The Final Call

Historic settlement for ‘Free Speech’

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WASHINGTON, D.C.—A 13 year court battle has led to a victory for protestors in the nation’s capital.  Federal Judge Emmet G. Sullivan approved an unprecedented settlement June 22, between the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) and the Justice Department and the Department of the Interior that will significantly change the handling of mass protests in the United States.

“It is significant this agreement is with the federal government, because the Department of Justice is reviewing the practices and the policies of local law enforcement agencies,” Judge Sullivan said. “I hope this agreement will serve as a model for local jurisdictions across the country.”

The settlement agreed to pay $2.2 million to nearly 400 protesters and bystanders trapped by U.S. and D.C. police during a September 2002 demonstration against the World Bank.

In 2010 the District settled with the same class action litigants by agreeing to pay $8.25 million.  They were picked up in a mass arrest at Pershing Park.  That settlement also agreed to overhaul police practices to protect the First Amendment rights of protesters.

The federal settlement lays out policies and rules that, among other requirements, effectively prohibit the “trap and detain” tactic and use of police lines to encircle demonstrations.

It also prohibits mass sweeping arrests of protestors by emphasizing the requirement of individualized probable cause before arrests at free speech activities; and in circumstances where there is a lawful basis for a dispersal order, requires fair notice and warning to demonstrators as well as opportunity to comply with police orders to disperse, to be given three times at least two minutes apart and with avenues of exit announced through effective sound amplification. 

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF), spoke on behalf of the plaintiff class in open court. She discussed the reforms and changes in this settlement agreement and achieved in related PCJF litigation over the last 15 years and its visible impact on the ground in Washington, D.C.

“Judge Sullivan, the Justice Department and plaintiffs’ counsel agreed in court today that this historic settlement can lead to major reform in the way that police departments handle protests not only in the nation’s capital, but across the country. We’ve seen city after city, from New York to Baltimore to Ferguson respond to First Amendment activities with grossly unconstitutional repression, followed by hollow justifications for illegal police actions,” she said after the hearing.

“This settlement with federal law enforcement, including the agency responsible for the White House sidewalk and other important national security locations, shows definitively that security and public order claims are being used as pretexts for mass violations of civil rights. If these police reforms can be institutionalized here, there is no excuse for them not to be implemented in every city in the United States.”

Noting that the Department of Justice is a signatory to the “extremely significant settlement” with the PCJF and has an “active role” in “reviewing practices and procedures of local law enforcement” across the country, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan stated that the reforms embedded in the agreement should “serve as a model for other law enforcement agencies,” and urged that they “take a hard look at this settlement” in an effort to comply with Constitutional standards.

Carl Messineo, Legal Director of the PCJF, said, “As President Obama, the Department of Justice and localities nationwide are compelled to confront the recurrent problem of brutal, para-militarized and unconstitutional police responses to protests, they need to look no further than the model that has been created in Washington, D.C., through the work of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and others.”

“People across this nation are rising up to protest real and pervasive injustices. Police must stop acting as the enemy of the people they are supposed to serve. These new rules are an essential component of reforms needed to enable people to take action and voice dissent and create real change in their society.”

by Nisa Islam Muhammad