Thread: CA-ACLU files suit against Orange gang injunction

ACLU files suit against Orange gang injunction

By DOUG IRVING
The Orange County Register
September 23, 2009

Federal lawsuit claims that dozens of people may be caught up in injunction without a chance in court.

ORANGE – The American Civil Liberties Union announced today that it has filed a federal lawsuit challenging a recent gang injunction here as an "egregious abuse of government power."

That injunction takes aim at the Orange Varrio Cypress gang, prohibiting some 80 suspected members from associating with each other in public, wearing gang clothing or being out after 10 p.m.

In its lawsuit, though, the ACLU says that dozens more people could be held to the terms of the injunction without having a chance to fight their case in court. It claims that the District Attorney's Office prevented them from getting a fair hearing by dismissing them as named defendants in the injunction before they went to court.

But at least 20 people whose names were initially removed from the injunction have since been notified that they are back on it, without a further court hearing, ACLU attorney Belinda Escobosa Helzer said. That "dismiss-and-serve strategy," the lawsuit claims, "has thoroughly subverted the judicial process" and denied people their right to challenge the allegations that landed them on the injunction.

The lawsuit seeks to block police from enforcing the injunction against more than 60 people who were named and then dismissed, until they get a court hearing. The ACLU filed the class-action lawsuit in federal court on behalf of those people.

But Assistant District Attorney John Anderson said there's nothing unusual about prosecutors adding names to a gang injunction after it's already in place. Anyone arrested for breaking the rules of the injunction, he added, can challenge the evidence that put them there when they appear in criminal court.

"The law allows us to do what we did," Anderson said. "It's just that plain and simple."

The injunction targets the gang as a whole, as well as any members – named or unnamed. But Anderson said the District Attorney's Office would only bring cases under the injunction against people who have been formally notified that it applies to them.

He estimated that around 80 people have been served with such notice.

Police and prosecutors have used similar injunctions to try to break up criminal street gangs in Santa Ana, Anaheim, San Juan Capistrano and San Clemente. The injunctions are meant to make it easier for police to arrest suspected gang members by prohibiting otherwise legal activities, such as wearing gang-affiliated clothing.

The injunction against the Orange Varrio Cypress gang was the sixth in the county. It forbids those thought to be connected with the gang from associating with each other in public, intimidating others, carrying guns or dangerous weapons, using gang hand signs or wearing gang-affiliated clothing. It also sets a 10 p.m. curfew for adults as well as juveniles.

It applies to a "safety zone" of nearly four square miles, mostly in Old Towne and West Orange.

Contact the writer: 714-704-3777 or dirving@ocregister.com

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/inju ... rt-lawsuit

What has the Anti-Civil Law Union been ingesting lately? Seems that every case reported with them suing about something gets more and more insane and more rabid against the American citizen on behalf of the gangbangers, illegals, etc.

Have you signed the petition to de-fund ACLU? Americans want to stop all funding to this organization and further, write your state's attorney generals to investigate this organization under federal RICO laws.

Sign the petition by clicking the link below:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ACLU/

The ACLU it seems is willing to support anyone who is anti American

Just signed the petition. My 'file' just keeps getting BIGGER!

LO, they did an UNNAMED arrest of all these LATINO gang bangers, so you don;t have a list of:Juan Rodreguez Houlio MArtinez,Alababa Chinquentez, Diablo Nocturnez....etc...