April, 07 2011, 12:05pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Will Matthews, ACLU national, (212) 549-2582 or 2666; media@aclu.org
Derek Newton, ACLU of Florida, (786) 363-2737; media@aclufl.org
ACLU Charges High-Speed Florida Foreclosure Courts Deprive Homeowners of Chance to Defend Homes
CAPE CORAL, Fla.
The American Civil Liberties Union today filed a petition in a Florida appellate court charging that the foreclosure court system in Lee County systematically denies homeowners a fair opportunity to defend their homes against foreclosure.
The special "mass foreclosure docket" established in December 2008 operates under rules that differ substantially from those that govern the rest of Lee County's civil cases and was designed to speed through as many foreclosure cases as possible without providing homeowners facing foreclosure a meaningful opportunity to develop their cases or present defenses, according to the petition.
"Operating against the backdrop of well-documented disarray and fraud in mortgage documentation, the shortcuts taken in Lee County courts mean that homeowners may never have a meaningful opportunity to refute faulty evidence supposedly supporting foreclosure,"
said Larry Schwartztol, staff attorney with the ACLU Racial Justice Program. "By elevating speed over accuracy, Lee County subjects homeowners to foreclosure proceedings that violate the due process rights guaranteed by the Constitution."
The petitioner in the ACLU's case, Georgi Merrigan of Cape Coral, FL, is facing foreclosure after leaving her job as a flight and ground paramedic to care full time for her husband, who suffered massive injuries in a catastrophic car accident. Merrigan has every intention of vigorously contesting her foreclosure case. But because Merrigan's case is assigned to the "mass foreclosure docket," the ACLU charges that she cannot get a fair shot at defending her home. The ACLU's petition asks that Merrigan's case be re-assigned to the general civil division so that she will be afforded due process under the Florida and U.S. Constitutions.
"No one should ever have to go to court with the deck already stacked against them," said Howard Simon, Executive Director of the ACLU of Florida. "Nowhere does it say someone is entitled only to the justice we have time for. We can't allow the basic protections of due process to be the victim of judicial shortcuts."
The ACLU's petition is the culmination of a months-long investigation into foreclosure court systems throughout the state of Florida, where media reports have long suggested that the constitutionally-protected due process rights of homeowners have been ignored in a rush to push foreclosure cases through the courts. With one in every 288 housing units in foreclosure, Lee County has the highest percentage of foreclosures in the state of Florida, arguably the epicenter of the nation's foreclosure crisis.
According to the ACLU's petition, officials in Lee County seek to clear the foreclosure court docket as quickly as possible, at the expense of complying with basic procedural rules. Despite explicit instructions from the chief justice of the state supreme court that reducing the backlog of foreclosure cases should not "interfere with a judge's ability to adjudicate each case fairly on its merits," judges move through cases at lightning speed, sometimes seeing as many as 200 cases a day, according to the petition.
"Despite the extremely high stakes for homeowners, procedural violations in the 'mass foreclosure docket' are rampant," said Rachel Goodman, an attorney with the ACLU Racial Justice Program. "Homeowners face systemic handicaps, and banks get a pass in proving their cases because the courts have effectively suspended the rules that give homeowners a chance to review the evidence against them."
About 25 percent of Lee County's population is black or Latino, and government data show that the foreclosure crisis across the country has disproportionately impacted communities of color. According to a recent report by the Center for Responsible Lending, nearly 8 percent of both African Americans and Latinos have lost their homes to foreclosures, as compared to 4.5 percent of whites. Additionally, the indirect losses in wealth that result from foreclosures as a result of depreciation to nearby properties will also disproportionately impact communities of color. The Center for Responsible Lending report estimates that by the end of 2012, the African American and Latino communities will be drained of $194 and $177 billion, respectively, in these indirect "spillover" losses alone.
A copy of the ACLU's petition is available online at: www.aclu.org/racial-justice/aclu-petition-challenging-constitutionality...
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
X Suspends Journalist Ken Klippenstein Over Publication of JD Vance Dossier
"The 'free speech absolutist' has once again silenced a journalist he didn't like," said one observer.
Sep 26, 2024
X—the social media platform formerly known as Twitter—suspended Ken Klippenstein's account Thursday after the investigative journalist posted an article containing a link to a dossier on Republican U.S. vice presidential candidate JD Vance that allegedly came from an Iranian hack of former President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign.
Klippenstein, who formerly worked at The Intercept, said on his paid Substack Thursday that his X account was suspended for violating the platform's ban on posting private information.
"I know that it is general practice to delete 'private' information from leaks and classified documents, but in this case, not only is Vance an elected official and vice presidential candidate, but the information is readily available for anyone to buy," he wrote. Vance is also the junior U.S. senator from Ohio.
Klippenstein continued:
We should be honest about so-called private information contained in the dossier and "private" information in general. It is readily available to anyone who can buy it. The campaign purchased this information from commercial information brokers. Those dealers make huge profits from selling this data. And the media knows it, because they buy the data for reporting purposes, just like the campaign. They don't like to mention that though.
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"If the document had been hacked by some 'Anonymous'-like hacker group, the news media would be all over it," he contended. "I'm just not a believer of the news media as an arm of the government, doing its work combatting foreign influence. Nor should it be a gatekeeper of what the public should know."
Klippenstein shared a general overview of the contents of the dossier, which he described as "a 271-page research paper the Trump campaign prepared to vet" Vance, pulling out select quotes from the document:
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- "Vance criticized public health experts and elected officials for supporting Black Lives Matter protests while condemning anti-lockdown [Covid] protests."
- "Vance 'embraced non-interventionism."
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An X spokesperson toldZeteo's Justin Baragona that "Ken Klippenstein was temporarily suspended for violating our rules on posting unredacted private personal information, specifically Sen. Vance's physical addresses and the majority of his Social Security number."
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating the Trump campaign's claim of an Iranian hack. Iran's government denies any such action.
Numerous observers accused Musk—a self-described "free speech absolutist"—of hypocrisy over X's suspension of Klippenstein's account, although it is not known if the billionaire owner had any role in the decision. Other users also reported punitive action against their accounts over the dossier post.
"I'm old enough to remember when free speech zealot Elon Musk was outraged by Twitter's censorship," journalist Seth Hettena said on X.
Jacobin writer Branko Marcetic posted that "this scenario is actually a good preview of the future none of us want, but that we're heading to currently: A major story breaks, establishment press refuses to cover it, and the indy media that does is throttled by tech censors."
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Florida already has one of the nation's largest shares of homeowners "who don't have meaningful insurance."
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"The Air Force Hurricane Hunters found that the maximum sustained winds have increased to near 120 mph," the National Hurricane Center said Thursday afternoon. "This makes Helene a dangerous Category 3 major hurricane. Additional strengthening is expected before Helene makes landfall in the Florida Big Bend this evening."
Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Deanne Criswell said during a White House briefing that forecasts suggest Helene will make a "dead-on hit to Tallahassee" and "this is going to be a multistate event with the potential for significant impacts from Florida all the way to Tennessee."
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According toThe Palm Beach Post, the global reinsurance broker Gallagher Re said in a Wednesday analysis that "landfall in the Big Bend or Panhandle region of Florida as a major hurricane (Category 3, 4, or 5) has historically translated to insured losses in the low single-digit billions."
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"Imagine once being dubbed 'America's Mayor' and having an illustrious legal and political career, and throwing it all away for Donald Trump," said one observer.
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Former Republican New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani can no longer practice law in the nation's capital after a federal appeals court on Thursday concurred with a disciplinary committee's recommendation for permanent disbarment over his efforts to "undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election" in service of then-President Donald Trump's "Big Lie."
In a one-page ruling, the Washington, D.C. Court of Appeals permanently revoked Giuliani's law license, finding that the former federal prosecutor and personal attorney for Trump failed to explain why he should not be subject to reciprocal punishment after the New York Supreme Court's Appellate Division disbarred him in July for lying about the 2020 election.
The New York tribunal found that Giuliani "repeatedly and intentionally made false statements, some of which were perjurious, to the federal court, state lawmakers, the public... and this court concerning the 2020 presidential election, in which he baselessly attacked and undermined the integrity of this country's electoral process."
Giuliani is also facing criminal charges related to alleged election subversion in Arizona and Georgia. He filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last December following a $148 million defamation judgment for falsely accusing two former Georgia election workers of engaging in a nonexistent conspiracy to "steal" the 2020 election.
These blows, culminating in Thursday's D.C. disbarment, mark a stunning fall from grace for Giuliani, who, as "America's Mayor" in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, was named Time's "Person of the Year." Giuliani parlayed his popularity into a 2008 run for president in which he was an early GOP front-runner.
Giuliani spokesperson Ted Goodman slammed the D.C. court's ruling as a "miscarriage of justice."
"Members of the legal community who want to protect the integrity of our justice system should immediately speak out against this partisan, politically motivated decision," Goodman said in a statement.
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