ACLU of Maryland (ACLU-MD): Our Blog

What’s New & Next for Freedom of Speech in Montgomery County

Fri, 24 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, we highlighted the inspiring story of tenth-grader Enidris Siurano-Rodriguez on our blog.

As you might remember, Enidris is an honor student at Damascus High School in Montgomery County and she, since the seventh grade, has quietly and respectfully abstained from standing and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, as a way of showing her disagreement with U.S. policies towards Puerto Rico, where her family is from. But she contacted the ACLU in April after facing harassment and intimidation by teachers and an assistant principal for exercising her freedom of expression.

In response to this violation of federal and state law, and even the county's own regulations, the ACLU of Maryland took action and demanded that Enidris be allowed to sit quietly during the Pledge, and requested a meeting with the Superintendent's staff and to discuss what steps will be taken to ensure that similar violations do not recur anywhere in the school system. Since 2005, the ACLU has received six complaints of students in Montgomery County Public Schools being harassed by teachers for declining to participate in the Pledge - more than any other county in Maryland.

Sadly, MCPS's initial response to our letter was dismissive, and denied that there was any real problem to address. To press the school system to take meaningful steps to address this issue system-wide, the ACLU tapped into the social media storm that developed around Enidris and her story. Enidris was first thrust into spotlight when international artists like Ricky Martin and Calle 13 tweeted in support of her and the freedom of speech.

Building on this, the ACLU put out a call and hundreds responded! People across the state and beyond emailed and tweeted Montgomery County Public Schools and Superintendent Starr to encourage them to sit down with the ACLU to discuss steps that can be taken to ensure teachers and administrators know about and understand the school system's strong policy on the Pledge of Allegiance.

And it made a difference!

This week we heard back from the lawyer representing Montgomery County Public Schools, who indicated that the Superintendent's staff would meet with the ACLU, Eindris and her family. Undoubtedly, such a quick response from MCPS would not have been possible without all of the activists and supporters who stood up to defend the freedom of expression for students.

The ACLU is hopeful that the meeting will soon be scheduled and is looking forward to productive discussions with MCPS. Stay tuned! We will keep you updated throughout the process to ensure freedom of speech is protected in Montgomery County.

Written by Sana Javed, Communications Associate

Fighting for Fair Representation in Wicomico County

Fri, 10 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

No group of people can function as part of a community if they are excluded from representation. And nobody understands that better than people like Edward Taylor, former Wicomico County Council Member.

Edward Taylor has served three terms on the Wicomico County Council, representing the minority district - which because of the Council's election system is the only position African Americans, can effectively be elected to and hold. This, despite the fact that Wicomico's population is increasingly diverse, with African Americans now making up 25 percent of the county's population, and minorities making up 34 percent. Whites now make up just 66 percent of the County populace, but for over two decades have held 86 percent of the power on the County Council.

To Edward Taylor and many others in minority community, that just doesn't seem fair or equitable.

Since the adoption of a hybrid structure of 5 single member districts and 2 at-large districts 23 years ago, no African-American or other person of color has ever been elected to either of the two at-large seats or to any of the other four district seats of the Wicomico County Council, despite many attempts and the growth of communities of color. The only position on the Council that African Americans have ever held is the seat from the one majority-minority district.

This current election system was adopted by Wicomico County after the County was sued under the Voting Rights Act by the U.S. Department of Justice in September of 1987. Before the hybrid structure, Wicomico County had a five-member County Council in which all members were elected at large. It was in response to this legal challenge that Wicomico County adopted this new hybrid structure in 1990 and expanded the Council size to seven members, where five members are elected from single member districts and the remaining two are elected at-large.

Yet, even with this change, the Department of Justice considered the electoral structure to still be unfair and continued to pursue its challenge. The case went to trial in federal court in 1991. Despite compelling evidence, the court ruled that the DOJ had not proven that the original plan violated the Voting Rights Act, and that it was too soon to know how well the new hybrid system would work, or whether it would prove to be unfair.

Since 1991 however, evidence of the plan's unfairness has continued to accumulate. A report by Dr. Steven P. Cole, "Wicomico County, MD Summary of 2006 and 2010 Racial Bloc Voting Analyses for Interracial County Council Contests" shows that the white voting bloc continues to unite to prevent African American candidates from winning at-large positions -- often the Council's leadership positions-- despite the fact that African American voters have remained a cohesive voting group. Since the adoption of the hybrid plan, not one African American candidate has successfully won election to an at-large position on the City Council.

Now, in 2013, the ACLU of Maryland believes that enough time has passed to clearly see that the DOJ's fears about the racially discriminatory impact of this electoral structure have come true. That is why this week, the ACLU is requesting that the DOJ reopen their Voting Rights Act challenge in Wicomico. The ACLU is also recommending to the DOJ an alternative electoral structure that would have seven single-member districts, which would allow African American majorities in two of the seven districts and establish a more just system of representation.

In addition to discrimination faced from Wicomico County itself, African Americans in Wicomico were shut out from elective municipal and state offices for many years. Shockingly, until the ACLU of Maryland and national NAACP filed a lawsuit in 1992, no African American candidate, in all of history, had been elected to the Maryland General Assembly from the Eastern Shore. And not just in Wicomico County either, but in jurisdiction after jurisdiction, it was only after lawsuits and court mandated change, that African Americans were finally elected to offices across the Eastern Shore.

In that case, the court agreed with the ACLU and the NAACP that the multi-member electoral structure diluted the vote of African Americans on the Eastern Shore, and to resolve the challenge the state created a new single member delegate district from portions of Wicomico and Dorchester Counties. As a result, in 1998 Rudolph Cane became the first African American in history to be elected to the Maryland General Assembly from the Eastern Shore. Cane still holds that seat today.

By finally affording African Americans the fair representation that they have waited decades for, reopening DOJ's legal challenge could be one giant step towards addressing Wicomico County's long, persistent history of racial discrimination.

Pledging Allegiance to Free Speech

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Two weeks ago, if you told 15 year-old Enidris Siurano-Rodriguez that artists such as Ricky Martin and Calle 13 would be tweeting about her right to free speech - she would never have believed it.

But that's exactly what happened.

Enidris Siurano-Rodriguez, a 10th grader, is an honor roll student and talented violinist. Since the seventh grade, she has chosen to sit quietly during the daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, as a way of showing her disagreement with United States government's policies towards Puerto Rico. She did so, without incident, until this year.

It began in February, when Enidris' first period Honors Biology teacher started directing her to stand each morning during the Pledge of Allegiance. Enidris complied, not by choice, but only because she was specifically directed to do so by her teacher. On April 4, Enidris was sent to the Principal's office where the Assistant Principal improperly demanded to know why she persisted in sitting during the Pledge. Enidris explained that her actions stemmed from her feelings about United States government policies towards Puerto Rico, where her family is from. The Assistant Principal belittled Enidris' reasoning and background, and concluded by stating that while Enidris did not need to recite the Pledge, she needed to stand while it was said. The Assistant Principal also called Enidris's mother, and said that if Enidris persisted in sitting during the Pledge, she would be removed from class while it was recited. The next day, Enidris' teacher again directed her to stand for the Pledge. Enidris silently remained seated. Afterwards, yet another teacher harassed Enidris, trying to intimidate her by saying he previously had students removed from his class for the same reason.

This treatment is unconstitutional. Enidris was exercising her well-established First Amendment right to quietly sit during the Pledge [LINK TO PRESS RELEASE WITH DETAILS]. And the fact that school officials would violate her rights in order to defend a symbol of freedom is deeply ironic.

Enidris' case has become so widely known in Puerto Rico that stars like Ricky Martin and Calle 13 have tweeted in support of her.

Ricky Martin wrote the following two tweets, which were sent out to 8.5 million followers:

Calle 13, another extremely well known artist, encouraged his 4.9 million followers to:

"Read the case of the Puerto-Rican student Enidris Siurano-Rodriguez":

Unfortunately, this is not the first time such an instance has occurred in Montgomery County Public Schools. In fact, in recent years, the ACLU of Maryland has received multiple complaints from students who have been harassed for refusing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. In 2010, the ACLU took action on behalf of a 13 year-old at Roberto Clemente Middle School whose teacher on different occasions demanded that she stand for the Pledge, instead of sitting quietly, and then ordered her to leave the classroom, threatened to give her detention, and called a school security officer to remove her from class.

In addition to that incident, we heard from families in 2008, 2010, and 2012 reporting similar harassment of their children at Takoma Park Middle School, Northwood High School, Rolling Terrace Elementary School, and Gaithersburg High School, though each of these cases was resolved by the families' own communications with higher level school officials. Indeed, over the last decade we have received more complaints about this issue from Montgomery County than any other jurisdiction in the state.

In media statements, Montgomery County officials appear to strongly support this First Amendment right. So, why does the problem continue?

The ACLU of Maryland has requested a meeting with the Montgomery County Schools Superintendant, the officials at Damascus High School, and the County School Board to resolve this matter.

With the backing of the Bill of Rights and Ricky Martin, we are hoping, once and for all, to ensure that the right to freedom of speech will be protected and honored in public schools in Montgomery County and across the state.

Daily Record shines light on threat to due process for poor people

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Today, the ACLU of Maryland is highlighting an article from the Maryland Daily Record that gives a much-needed spotlight on legislation moving quickly through the General Assembly that is an assault on the constitutional due process rights of the poor and minorities. House Bill 153 would deny the constitutional right to representation by the Office of the Public Defender to an indigent individual after the conclusion of the bail hearing, forcing the OPD to go through the unnecessary and wasteful process of re-qualifying someone.

HB 153 runs afoul of constitutional requirements, as an individual is entitled to appointed counsel during any "critical stage" of the legal process. For those who are granted bail, this bill will compound the already difficult burdens on defendants to prove their income-eligibility by denying them representation as they await eligibility by the OPD. The need for counsel after bail hearings is especially acute in Maryland, where there are wide racial disparities as to who is arrested and detained. Overall, the vast majority of these minority defendants are poor and require the assistance of public defenders.

From the Daily Record:

"Panel advances bill to limit right to public defender"

Published on April 4th

Written by: Steve Lash

ANNAPOLIS - Over the objection of the Maryland public defender and civil rights advocates, the full Senate will soon consider legislation that would require defendants to reapply for free legal assistance after they either post bond or are released on their own recognizance pending trial.

"I think the bill is unconstitutional," Maryland Public Defender Paul B. DeWolfe said Thursday. "It deprives an individual of the right to counsel."

The measure, House Bill 153, would essentially strip a defendant of his or her attorney after a bail hearing and insist they reapply for public defender assistance, DeWolfe said. The reapplication process is "unreasonable" and "duplicative" because the accused, to be provided a public defender, must already sign an affidavit of qualification prior to the bail hearing, he added.

Defendants at bail hearings have "been fully represented by an attorney and that attorney is taken away from them," DeWolfe said, adding that valuable time is lost when the accused must reapply for an attorney and that lawyer must get up to speed on the case.

"It punishes indigent defendants," he said.

But Del. Curt Anderson, the bill's chief sponsor, and other supporters say the reapplication requirement ensures the public defender's office is representing at trial only those defendants who qualify financially for the free legal aid.

HB 153, which the House passed 116-18 on Feb. 28, would require defendants represented by a public defender at a bail hearing to reapply for the free assistance if they were released on bond or their own recognizance. Defendants unable to post bond, and thus incarcerated, would be permitted to retain the public defender under the bill.

The measure is also opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, the Maryland State Conference of NAACP Branches, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and individuals like Douglas Colbert, a professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, a longtime advocate for the right to counsel at bail.

The bill "is not only a waste of both time and money, but a violation of individuals rights to counsel to end representation after bail hearings and force them to be re-qualified for counsel," Sara Love, public policy director of the ACLU of Maryland, said in a statement on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee approved the measure with an amendment that would allow the defendant to retain the public defender if an independent supervisor concludes at the bail hearing that the accused qualifies for continued assistance.

The committee's 8-2 vote for the bill sends it to the Senate floor. If the bill passes in its current form, a Senate-House conference committee would attempt to hammer out the differences between the measures, with the goal of having the two chambers pass a unified measure before the General Assembly adjourns at 12 a.m. Tuesday.

Anderson, a Baltimore Democrat, said defendants who have the financial wherewithal to post bond presumably do not qualify for public defender assistance, and defendants who have been released presumably have the time to reapply. Those who do not post bond and are in jail would not be denied the continued services of a public defender, he added.

Providing public defenders to defendant who might not qualify for the free legal aid "does burden the system," Anderson said Wednesday. "We're trying to relieve the burden."

The bill follows the General Assembly's enactment last year of legislation requiring the public defender to provide legal assistance for indigent defendants at bail hearings.

The legislation was enacted in response to the Maryland's high court's DeWolfe v. Richmond ruling in January 2012 that the state Public Defender Act requires legal representation even earlier in the legal process: when defendants are first hauled before district court commissioners at an initial bail hearing, which is generally held 24 hours before a circuit court judge holds the bail hearing at issue in the pending legislation.

The 2012 enactment, an amendment to the public defender law, also prohibits anything a defendant says at an initial bail hearing from being used against them at the subsequent hearing.

DeWolfe called the enactment "a very important step forward in the right to counsel," which the Court of Appeals annunciated in its Richmond decision.

The pending measure, by contrast, is "a huge step back from the spirit of the Richmond decision and the Richmond legislation," DeWolfe said. "It's a bad bill, it's bad policy."

Reform Marijuana Law

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Originally published as an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun

By Susan Goering

March 25, 2013

Last Monday, the United States celebrated the 50th anniversary of the seminal Supreme Court case of Gideon v. Wainwright. The next day saw the Maryland Senate vote to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. There is a synchronicity here. The failure of one public policy poses a problem, the other a brilliant solution - if the Maryland House of Delegates will but take up the mantle of common sensibility and fiscal restraint.

For decades, Maryland's heavy penalization of marijuana possession has cost the state millions of dollars in incarceration and court costs and contributed to excessive public defender caseloads without improving public safety or meaningfully reducing drug use.

The public policy behind Gideon is the constitutional guarantee that everyone charged with a crime, no matter how poor, must have a lawyer. But Gideon's legacy - if not its aspirational principle - deserves a cold, hard stare. Amid all the celebratory chatter last week, some commentators justifiably pointed out that the right to competent counsel had become only a paper right.

Why has the constitutional right to counsel become ever more difficult to stay faithful to? Mainly because the "War on Drugs," first announced by President Richard Nixon in 1971, has overwhelmed our system with a tsunami of drug prosecutions, many of them low-level possession cases. The surge of criminal cases on court dockets - and the inability to adequately pay for them, including the costs of competent public defenders - quickly overtook Gideon's aspiration for effective assistance of counsel. State public defenders nationwide have been forced for decades to work under caseloads that are untenable.

In short, the excessive criminalization of drug use, which an increasing number of public policymakers and scholars agree should be treated as a public health problem, has come at a huge cost.

Last week, the Maryland Senate took an important step that would reduce the enormous financial and human toll that the war on drugs exacts on our criminal justice system and the people of Maryland. It voted to approve Senate Bill 297, which would make the use or possession of a small amount of marijuana a civil offense, punishable by a fine not exceeding $100. This would remove small-time marijuana possession from the criminal justice system, saving Maryland an enormous sum of money in police costs, court costs, prosecution costs and defense costs. In 2010, for example, there were 23,663 arrests for marijuana possession in the state - arrests that clogged the system, increased defender caseloads and consumed valuable taxpayer dollars that could have been better spent.

Maryland has one of the highest rates of arrests for marijuana possession in the country. In 2010, Maryland had the seventh-highest number of arrests for marijuana offenses among all states. Marijuana offenses constituted 50 percent of all drug arrests, and marijuana possession accounted for 90 percent of total marijuana arrests.

The Senate's vote was akin to picking the proverbial low-hanging fruit. It is clear that deep and extensive reforms will still be needed. For example, since 1971, the number of human beings incarcerated in lockdown institutions in Maryland has ballooned from 4,950 to 22,500. Shockingly, 45 percent of current inmates are there for nonviolent offenses. Decriminalization of small-time marijuana possession alone will not solve that problem. Yet, the Senate vote is a great step in the right direction that will help stem the flood of low-level cases crushing the public defender system, burdening our budget and destroying lives in the process.

This week, as the Senate bill passes to the Maryland House, all eyes will be on the delegates. It is time for Maryland to stop wasting our limited resources on arresting, prosecuting and incarcerating Marylanders for possession of small amounts of marijuana - all at super-sized costs to the taxpayer and other more fruitful public safety and social programs - and start to restore the promise of Gideon by freeing up overburdened public defenders so they can do their jobs properly.

Susan Goering is executive director of the ACLU of Maryland.