This afternoon, United States District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan will hold a hearing in the Chang litigation over the mass arrests during the World Bank/IMF protests. The hearing was called to specifically explore the possible sanctions to be imposed against the District of Columbia and the status of the Special Master’s investigation and litigation. Since I am co-lead counsel with my colleague Daniel Schwartz of Bryan Cave, I have been circumspect in any public comments in the case. However, to reduce calls to my office, we have been posting the relevant information and filings for hearings in the case. The hearing will be held at 11:30am in courtroom 24A on Tuesday, May 20, 2014 at the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C.
Twelve years ago, a mixed force of District and federal officers engaged in a mass arrest of people trapped in the area of Freedom Plaza and Pershing Park. We were the first case to challenge the mass “trap and arrest” tactic that was used to arrest hundreds of people without warning, including our clients who were student journalists and observers. Years ago, the Court took the rare move of appointing Special Master John M. Facciola, United States Magistrate Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to investigate the disappearance or alleged tampering of evidence in the case from video tapes to audio tapes to documents.
The subject of the hearing was laid out in the prior order of the court:
The parties shall file, by no later than May 14, 2014, status reports and recommendations regarding: 1) the underlying merits of the case, and what remains to litigate in terms of liability and damages; 2) remedies for the underlying arrests, as well as for alleged discovery violations; 3) the extent of the District’s financial responsibility for plaintiffs’ discovery costs, and for proceedings before the Special Master; 4) the continuation, or conclusion, of proceedings before the Special Master; and 5) settlement.
Below is our filing as requested by the Court on the various issues to be explored at the hearing.
Have a crowd of students show up with black armbands. Tinker!
wow – actual destruction of evidence and bad faith by state in a federal case!
Who’d have thunk!
It isn’t fun when everyone doesn’t play by the rules. It must be very frustrating.
Paul Schulte
I know I am being really ignorant about all this, but where does this all go after the special master?
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The Conclusions of Law portion, whether the Special Master should do all or part of them, or whether the Court should, is being considered.
The Chang Plaintiffs urge that the Special Master do them since he is very aware of the physical evidence and testimonial evidence.
I think the Chang Plaintiffs have it right, that is, that the Special Master should do the proposed conclusions of law, seeing as how the findings of fact were so determined.
Then the court can hear any objections, and render a final decision.
The behavior of the district is practically unheard of and should be used as an example of local government gone wild.
With major sanctions against the defendants.
Good luck.
So glad you have Judge Sullivan. He knows what a discovery abuse looks like and how to deal with them!
I know I am being really ignorant about all this, but where does this all go after the special master?
Best of luck – keep us posted. I think the Supreme Court is starting to tire of seeing more and more police abuse cases. They do read the newspapers.
“From the start, discovery in this case has been plagued by the District’s repeated and continuing violations of the Federal Rules – from the loss or destruction of evidence to clearly unethical and potentially criminal false or misleading statements to the Court.” – Brief of Chang Plaintiffs
Now that is a great opening sentence!