use marijuana for their illnesses. This program ended in 1986 because of budget cuts. The Lynn Pierson Research Program was named for a cancer patient who lobbied for the law; Pierson died before receiving federal approval.

3. This bill passed the Senate last week with wide approval from both political parties (34-6).

Please call State Representatives Nunez, Stell and Lujan today to SUPPORT SB 258, Medical Marijuana.

Joyce Briscoe
Legislative Advocate
ACLU of New Mexico
PO Box 566
Albuquerque, NM 87103

ACLU Protests Investigation of
VA Employee for ‘Sedition’

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, January 31, 2006
CONTACT:
Peter Simonson, Executive Director, ACLU of New Mexico at 505-266-5915 or (cell) 505-620-0775

Albuquerque—In a letter to the US Department of Veteran Affairs, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico is demanding an explanation for the department’s investigation of a federal employee for publishing an editorial in a local newspaper criticizing the Bush administration. In September, 2005, VA Information Security employees seized Laura Berg’s office computer due to the professed belief “that government equipment was used inappropriately…during government time for drafting an editorial letter.” No evidence was recovered to support that belief.

“The VA had no reason to suspect that Laura Berg used government resources to produce her editorial,” said ACLU Executive Director Peter Simonson. “She signed the letter as a private individual. From all appearances, the seizure of her work computer was an act of retaliation and a hardball attempt to scare Laura into silence.”

In her letter to the weekly Alibi, Berg, a clinical nurse specialist, criticized the Bush administration’s handling of Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War, noting that, “[a]s a VA nurse working with returning…vets, I know the public has no sense of the additional devastating human and financial costs of post-traumatic stress disorder.” She urged readers to “act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit.”

In a November 9th memorandum to Berg, the VA’s Human Resource Chief, Mel Hooker, conceded that no evidence was found implicating the use of Berg’s work computer in the writing of the editorial. However, he justified the investigation by saying that “[the] Agency is bound by law to investigate and pursue any act which potentially represents sedition.”

Simonson described the reference to ‘sedition’ as “shocking".

“Even if Laura had used the office computer, neither that fact, nor her criticism of the government, nor her appeal for a change in the heads of government approach an act of unlawful insurrection,” Simonson said. “Is the government so jealous of its power, so fearful of dissent, that it needs to threaten people who openly oppose its policies with charges of ‘sedition’?”

ACLU attorneys George Bach and Larry Kronen plan to submit a request under the Freedom of Information Act for all documents related to the VA’s actions towards Berg. They have asked Hooker for a public apology “to remedy the unconstitutional chilling effect on the speech of VA employees that has resulted from these intimidating tactics.”
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NEWS

ACLU Settles Lawsuit Over Release of
Student Information to Military Recruiters
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

CONTACT:
Peter Simonson, Executive Director, ACLU of New Mexico at 505-266-4622 or (cell) 505-620-0775

Karen Meyers, ACLU Cooperating Attorney, Aguilar Law Offices, P.C., 242-6677

ALBUQUERQUE – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico has settled a civil rights lawsuit against Albuquerque Public Schools for sending students’ contact information directly to military recruiters without properly notifying parents of their right to opt out of such information sharing. The federal No Child Left Behind Act grants secondary school students and their parents the right to deny the military access to a student’s name, address, and telephone listing. Legal papers filed by the ACLU claim that, in 2004, several APS high schools failed to notify parents of this right until weeks, and in some cases, months, after those schools had already shared students’ information with the Army, the Air Force, and the Navy.

The ACLU lawsuit is the first of its kind anywhere in the country.

“We live in a time when a student’s decision to sign up for the military is likely to land him or her right on the field of battle,” said ACLU Executive Director Peter Simonson. “Understandably, many parents want to limit the access that recruiters have to their children. Schools have an ethical and legal obligation to give them that control and to respect students’ privacy.”

Under a settlement agreement, APS will adopt and implement a policy that requires the district to include information about the No Child Left Behind Act in the registration packet that each secondary school mails to parents before registration. The materials will include a form by which parents may request that a student’s name, address, and telephone listing not be released to military recruiters. Once parents have made such a request, their wish will remain in effect until it is changed in writing by the student or the parents. In addition to making the policy change, APS paid $20,000 in attorney fees.

ACLU volunteer attorney Karen Meyers (of Aguilar Law Offices, P.C.) said, “It’s not enough to bury the notice of parents’ opt-out rights somewhere on a school website or in a student handbook. The notice to parents has to be ‘meaningful’. The school has to bring the information to parents’ attention so that they can make an informed and conscious choice. APS wasn’t doing that and we suspect that many other districts around the state aren’t doing it.”

Asked if the ACLU would consider bringing similar legal action against other non-complying school districts, Executive Director Simonson said, “Absolutely. We expect to go to other school districts and say, ‘Here’s what APS did. We expect you to do the same.’”
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Peter G. Simonson
Executive Director | ACLU of New Mexico
PO Box 566 | Albuquerque, NM 87103
Tel: (505) 266-5915 | Fax: (505) 266-5916