Thread: IA-Scripted immigrant worker hearings challenged

Scripted immigrant worker hearings challenged
By TONY LEYS • tleys@dmreg.com • August 1, 2008


Civil-liberties advocates complained Thursday that officials followed an improper, preset script in mass hearings for former Iowa meatpacking workers, but two defense lawyers who participated in the hearings said such scripts are common in federal court.

The dispute was raised by the American Civil Liberties Union, which said it had obtained scripts that dictated what would happen in the criminal hearings for former workers at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville. The workers were arrested May 12 in the largest immigration raid in U.S. history.


The hearings were held within 10 days at the National Cattle Congress grounds in Waterloo. Judges took guilty pleas from 297 people; most were sentenced to five months in prison on charges of using false immigration documents to obtain work.

The ACLU said the scripts predetermined everything about the hearings, down to the words judges were to say. The group said that showed the process was rigged to prevent individual consideration of the defendants' circumstances.

Lucas Guttentag, national director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, said anyone accused of a crime has a right to a fair hearing. "Every person - that's the word used in the Constitution - deserves due process," he said. The word "person" is not limited to U.S. citizens, he said.

According to documents released by the ACLU, the scripts mainly detailed how the judges were to run the hearings, and how they were to explain the proceedings to defendants.

Two lawyers who participated in the hearings said Thursday that such scripts are common in federal plea hearings.

David Nadler, a criminal defense lawyer from Cedar Rapids, said judges use such scripts to make sure they remember every step that must be taken. Nadler, who had 19 clients at the hearings, said he believed that overall, the defendants knew what was happening. "We spent a lot of time trying to make sure they understood it," he said.

Critics have said prosecutors pressured frightened, uneducated immigrants into pleading guilty of crimes they did not commit. Nadler disagreed. So did Cedar Rapids defense lawyer Stephen Swift, another participant.

Swift said that before the hearings, judges posted online a detailed outline of what would be said and done. He said defense lawyers were urged to download those documents and go over them with clients so the defendants could follow what happened in the hearings. Swift said he and court interpreters did that for his 19 clients, and it helped them.

Swift said he believed his clients should have been sentenced to probation instead of jail, and he wished the proceedings had not been so rushed. But he disputed contentions that defendants were coerced into pleading guilty without understanding what was happening. "I think they knew what they were doing," he said.

The ACLU said it didn't know who wrote the scripts. Chief District Judge Linda Reade, who oversaw the hearings, declined to comment. The U.S. attorney's office did not respond to requests for comment.

Most of the defendants were from Guatemala or Mexico. They are to be deported after serving their sentences. After past raids, most such people were quickly deported without being sentenced to prison. Prosecutors have declined to say why they pushed for so many prison sentences this time.

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Government "manual" distributed to defense lawyers assigned to represent immigrant workers arrested and prosecuted in the May 2008 Postville, Iowa meat packing raids:



http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/p ... E_ICE_RAID

Why is it that whenever anyone challenges illegals the challengers are held to the letter of the law? Yet illegals have broken our laws from the moment they either jumped the fence or over stayed their visas…and continue to engage in criminal activity continuously? Interesting double standard.

I think the defense is upset that the judges covered all the bases as required by law. Without a script or "rules to follow", these defense lawyers would appeal each and every decision of the judge.

Just makes good sense to me to have an outline of every detail to assure a fair and equal hearing for all the workers.

According to documents released by the ACLU, the scripts mainly detailed how the judges were to run the hearings, and how they were to explain the proceedings to defendants.

Two lawyers who participated in the hearings said Thursday that such scripts are common in federal plea hearings.

David Nadler, a criminal defense lawyer from Cedar Rapids, said judges use such scripts to make sure they remember every step that must be taken. Nadler, who had 19 clients at the hearings, said he believed that overall, the defendants knew what was happening. "We spent a lot of time trying to make sure they understood it," he said.

Critics have said prosecutors pressured frightened, uneducated immigrants into pleading guilty of crimes they did not commit. Nadler disagreed. So did Cedar Rapids defense lawyer Stephen Swift, another participant.