Watchful Attorneys Protect Individual Rights at Occupy Wall Street
The AmLawDaily posted an article last week about the watchful attorneys protecting individual rights at the Occupy Wall Street protest.
About 200 National Lawyers’ Guild members volunteered their time to monitor interactions between the police and protestors, collect information when anyone was arrested, and provide protestors with general advice.
The guild’s mission, says Gideon Oliver, a solo practitioner and member of the executive committee of the group’s New York City chapter, is to ensure that demonstrators are able to exercise their First Amendment rights.
Guild observers attempt to identify everyone who is arrested, record the arresting officer’s badge number, and obtain contact information for potential witnesses. Following those steps makes it easier to coordinate jail support services and legal representation, says Jane Moison, a guild member and associate at criminal defense and civil rights firm Rankin & Taylor.
The observers’ presence is especially important, Oliver says, when police make arrests in bunches.
“When arrests happen on a large scale, you need to get the names of people arrested to make sure they get through the system and out of police custody,” he says. And when tensions flare between police and protesters, the presence of guild observers provides a cooling effect, adds Martin Stolar, a New York City solo practitioner and former guild president: “Once protesters and police see the green hats, they know someone’s watching.”
I wonder if there are Guild members watching the Occupy protests in other locations too. Anyone know?