Law Clinic Forced To Drop Police Records Lawsuit, Citing Conflict Of Interest Because… It’s Also Subject To Public Records Laws
from the weird-non-flex dept
None of this makes sense. At least, not when you attempt to reconcile what’s being said with the university’s actions. It makes more sense later. But we’ll get to that in a moment.
A non-profit called the Atlanta Police Foundation, which claims to be interested in building a better relationship between Atlanta’s police and the people they police, decided to go the other direction recently by coughing up more than $100 million for a new law enforcement training center.
The planned center soon acquired a less-than-flattering nickname: “Cop City.”
This proposal was greeted with plenty of civil and not-so-civil opposition:
On March 5, 2023, protesters threw large rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails, and fireworks at police officers, and destroyed various construction vehicles.[4][2] Hours later, police raided the nearby South River Music Festival and detained 35 people, alleging that vandals had hidden in the crowd.[18] Twenty-three people were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism, although arrest warrants did not present evidence of violence or property damage.[18] Of the arrestees, one was from France, one was from Canada, and two were residents of the state of Georgia.[2][16][19] Only one of the 23 arrestees was offered bond: a lawyer for the Southern Poverty Law Center, who had only been there for observation and because of this was freed on a $5,000 bond.[20]
By May, prosecutors had charged more than 40 protesters with domestic terrorism,[21] a move that Human Rights Watch called an “attempt to smear protesters as national security threats”.[22]
At a May 2023 public meeting, Atlanta City Council members faced record-setting public opposition to a vote providing $31 million for the Cop City project. At the time, the project had received $60 million of corporate funding and was several months delayed.[23] On May 31, a SWAT team arrested three organizers of a bail fund that had supported protesters with bail and legal defense. Those arrested were charged with money laundering and charity fraud.[24][25] That same month, developers finished clearing the site of all existing vegetation and debris in preparation for construction.[26]
Kind of a mess. In between all the highlights, there’s the reality. A non-profit decided it would (partially) fund a training center for cops on abandoned land (that once contained a prison). Residents were far less keen on this idea. One of the members of the anti-“Police City” group was shot and killed by Atlanta cops (a recently fired weapon allegedly carried by the man was found at the scene). Lots of protesters were arrested, possibly on trumped up charges. Some people claiming to be supportive of protesters were arrested on fraud charges.
The whole thing is a mess, and it’s still pretty messy. That would explain the public interest in police records detailing anything about “Cop City,” the PD’s relationship with the Atlanta Police Foundation, the city’s communications with both of the previously listed entities, the PD’s interest in anti-Cop City protesters, as well as anything related to its protest policing tactics, the shooting of one of the protesters, the claims that multiple protesters were engaged in “domestic terrorism,” and the investigation/arrests of those charged with money laundering and fraud.
It just makes sense that the University of Georgia’s law school would be somehow involved in all of this. Its First Amendment law clinic sought a bunch of police records related to “Cop City.” As is almost always the case when it comes to public records requests, the law clinic is now involved in litigation seeking to force other government agencies to relinquish requested documents.
What doesn’t make sense is the university pulling the plug on this specific portion of the law clinic’s work. Neither does the excuse it made for this narrowly targeted shut down of important public records efforts. Here’s Timothy Pratt, reporting for The Guardian:
Dean Peter B “Bo” Rutledge gave the order to clinic director Clare R Norins within weeks of the clinic’s February announcement that one of its attorneys would be representing the digital news outlet Atlanta Community Press Collective, or ACPC, and the Chicago-based digital transparency research organization Lucy Parsons Labs in a lawsuit against the police foundation. Both groups filed the suit after making numerous queries to the organization under Georgia’s open records act, only to be ignored.
Ed Vogel, a researcher at Lucy Parsons Labs and a plaintiff, called the timing of the decision “alarming”, adding that Rutledge “has a responsibility to be completely transparent about why it was made”.
It’s a completely justifiable question. Why would a university that had previously given the law school and law clinic free rein to request records and litigate if necessary suddenly decide this was no longer acceptable? The plaintiff is correct: the university had an obligation to be “completely transparent” about this sudden change of course.
Unfortunately, this ain’t it. And it appears Dean Rutledge put law clinic director Clare Norins in the unenviable position of doing the dean’s dirty work for him:
Norins told plaintiffs in a 5 April Microsoft Teams meeting that the law school clinic was stopping all open records work because the school itself “is subject to open records requests, thus creating a conflict of interest”, said Matt Scott, an editor at the ACPC.
That’s not a conflict of interest. The university retains its own counsel, rather than using law clinic legal reps, during public records litigation. Even if Clare Norins was doing double duty, it still wouldn’t be conflict of interest because one set of litigation was being pursued against an outside government agency and any litigation rising out of the school’s refusal to hand over requested records would be defensive and obviously would not involve the same party (the Atlanta PD) the law clinic legal rep was engaged in litigation against.
This explanation is bullshit. And that’s made extremely clear by additional reporting by The Guardian’s Pratt:
The police foundation’s attorney in the lawsuit is Harold Melton, a former Georgia supreme court chief justice who graduated from UGA and now teaches at the school.
There’s your conflict of interest. If anyone should be commanded to step back, it should be the professor who’s currently defending the non-profit, rather than the school, in litigation brought by the school against the foundation. If anyone’s conflicted, it’s this guy. And his efforts run contrary to the overriding concern: the public interest. He’s trying to keep records out of the public’s hand, all while collecting a taxpayer-funded paycheck from the school while doing double-duty as a (presumably paid) legal rep for the Police Foundation.
This further statement — this time made by the dean himself — doesn’t offer any more clarification.
Rutledge later sent the Guardian a statement asserting that the move was “part of ongoing efforts to align the First Amendment Clinic’s activities more closely with the institution’s educational mission”.
That makes no sense. Part of educating potential lawyers about the First Amendment is engaging them in activities that involve the First Amendment, like public records requests and their ensuing lawsuits. Telling them to stop doing this sort of thing perhaps more “closely aligns” the law school’s First Amendment clinic with the University of Georgia’s “educational mission,” but only if the “mission” involves less “education” and more implicit instruction on the ins and outs of the good ol’ boy system.
Filed Under: 1st amendment, conflict of interest, cop city, peter rutledge, public records
Companies: atlanta police foundation, lucy parsons labs, university of georgia
Comments on “Law Clinic Forced To Drop Police Records Lawsuit, Citing Conflict Of Interest Because… It’s Also Subject To Public Records Laws”
So UGA said “We can’t do this because we too can be made to show our records if someone requested just like the charity”
Wouldn’t that mean that the courts would also be in a conflict of interest? The department that supplied the paper to print up the required information? I call bologna on them. I would start a request asking for every document of every project the school has been involved with over the past 10 years. If they are SO afraid with the fact they don’t want to expose their information..
Not to get all conspiratorial, but the obvious conflict of interest here would be if the university has something they want to keep buried. Something much bigger than a professor, like a death cult or something – it would have to be, to cause them to take such a drastic and public move.
Of course, that would presume competence on the part of the university administration, which I’d need a big [citation needed] for.
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I’m sure they have a Federalist Society presence.
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That’s still not a conflict of interest, in the legal, recuse-yourself sense.
i don’t think there’s any possible way to have a conflict of interest, especially for an entire institution, but at all, really, in filing or litigating for open records requests.
Seems like the conflict of interest here is that the dean is a lover of raping, murdering cops.
AS for their supposed conflict of interest it’s basically “we have to follow the law and they have to follow the law” which doesn’t make any fucking sense.
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The law says whatever those in power want it to say.
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Although this an@rchist author is convinced otherwise, there’s no public-interest in a civilized society* in pestering the government for records as part of a communist-funded campaign of anti-police hate-mongering.
[*i.e., one in which future scholars don’t terrorize good White families and prey upon each other]
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A civilized society absolutely does have a reason to “pester[] the government for records”: accountability. You’re heavily implying that a “civilized” society is one that lets police run rampant all over the civil rights of all but the most powerful and wealthy citizens—and without any oversight, civilian or governmental, to get in the way of those rights violations. But a society in which police are unaccountable for their actions isn’t a civilized society—it’s a fascist nation-state where you think you’re on the right side of the sword even as it hangs above your head.
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Stone, please see my request below re. addressing the threat to U.S. civil society posed by a deranged, multimillionaire communist who supports Hamas and Putin directly funding chaos and lawlessness in Atlanta.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
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Did you get the CIA’s computer chips out your teeth yet, George?
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Pray you don’t get the lawlessness you’re hoping for, Nazi.
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The irony of suggesting that life under an authoritarian regime would be more dangerous for good citizens than it would be for criminals and communists* [*who are also obviously criminals] 🙄
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In an authoritarian regime, anyone can be labelled a “criminal” or an enemy of the state. If the regime wants you dead, it will apply such labels to you as a way to justify killing you—because no matter how much you support fascism, you’re always one mistake away from being eaten by the ouroboros.
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Re: Re: Re:2
Sounds like a fantastic way to dissuade criminality and encourage das Volk to follow the law and support die Nation instead of actively seeking to undermine it.
Re: Re: Re:3
Your performative Nazism is getting stale. You got anything less boring, or is this all you’re going to do?
Re: Re: Re:4
You see the same legislation I do getting pushed. You see a number of the same judgements.
You know damned well their Nazism is not performative.
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Re: Re: Re:5
Thank you!!
Re: Re: Re:6
No. Thank you. I appreciate your efforts to ensure that the liberals don’t care what happens to you.
Re: Re: Re:2 'Of course I support the leopards, I've been assured they'll never eat MY face!'
you’re always one mistake away from being eaten by the ouroboros.
Oh it’s even better/worse than that because any system that’s built upon manipulating the populace by always having an Other to blame all it’s woes on will always need more enemies when the current one isn’t working as well so even a staunch supporter of a fascist government can still find themselves in the crosshairs, all they need to do is have the poor luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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You want a society where the only law is “don’t get caught.” In a country with more guns than people.
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Without even addressing the usual baity-claimy of your verbiage: Says you.
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(And this is directed to Stone, too) Please address the issue of a communist multimillionaire directly funding chaos, criminality and civil unrest in Atlanta, as described earlier this year in Mother Jones, for example:
Is this who you ally yourself with? Are these the politics [of hate, anti-Semitism, rape and mass-murder] that you support? You think this Hamas-supporter and Putin-lover isn’t a threat to U.S. civil society?
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🥱
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I know your autism makes it difficult for you to address subjects that make you uncomfortable, Stone, but please explain your indirect support for Hamas rapists and Ukraine invaders.
Re: Re: Re:3
💩
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Re: Re: Re:4
Your cowardice is noted, Stone.
Re: Re: Re:5
🙃
Re: Re: Re:5
Says a dude who needs the government to protect him from imaginary fears.
Re: Re: Re:5
Well you tried… sort of
Re: Re: Re:3
Yep. Just do everything you can to make the liberals look away from your direction.
Re: Re: Re:4
I read an article in Politico on the guy that wasn’t looking good. Some of the foreign policy stuff is especially whacky. I’d never heard of the guy before. Also I have no reason to doubt the comments troll is likely full of shit.
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Fergie Chambers certainly appears to be quite the piece of work. I would not want to associate with him. Being in support of communism (not Stalinist communism or modern Chinese “communism” but like building-a-commune-and-actually-going-for-ideal-communism communism, and yes, he’s actually building a commune), Putin, and Hamas is a rather odd combination, but the main thread of commonality appears to be opposition to democratic governments (Israel, Ukraine, and the U.S. in particular).
That said, it’s anyone’s guess whether his interests are actually aligned with the protestors or if he just funds bail for protestors against anything the government is doing, regardless of how violent they are or what specific message their protest is about.
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You need to address the issue of why you’re such a bitch.
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I don’t see the relevance. At all. Even assuming your accusations against Chambers are true and there is no context that would make any material difference, none of this proves anything about the protestors.
Whatever Chambers’s reasons may be, that doesn’t mean anything he funds is automatically problematic, particularly regarding bail for protestors.
Like, he’s supposedly a self-proclaimed far-left communist like Mao (Zedong, I presume), but he’s also supportive of Putin and Hamas, both of whom are politically on the far right. Based on the other descriptors used, he seems to be someone who never grew out of the “rebellious teen” phase and just wants to defy anything mainstream.
Though, really, you probably should have quoted somewhere where it maybe explained why he funded the protestors and/or what the protestors thought of it.
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So you are pro dictatorship then..
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I’m pro law & order and anti-communist.
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Difference without a distinction.
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You’re a bitch looking for a government daddy is what you are.
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You’re a helpless sugar baby looking for a government daddy.
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Re: Re: Re:2
You’re a fucking dork.
Re: Re: Re:3
Shush, sweetheart. You know you like it.
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Aren’t you Trumpers supposed to be for less government, not more?
Well done refuting that whole ACAB thing...
twenty-three people were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism, although arrest warrants did not present evidence of violence or property damage.
…
By May, prosecutors had charged more than 40 protesters with domestic terrorism, a move that Human Rights Watch called an “attempt to smear protesters as national security threats”
…
At a May 2023 public meeting, Atlanta City Council members faced record-setting public opposition to a vote providing $31 million for the Cop City project. At the time, the project had received $60 million of corporate funding and was several months delayed.
…
On May 31, a SWAT team arrested three organizers of a bail fund that had supported protesters with bail and legal defense. Those arrested were charged with money laundering and charity fraud.
Well gee, with behavior like that on behalf of law enforcement it just boggles the mind why the public might not be too pleased with them or the idea of dumping tens of millions of city funds into a goon training center…
“Sprinkle some crack on him.”
$100 million for a building that only ACTUALLY cost $20 million to build in total….
Where did the other $80mil go? straight into politicians, university staff and cop pockets…..
Nice weasel words, hoss. You subversively supporting the police in their violation of people’s rights is the real reality here.