Partnership for Civil Justice

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund is a nonprofit progressive legal organization based in Washington DC and founded in 1994 by Carl Messineo and Mara Verheyden-Hilliard. The organization focuses on cases regarding free speech and dissent, domestic spying and surveillance, police misconduct, government transparency, and educating the public about their rights. In the "Founders Message," the organization states, "As we look to the future, the Partnership will continue to be at the forefront of legal struggle, using the law to defend and create room for the peoples' movement for progressive social change."[1]

In a 2003 feature article, the Washington Post called the organization "the constitutional sheriffs for a new protest generation".[2]

In 2010, the PCJF won a "truly historic settlement" and wrote in an article that "U.S. Federal Judge Emmet G. Sullivan issued final approval to an $8.25 million class action settlement of an eight-year-long and hard-fought litigation battle over the mass arrests of nearly 400 people in Pershing Park in Washington, D.C., in September 2002. Judge Sullivan stated, 'By all accounts, this has been a long and historic journey and this can only be viewed as a truly historic settlement.'"[3]

In June 2012, Judge Jed Rakoff ruled that roughly 700 Occupy Wall Street protesters represented by attorneys at the PCJF could proceed with a class action lawsuit regarding their arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1, 2011.[4]

See also

References

  1. , Partnership for Civil Justice Fund
  2. Montgomery, David (2003-05-12) Stirring a Cause, Washington Post
  3. , Partnership for Civil Justice Fund
  4. Tim Phillips, "New York Judge Allows Mass Arrest Lawsuit Against Police to Proceed", Activist Defense, June 16, 2012.

External links


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