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Listed below is only a brief synopsis of some of the thousands of insightful articles published in Verdict magazine. To read the full articles, contact NCCLP. You can also join as a member, volunteer, become a subscriber or participate in a myriad of other ways to help advance our cause.
Guardians of Gideon Disarmed and Union Busting in the 90’s
By Michael Z. Letwin, Esq.,
January 2001 and part II April 2001
The Supreme Court’s 1963 decision in Gideon v. Wainwright spawned not only public defenders’ offices throughout the nation but the first union of attorneys. The President of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, Local 2325, UAW, presents the over 30-year-history of the struggle of defense attorneys employed by New York City’s Legal Aid Society to organize themselves; describing their goals, their tactics and the opposition they have encountered in their quest to improve both their wages and conditions of work and the fate of their clients. The union struck in 1994. Broken by New York City Mayor Rudoph Giuliani through a combination of union-busting tactics such as threatening blacklisting of the strikers, hiring strike breakers, layoffs and cutting funds, the strike and its aftermath was a blow to the overburdened and underfunded attorneys and the constitutional rights of their clients.
The Crime of Poverty
By Carl C. Holmes, Esq.
July 1999
The author, chosen as Public Defender of the Year by the California Public Defenders’ Association, challenges the bar. Will we continue with our delirium for punishment as we lock more and more of the poor away to labor for pennies an hour, and sacrifice the Constitution to do it, or will we attack poverty itself?
Apartheid: American Style — The Battle For the Soul of Black Mesa
By Marsha Monestersky
July 1999
South Africa’s notorious group Areas Act enforced tribal and racial homelands and forcibly relocated millions of black South Africans, shocking many Americans. But few of us realize that similar policies here in the United States have resulted in massive relocation of the Dineh (Navajo) Indians from their homes in the Black Mesa region of northern Arizona. Three thousand more stand to be forcibly relocated in February 2000 – for the benefit of mining interests – unless action is taken now.