Thread: MALDEF shakes down Waukegan City Council

Federal judge rules Waukegan violated First Amendment rights
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December 24, 2008
By RYAN PAGELOW rpagelow@scn1.com

A federal judge ruled Monday that the city of Waukegan cannot prevent people from protesting or speaking during public audience time at City Council meetings.

In a 60-page summary judgment on a lawsuit filed in 2004, Senior U.S. District Court Judge Milton Shadur found that the city of Waukegan denied two residents their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights when they tried to protest the city's vehicle seizure ordinance in 2004.

However, the judge denied the suit's claim that the city excluded people from entering a packed July 6, 2004 City Council meeting based on their opposition to the vehicle seizure ordinance.

A status hearing is set for Dec. 29 to see how several claims in the lawsuit will proceed, such as in jury trials, said Ricardo Meza, regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

In 2004, MALDEF and the law firm Miner, Barnhill & Galland filed the lawsuit against the city of Waukegan, Waukegan Mayor Richard Hyde and Waukegan Police Chief Bill Biang on behalf of plaintiffs who have opposed the towing ordinance.

"I think it's an important decision," Meza said. "The beauty of the First Amendment and Constitution is that it allows people to speak out against government action. It sends a message that you can't treat the people differently if you don't like their message."

One of the plaintiffs, Jose Zurita of Waukegan, won his claim that Mayor Hyde did not permit him to speak during a Jan. 20, 2004 City Council meeting until Zurita apologized to a city employee for criticizing her at a rally two days earlier.

In his summary judgment, Judge Shadur wrote that Hyde's actions were "aimed at suppressing the speech of a specific speaker, and as such it is subject to strict scrutiny."

Another plaintiff, Margaret Carrasco of Waukegan, won her claim that the city's former Outdoor Assembly Ordinance was applied to her differently and less favorably than it was to non-protesters because she was asked to pay additional police costs prior to a July 6, 2004 rally.

Jim Flesch, an attorney for the city, said he would likely appeal the judge's decision on the Zurita and Carrasco claims on behalf of Mayor Hyde and Police Chief Biang.

Overall, he considers the judge's interim ruling a victory for the city's first-come-first-serve policy for attending a City Council meeting.

"The defendants are very happy that the judge agreed that the manner in which they admit citizens to the City Council meetings is constitutional and proper," Flesch said. "That was the main claim of the lawsuit and the plaintiff's lost their main claim."

Some of the other claims were added after the original lawsuit was filed in 2004, he said.

The four-year old case stems from controversy over a towing ordinance initiated in 2002 which authorizes police to seize vehicles and impose a $500 fine on unlicensed drivers. Latino and African-American plaintiffs opposed the ordinance and protested it, alleging it was being enforced unfairly against minorities.

The nine plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Virginia Adan, Jose DeLeon, Victor DeLeon, Guadalupe Lara, Graciela Lara, Jose Zurita, Margaret Carrasco, Chris Blanks and Deborah Norman.

"The emphasis in this case is that First Amendment rights apply to all people, whether they're here to say that Waukegan is number one, or to protest an ordinance," Carrasco said.

And we'll still tow their unlicensed and unisured cars. Not the city's fault that illegals don't follow the law.

If it is being enforced unfairly against blacks and Latinos shouldn't those groups bear the burden of proof that it is? Whatever happen to sovereign immunity? Although I am not there to read all of the complaints presented, I wonder: do judges just cave in to charges of racial profiling these days? Just charging something doesn't make it true.

The burden of proof is always on the plaintiff and governments are supposed to have extra protection against litigation. I guess the ACLU, MALDEF and the like are the new governing powers.

Just charging something doesn't make it true.

I thought after Anita hill it wasn't the facts that matter but the seriousness of the accusation.