Saturday, July 07, 2007

Just Holding A Sign



DEBBY HANRAHAN WINS SETTLEMENT IN FIRST AMENDMENT-FALSE ARREST


LAWSUIT AGAINST AMTRAK; $35,000 TO GO TO LAWYERS GUILD, C.O. GROUP
June 5, 2007

Long-time D.C. Statehood Green Party activist Debby Hanrahan has won a settlement in her First Amendment-false arrest lawsuit against Amtrak (The National Railroad Passenger Corp.) and has directed that almost all of the settlement proceeds other than lawyers' fees and her expenses go to two local civil liberties organizations. The two organizations will receive a total of $35,000.
Hanrahan, 68, a leading participant in the No DC Taxes for Baseball coalition which opposed public financing of a new baseball stadium, was arrested without any warning by Amtrak police in the Grand Concourse in Washington, D.C.'s Union Station on November 22, 2004 during a public rally promoting the naming of the Washington Nationals baseball team. For quietly holding a poster opposing public financing, she was charged with unlawful entry and jailed for 28 hours before her release on her own recognizance after a court appearance.
Hanrahan said that a portion of the settlement will go for fees incurred by the law firm of veteran civil liberties attorney James Klimaski. Klimaski's firm took the case on a pro bono basis and spent hundreds of hours in legal work before Klimaski negotiated the settlement with Amtrak earlier this month. The suit was filed in 2005 in D.C. Superior Court, after Hanrahan's criminal attorney, Paul J. Riley, successfully got the criminal charge dropped in January 2005.
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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous07 July, 2007

    Hooray for those who refuse to be bullied by those that use their power of authority outside of the law!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous14 July, 2007

    Just sellin' art. . .

    Bet some of the Art in the Market artists are in for the same kind of windfall from the city of St Augustine...
    Watch out, You may be ticketing the wrong people, for the wrong reason!!

    ReplyDelete