Steven A. Levy - stevenlevymath: July 2020

Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Welcome to the 350 MA Letters-to-the-Editor team. We're glad you joined. Here's a link to a short slideshow that gives you a high-level view of what we do: http://bit.ly/350ma-lte-slides And here's the link to our "user guide" document: http://bit.ly/350-LTE-Team Please take a quick look and let us know if you have more questions. Fred Hewett, Larry Rosenberg, Mary Memmott fred.hewett@gmail.com larry.rosenberg@gmail.com memmottm@gmail.com

CourtWatch as a Model for something we might do

Description

Who: Sponsored by ACLU or other community organizations. Some paid organizers and the rest volunteers.
What: Apply pressure on DA's and elected officials with facts.
Where: There are many CourtWatch projects world wide. Seems like every state. Many countries: Poland, France. Multiple project around the state.
Why: Mostly focussed on helping poor people get fair treatment in court, which includes people of color and immigrants.
How: Volunteers collect data by race. Analysis by researchers. Lawyers present findings to DA and press.

My Experience

About a year ago I signed up for the Bail Fund. They got my name from my Synagogue, Shirat Hiyam. They never called me back. But they did give my name to ACLU's CourtWatch.
I helped accused say "Judge I do not understand the charges. I want to talk to my lawyer". You get more time. Might get dismissed. Flawed cases.
Some judges welcomed me. My presence changed things for the better.
Security guard from Lynn said everyone knew when I was in the building.
Turned in about 10% of the cases. 40 times.
Saw first hand how wealth tips the scales of justice. We are wasting money.
Rollins, globe, changes in cell phones in Lynn.

How we might adapt this