Thread: 200 Teen protesters from Round Rock face prosecution

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 48882.html

June 8, 2006, 8:41AM
Teen protesters from Round Rock face prosecution
Lawyers donate help to 82 who skipped school for migrant rallies
By LISA FALKENBERG
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

AUSTIN - Round Rock's decision to prosecute 200 high school students accused of breaking daytime curfew to join immigration protests has outraged some lawyers, prompting two dozen to volunteer to represent the teens, a civil rights group said Wednesday.

Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, which is representing 82 of the students who pleaded not guilty to the charges, said he thinks Round Rock is the only city in Texas to bring charges against students who participated in nationwide protests this spring over attempts to toughen U.S. immigration law.

Former Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox, who practices in Austin, is one of 25 lawyers who have offered to defend the teens, mostly from Round Rock and Stony Point high schools.

"I would be embarrassed if I were a prosecutor to bring one of these cases before a judge or a jury," Mattox said. "We criticize our young people for not being interested in civic affairs. We send them to school to have them study government and political science and then when they decide they're going to exercise their rights, we're trying to slap them down. It's un-American."

Mattox said he hopes more lawyers come forward and he called on Round Rock citizens to "stand up and ask these public officials to call a halt to this charade."

The curfew, which requires students younger than 17 to attend school during the day, allows the exercise of First Amendment rights to be used as a defense in municipal court.

But Round Rock City Attorney Steve Sheets said it's up to students to prove to a judge or jury whether they were exercising free speech rights when they skipped school.

"The facts aren't exactly the same in every case, and they will be reviewed in a careful manner to determine if they'll be prosecuted or not," said Sheets, who spoke for the attorney handling the cases because she was unavailable. "It's premature to be passing judgment on anything at this point."

Messages left with Round Rock police, which issued the citations, and high school principals went unreturned Wednesday.

Spokespersons for the Round Rock mayor and superintendent said they were unavailable to comment.

Keith Hampton, a lawyer with the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, said the prosecutions are another example of heavy-handed law enforcement in Round Rock and Williamson County that is out of step with other parts of Texas.

"They did skip school, and perhaps there should be some kind of penalty, but not criminal prosecution. That's ridiculous. They're not criminals," Hampton said. "What kind of message are we sending?"

lisa.falkenberg@chron.com

Thanks Brian!!!!!! I'm on it!!!!!!!

Here is what the Houston Chronicle failed to tell you. These kids broke a curfew law. A Municipal offence punishable by a fine. Just like a traffic ticket. The students were offered a plea bargan and half of them took it. However, the other half fell for the advice of the Texas Civil Rights Project, which advised some to waste tax payer dollars and demand a jury trial. At the same time, teaching the youth of Texas to break the law and get away with it.

http://www.texascivilrightsproject.org/ ... peech.html

The following is from The Texas Civil Rights Project website, the opposition, which is supporting the little law breakers. This is only a portion of what they have to say about the matter but it supports my statements.

ROUND ROCK -- Nearly half the 204 students ticketed for violating a daytime curfew while participating in immigration protests in March chose jury trials rather than community service or fines accepted by other students Tuesday...

Under Round Rock's youth curfew ordinance, students younger than 17 must be in school between 9 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.

All day Tuesday, denim-clad boys and girls, most of them Hispanic, streamed into Municipal Judge Dan McNeary's courtroom in clusters of about 50, accompanied by parents or guardians, many of whom spoke little English.

A court interpreter read prosecutor Susan Camp-Lee's offer of such community service tasks as raking leaves at a housing authority or cleaning up city parks in return for pleas of guilty or no contest.

"I pleaded no contest because I needed to get it over with," said Beatrice Smith, 15, a student at the Stony Point Ninth Grade Center. She plans to perform 32 hours of community service. "I'm moving out of state soon, and I just wanted to get it behind me."

But Josh Taylor, 15, a ninth-grader at Round Rock High, chose a jury trial in October, where he will be represented by an attorney for the civil rights nonprofit group.

"I was in the protests because a lot of my friends are Mexican," Josh said shortly after pleading not guilty. "Some of the kids at school said we wouldn't get tickets; some said, 'Don't go' because we would get a ticket. I decided to go."

Maybe in the future these kids that thought they were supporting their "Mexican" friends, will make sure it is a worthy cause. They were only probably looking at it as a way to skip school and hang out!! If they really knew what was happening to their future as a result of their illegal buddies, they would probably support our side. I have no sympathy for them, they made the choice they should have to pay the price. I'm glad this city is making a stand on this issue.

Keith Hampton, a lawyer with the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association said, "They did skip school, and perhaps there should be some kind of penalty, but not criminal prosecution.

This is the most laughable statement, since it is a municipal citation, with a set fine and not a criminal offence punishable by jail time. And this guy is practicing law!!!!!!!!!!! That's just funny!!!!!!!

Next week, Texans will be burning children on the stake.

Dixie

http://www.christiansciencemonitor.com/ ... -ussc.html

from the June 19, 2006 edition -

For students, cost of protest can be high
About 100 Texas students are disputing their arrests for skipping class to protest immigration reform.
By Kris Axtman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

HOUSTON

Jennifer Avilez says her parents, both from Mexico, worked hard their whole lives to get her into a good school. So when she walked out of that school in late March to protest an immigration bill passed by the House, she did it for all those who hadn't achieved as much.

"Other people need to have the same chance as they did," she says. "This country was started by immigrants, after all."

But her protest came to a halt when she was arrested and accused of criminal behavior by the local police.

The case against Jennifer, a student who takes AP courses at Stony Point High School in Round Rock, Texas, is one of hundreds like it that pit students' free-speech rights against local rules against truancy.

Other immigration protesters have faced repercussions, too. Many employers took a hard line by firing those who didn't show up for work. And during the rallies, which took place in dozens of cities nationwide this spring, some people were ticketed by police for minor infractions such as loitering or hindering traffic.

But no group was criminally charged on such a large scale as the students in Round Rock, a conservative, mostly white suburb near Austin, the state capital. The number of Hispanics there has only recently begun to increase.

"What was being done by those students is in the highest traditions of this country and we would hope that their idealism would be weighed against the rules that they've broken," says Josh Bernstein, a senior policy analyst at the National Immigration Law Center, a Washington organization that promotes immigrant rights.

Across the country, educators punished protesters with detention, suspension, and even canceled their extracurricular activities. But some school districts got the police involved.

On the first day that Round Rock students protested, police officers gave warnings, which Jennifer says she never heard. The next day, March 31, police rounded up more than 200 students who were heading to a rally in Austin. Officers issued tickets for violating daytime curfew, a Class C misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500.

What makes this case unique is that the city has an ordinance that allows for free speech and assembly - which trumps the curfew-violation statute, says Ernest Saadiq Morris, a staff attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project in Austin.

But violators must show beyond a reasonable doubt that they were actually exercising that right, "and not just running roughshod through the city," writes Eric Poteet, with the Round Rock Police Department, in an e-mail interview.

He says that only a certain percentage of marchers were actually protesting immigration reform. "The rest were just skipping school."

In addition, says Officer Poteet, the student protests required the presence of police officers who were needed elsewhere, affecting the department's ability to serve the community.

To date, more than 100 of the Round Rock students have pleaded guilty or did not contest the charges and will either pay a fine or do community service.

The other 98 have requested trials; the Texas Civil Rights Project is defending 82 of those.

The trials will take place from June through November. The first five have already been dismissed. Jennifer's trial is set for July 7.

"Schools could have disciplined students in far more appropriate ways than criminalizing them," says Morris.

But students didn't need to skip school - or break any laws - to send a strong message, says Flavia Jimenez, an immigration policy analyst with the National Council of La Raza in Washington, a Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization.

"We feel that children in this country did a very courageous thing by speaking up about ways the illegal-immigration issue has affected them, but we were not in any way encouraging them to walk out of their classes," says Ms. Jimenez. "Education is extremely important to the Latino community and will do more for us in the long run."

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/n ... dents.html

Round Rock student protest participants back in court
22 failed to complete required community service
By Katie Humphrey
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, September 23, 2006

Thirteen Round Rock students were back in Municipal Court Friday because they hadn't completed required community service for curfew-violation citations following March protests of federal immigration legislation.

Altogether, 22 of the 69 students who pleaded guilty or no contest to the Class C misdemeanor curfew citation in exchange for community service did not complete the required 32 hours by the Aug. 18 deadline, said Round Rock Municipal Court Administrator Tracie Glaeser.

The 13 students who reported to court with their parents Friday morning received $6.25 credit for each hour worked and then agreed to pay the remaining balance of a $200 fine.

The nine students who did not respond to the court summons could have their drivers' licenses or their ability to obtain licenses suspended until they resolve their cases, Glaeser said.

Round Rock police issued curfew-violation citations to students who walked out of class on March 31 to protest federal immigration legis- lation.

Students who pleaded guilty or no contest had the option of performing 32 hours of community service or paying a $200 fine.

Judge Dan McNery, at the request of the city prosecutor, dismissed 49 cases against students who had pleaded not guilty, but 50 such cases are still pending. The first case is set for trial Nov. 2.

Round Rock's curfew states that anyone under age 17 must be in school between 9 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Exercising First Amendment rights can be used as a defense in court.


khumphrey@statesman.com; 246-0053