4 protesters awarded $185K over 2004 RNC arrests

[alp227]

Source: AP

NEW YORK (AP) — Four people arrested at an anti-war march during the 2004 Republican National Convention have been awarded $185,000 in the first trial stemming from lawsuits over protest arrests surrounding the GOP gathering.

Coming about six months after the city reached an $18 million settlement with about 1,800 other RNC protesters, Wednesday's federal jury verdict caps a lingering chapter in the legal saga that followed the arrests, nearly all of which ended with cases dismissed or defendants acquitted.

The four plaintiffs in the trial had rejected the settlement. Jurors awarded each $40,000 in compensatory damages for being wrongfully arrested, more than what individual protesters got in the settlement, which included about $7 million in attorneys' fees. The jury also awarded a total of $25,000 in punitive damages against police Deputy Chief Thomas Monahan, who led the response to the march.

Still, "this is not about money. It's about stopping police abuses in squashing First Amendment rights," one of the protesters, Howard J. Gale of Seattle, said Friday.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/4-protesters-get-185000-over-convention-arrests

[Spitfire of ATJ]

1. "It's about stopping police abuses"

Were the cops who did it fired or were they the heroes of the squad room?

[Fred Sanders]

2. Justice delayed is justice denied, except for the patient lawyers raking in $7 million.....fees

delayed are not an injustice at all.

[Dustlawyer]

3. Years of legal work by dozens of lawyer and their staffs, reams of documents, depositions,

motions, hearings, phone calls, and meetings with thousands of clients, and hundreds of thousands of case expenses, all at risk if the government declined to settle and the trials were lost. Instead they were successful and got paid. It is not all profit, those employees have to get paid every pay day, insurance, copiers, IT...., you know, jobs. Should they not recover anything? Do you not want to have law firms available when this happens and the government, or a big company like BP come after YOU!

Big Plaintiffs firms are actually struggling to stay afloat now that Big Business has convinced everyone that we are the bad guys. Tort reform was passed everywhere limiting your rights and our ability to protect YOU! BP had 400 of the top of their class lawyers going against us in the BP Texas City explosion in March of 2005, we had 10. They dumped 7 million documents on us and we read 7 days a week, 16 hours a day and hired every available law clerk/students in the Houston area, but we did it. We found where they budgeted for their workers lives because they chose not to fix the most dangerous problems with their old, rust bucket plant. We found the document where they fraudulently filed a document with the TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) stating they had installed a flare that would have prevented the accident. We discovered that they hired the TCEQ employee reviewing that fraudulent permit, then had him resubmit in violation of Federal law. They pled guilty to a felony and were on probation when they blew up the Deepwater Horizon. After the case was won we still testified in from of Congress and told them it would happen again, that BP still hadn't learned their lesson. We turned over the key documents to Eric Holder and requested probation be revoked after Deepwater, they were let off probation early instead.

Yea, they shouldn't get paid for all of the hard work, expense, risk. You don't need us. You probably think Stella Liebeck didn't deserve the $900,000 for almost dying and having her labia and clitoris so horribly burned by McDonald's extra hot coffee that allowed them to get twice as much coffee from the same amount of beans and keep it fresher longer. Especially since the Judge lowered the 2 million the jury came up with (one day of Mickey D's coffee sales world-wide) because he thought it was excessive. I mean really, even though they knew they were causing some 2nd and 3rd degree burns every once in awhile, it was making them lots of money. Damn trial lawyers, now Mickey D's has to sell coffee at the industry standard temperature! But i am sure you knew that and are ok with that! Socrates was right, kill all of the lawyers, you can do without us. Tell yourself that next time a cop roughs you up and arrests you for trying to stand up for your rights!

[Bickle]

4. Sorry

I could have had the trial over and dine with within thirty days of the incident

You simply hand both sides a maximum, low budget they are allowed to spend. In this case, it was the standard hippie bashing cops love to do. Pretty open and shut

[Dustlawyer]

5. Too bad it doesn't work that way. I have been watching people and businesses struggling and

going under waiting for Justice in the BP a Deepwater case. They have to sit and watch the phony BP propaganda commercials everyday for over 4 years telling everyone everything is just GREAT down on the Gulf Coast! They now watch as BP claims to be a victim of the Agreement they drafted because a few phony claims get by with the system they set up. The media will not report that this ABUSIVE Agreement denies 10's of thousands of valid claims because they did not financially recover in 2011 to fit the arbitrary formula for recovery. They also fail to mention the $600,000,000 reasons they gave the Judge's friends that were appointed on the Plaintiff's Steering Committee if the Class Settlement goes through to completion. Now most of the claims are locked in the Class Settlement and approximately 75% are being denied. Oh and by the way, the few that were paid under the old formula, BP is coming after them for their money back! The victims that opted out of the Class Settlement have to wait until it is over before they are allowed to even BEGIN their litigation because..., well because of no particular reason given by the Judge at all.

It is not your fault that you didn't know what we go through to seek justice for our clients. The media always portray us as the bad guys, Ambulance Chasers and what not. I am not putting us all up for sainthood for sure, we have our fair share of greedy assholes, like the PSC in the Deepwater case. But there are hundreds of Erin Brockovich's and attorneys such as the ones you see in the movies like "Class Action." Do they want to make money, sure, but they also want to make a difference. Look up Barry Scheck and The Innocence Project for another example. Want to help, next time they come screaming for more tort reform tell them to shove it up their corporate ass! Thanks!

[Bickle]

8. I know what you go through

And it's a tremendous waste/stacked deck. I'm proposing it be fixed

[Ash_F]

6. I don't think it was the plaintiffs' attorneys that dragged this one out. /nt

[Bickle]

7. It's our extremely wasteful system

N/t

[reddread]

10. pertinent question

were you there?

[Bickle]

11. Was I

Where for what? The beating? The trial?

[reddread]

13. I guess thats an answer-"the beating?" I salute your command of the facts

2004 RNC
exactly what do you think you know about what happened?
Im sorry to appear interested in such reactionary fiction.

[Bickle]

14. At the sight? No. In town actually doing things! Yes

My point is that trials are needlessly long. That justice can be found quickly

[reddread]

15. must have been awfully busy ever since

not to know what happened.
you werent sitting in a police bus, paddywagon, riding a scooter, horse, bicycle or doing undercover work, were you?
I mean really, "the beating?" is a fairly plausible response. It just doesnt apply to this particular issue.
what does apply, in case you're hungry for facts, is that people were following directions and arrested for doing so.
then, they were detained in toxic makeshift prisons well past due process, for reasons that civilized "freedom loving"
countries would not consider appropriate.
Nicely enough, the RNC was able to arrange all this and dump the risk on the taxpayer.
These settlements are a joke.
If I had managed to be arrested (and it would have probably been for verbally abusing police and public drunkeness around hour 37)
the way those people were, I would still be fighting for proper recompense.
what price freedom?
what cost injustice?

[Bickle]

16. I am well aware of protest suppression

And what theybdomafterwarss n

Seriously. What does that apply to the fact that the trial and ounishment of those police could have been done within days?

And no, I'm not stupid mini ugh to get arrested doing protest actions that the people you're protesting against don't care about, and laugh at you

I was beating them. Drunken Republicsns like to start fights, and they're really bad at it when they do. A conservative only learns through fear and pain. Do you know what you can get a Republicsn to say when you're pulling on their nostrils? I Wish there had been smartphones back then, it'd be youtube gold.

[reddread]

17. :)

how effective.
Im sure theres no guiding you to the light.
I will insist that 800,000++++++++ people marching in opposition to what we were handed by our overlords
meant more than another act of violence, youtube video or not.
Pretty sure you SHOULD have been arrested, as surely as those people should not have.
The most shocking moment for me, was marching in one of the events, and having a woman on a sidewalk say
that she recognized me. Having borrowed Peace Fresno t-shirts to flaunt during the event, I assumed she meant
that she knew the shirt, and pointed at it quizzically. In fact, she did know my face, as she had spent untold hours
editing the film.
I wish I could have spoken at length with her about her experience.
But then again, all of that was for nothing.
I could have just grabbed a Republican by the nostrils, and called it good.

[Bickle]

18. 100,000 people marched I. North Carolina

Got zero coverage

Had they stormed the building, hauled out the criminals and beat them, that would have gotten coverage. And the perpetrators would have gotten some form of punishment, instead of massive bribes and lavish parties for their Koch sucking.

They started the fights. They get arrested you moron. Usually they're too drunk and embarrassed to even call a cop. They're also usually to drunk to necessitate more than self defense level techniques. Restraining them can be very very painful if you do it right. And leave hardly any marks to boot.

The lack of consequences is a large part if why they feel so free to abusepeople. If Ted Cruz knew that for the lies he tells, he would be taken to the national mall and flogged. I guarantee you he wouldn't do it. If Rand Paul was legally responsible FORVTHE votes he makes, how many of his abusive ones would he make? Nowhere near as many. They'd be much more careful.

A conservative only understands fear and pain. Beatings provide both, not just to them, but to their fellows. Tell you what. Let's get three volunteer hardcore conservatives. You reason with one, I'll beat the other, and the third is a control. First one to get them to agree that Bush stoke both elections wins. And when you lose, I'll get to beat you to show you first hand hw effective it is, and you'll advocate beating as the most effective solution and in the unlikely event I lose, I'll march in one of your stupid parades.

Are you that certain that true willing to take it up? Your righteous feel good idiocy is why liberals lose. Meanwhile conservatives strap on the jackboots and get it done. All I seek is to punish them for their crimes. And if they take a swing at me, I have, and will continue to teach them a lesson

[reddread]

19. wtfever

violence has always been such an awesome solution to the need for more violence.
other than that, it is the only real problem.
a little more hate and we'll be just fine.
i have no doubt lessons are wasted on people like you.
feel free to mistake me for a pacifist, anytime.
whats truly stupid is people thinking that the media would cover important things accurately.
thats a full on fail from the get go.
on the other hand, those fascists at C-SPAN covered the main march thoroughly, even my sign was visible.
Thats all the time I have to waste on you.
farewell, slugger.

[Bickle]

20. Ah typical

When challenged to put up it shut up, you run

This is why we lose

And your signs were so effective too. The Republicans sure quaked in their boots, and the Dems were inspired to fight!

Oh wait, they blatantly stoke another election,and the Dems cowered even with a supermajority and the presidency 4 years later. Not a single criminal has served a day other than a token wall streetcar
Were even more screwed than when Obama took office

Those 1% were terrified liberals has learned during Occupy, which I was also at, then they realized people like you were too busy building puppets and banging drums to actually do something, and say, rush Goldman Sachs, haul the board out into the street and do a public trial that the Obama administration refused to.

Good job!

Now let's try my way, since after fifteen years of losing ground, continuing your way is the definition of insanity. My way addresses the problems at their root. Violence DOES solve your problems, ask any bully. Once you sock them in the nose they stop, especially after you give them something to remind them to win all the next times. Instead you put on a clown show, and they laugh and eat popcorn while you get pepper sprayed and paddy wagoned. I'll be breaking their teeth and making them sorry they were ever born.

[reddread]

21. wanna be terrorist

you use a flashlight? matches have to be risky.

[reddread]

26. interesting results

On Fri Jul 4, 2014, 03:01 PM you sent an alert on the following post:

Coward
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=839747

REASON FOR ALERT

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.

YOUR COMMENTS

what more needs to be said? PPR this maniac.

JURY RESULTS

A randomly-selected Jury of DU members completed their review of this alert at Fri Jul 4, 2014, 03:14 PM, and voted 5-2 to HIDE IT.

Juror #1 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: Personal attacks and threatening to beat some sense into another DUer are not ok. Send this to MIRT
Juror #2 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: This is noxious stuff. Should never be seen on DU.
MIRT stuff
Juror #4 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #5 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #7 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given

Thank you.

[Dustlawyer]

12. There is a lot of waste for sure, but also we have to have safe guards (as much as you can)

to do discovery to find what they try to hide, but also protect from abuse of the process. Imperfect for sure, and now that things are so polarized politically, you have Judges screwing one side or the other. I don't need to tell you which side is getting the short end of the stick these days, especially in the South. We have so many activist Republican Judges down here who view all Plaintiffs as "Takers!"

[Ash_F]

24. Having been through the system, I can somewhat agree.

Especially when the other side does not want to cooperate, lies and deceives at every step of the process.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

9. Righteous rant!

[rocktivity]

23. Lawyers getting a third is the low end of the standard range

Depending on where you live (though some states have a cap), it can go as high as forty-five percent.

These four will end up with about $30k each, whereas the 1800 got about $6K each.


rocktivity

[tabasco]

22. Victory!

I want more.