LOS ANGELES - The ACLU of Southern California today filed a lawsuit supporting protesters' right to gather and engage in free speech such as marching, passing out leaflets, and holding vigils near the Staples Center during the Democratic National Convention. The lawsuit challenges a plan developed by the Los Angeles Police Department that blocks groups from using a huge swath of public property around the Center, preventing them from communicating to their target audience -- convention delegates and public officials in attendance. Plaintiffs in the case include the Service Employees International Union, Local 660; the Los Angeles Coalition to Stop the Execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the D2K Convention Planning Coalition, all of whom plan peaceful protests near the convention site.

"The selection of a Presidential candidate is a critical focal point in our democratic process," said Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California, "a time when we should be encouraging speech, not putting it in a straight-jacket. Free speech strengthens our democracy, and it's a right our Constitution guarantees us."

"Basic constitutional rights cannot be put on ice simply because a political convention is in town," said ACLU of Southern California staff attorney Dan Tokaji, "The plan developed by the Los Angeles Police Department would place all protesters in a parking lot far away from the Staples Center, with sequentially scheduled protests arranged by permit only. The huge buffer around the Center stretches from Venice Boulevard on the South, to Olympic Boulevard on the North, and from the 110 Freeway on the West to Flower Street on the East. This, in essence, creates a no-speech zone around the convention."

"I'll leave to philosophers the question of whether trees that fall in the wilderness really make a sound," said Ripston, "but I know this: you're not engaged in free speech if you're only allowed to talk in a distant parking lot. The proposal put forward by the Los Angeles Police Department is absurd: it treats public speech as an empty ritual unconnected to an audience. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose and nature of free speech."

The Republican National Convention, which will take place this year in Philadelphia, has also stirred controversy between free speech proponents and city and convention officials. In Philadelphia, officials granted an "omnibus permit" to the RNC, effectively offering first dibs over all public sites to convention planners. The ACLU of Pennsylvania successfully challenged that permitting scheme.

"It is the duty of the ACLU to ensure that the First Amendment has meaning and substance," said Ripston. "In the case of political conventions, this earns us the disapproval of both parties. In our opinion, the parties should welcome the lively public engagement of political protests - it might help more people understand the parties' principles and get connected to a political process that seems increasingly detached from people's everyday lives."

"This is a very clear legal case with clear precedents," said Tokaji. "In 1996, for instance, the Republican National Committee tried to have a free speech zone moved from an area next to the Convention site to one where demonstrators would be out of sight and earshot. That effort was successfully blocked in federal court."

Attorney Carol Sobel, co-counsel in the case, noted that the city has long been on notice that various aspects of its own permitting scheme for protests are unconstitutional, but has failed to act.

"The City of Los Angeles was put on notice over fifteen years ago that its permit-granting scheme was unconstitutional, but it's still on the books," said Sobel. "This city needs to understand that its regulations don't trump the U.S. Constitution."

Tokaji explained that the use of Pershing Square as a staging area, a possibility raised by City Councilmember Jackie Goldberg in an amendment to the Council's funding motion, doesn't address the central concern of protesters, which is to communicate to delegates and public officials at the convention site.

The ACLU of Southern California is joined by Carol Sobel, Esq.; Robert Myers, of Newman. Aronson. Vanaman., and law professor Karl Manheim of Loyola Law School in filing the lawsuit.

LOS ANGELES - The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California applauded the U.S. Supreme Court's dual affirmation of suspects' Miranda rights today. In Dickerson, Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote for the majority that law enforcement officers must warn criminal suspects of their rights under the landmark 1966 Miranda decision, including their right to remain silent. In California Attorneys for Criminal Justice (CACJ) v. Butts, a case filed by the ACLU of Southern California against the Los Angeles and Santa Monica Police Departments, the Supreme court refused to hear the appeal pressed by the cities, letting stand a ruling by a federal court in Los Angeles that police interrogation after a suspect has requested an attorney or invoked his or her right to remain silent violates a person's rights under Miranda.

In CACJ v. Butts, the ACLU of Southern California filed suit on behalf of two men who had repeatedly requested the assistance of an attorney. In both cases, police officers continued their interrogation, assuring the men that whatever they said would not be used against them. In fact, their subsequent statements were used in court.

"When a suspect invokes his or her right to remain silent," said Mark Rosenbaum, Legal Director of the ACLU of Southern California, "the police must then remain silent, too. In denying certiorari in the Butts case and in ruling as it did in Dickerson, the Supreme Court has affirmed that Miranda has become as much a part of American culture as apple pie and baseball. The position of the Los Angeles and Santa Monica Police Departments that they could deliberately ignore Miranda at will is known to be false to any viewer of a T.V. cop drama."

"Here in Southern California we're seeing what happens when police aren't given clear guidelines and held to them scrupulously," said Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California. "Those basic guidelines were preserved today by the Supreme Court."

LOS ANGELES - Civil rights groups that are part of the landmark Williams v. State of California education case announced that they have established a statewide toll-free hotline (1-877-53-CAL-ED or 1-877-532-2533) for parents, teachers, and students whose schools have failed to offer the bare minimum conditions for successful learning, conditions ranging from a lack of textbooks, to untrained teachers, to filthy, run-down buildings.

"When we filed this lawsuit and the parents, students, and teachers of California heard that someone was listening to their complaints, we were overwhelmed with calls," said Peter Eliasberg, staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California. "This hotline is a response to a real need to be heard. There's a sense of frustration and pent-up anger about the condition of schools in less privileged communities in this state."

Hector Villagra, staff attorney at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) said that until this lawsuit was filed, pleas for change from parents, students, and teachers had fallen on deaf ears.

"Families and teachers in all communities -- including immigrant and economically struggling communities -- understand the fundamental importance of educational opportunity to their future economic mobility and success," said Villagra. "They're tired of being ignored and this case and hotline are trying to address their needs."

Estrellita Castille, an Inglewood resident and parent of one of the plaintiffs in the case, said that she brought her concerns to the school's attention, but they were either minimized or ignored.

"This year, one of my son's substitute teachers fell asleep in class and left the children unsupervised," said Castille. "This is what's passing for instruction in the State of California. I expressed my concern in writing but never heard back, until I sent a letter by certified mail. The school finally called back, but all they had to say was that they received my letter. We should not have to send our letters by certified mail. We should not have to join a lawsuit in order to be heard."

The ad to launch the hotline will run in 25 newspapers throughout the state. The campaign is the first bilingual, statewide, urban and rural public education campaign seeking to elicit the truth from parents, teachers, and students about the state of their schools.