I question the truth content of this story. Having worked in Law enforcement, I see several misrepresentations in this:
The ACLU revealed that the police refused those arrested access to attorneys.
You only have a constitutional right to an attorney whille being questioned. If you are not being questioned, there's no right to an attorney.
Prisoners are not normally given access to attorneys until they have been formally arraigned. So the above statement could be equally be applied to
every person arrested in the United States.
Police did not let detainees use phones unless they posted their own bonds,
Most states provide for access to phones only after a certain number of hours of being held. If you have the cash in your pocket to post your own
bond (what, a $100 for a misdemeanor) then you don't
need a phone call . . . because you'd be released on bond at that point. In Texas, it
has been the rule that you only need access to phones if you've been incarcerated more than 4 hours. Texas allows that to be delayed if the police
determine that you are intoxicated or otherwise belligerant.
Likewise, if the police have so many arrestees they cannot process them all (like protestors for instance), the clock usually starts running only
after the prisoners are formally booked, which can take hours . . .
and even failed to provide shoes, in one case marching a protester into court in bare feet and leg shackles.
Was the courtroome paved in broken glass? Why is this a problem? Shoes are a place where many prisoners hide weapons. If this was standard practice
for the arraigning court, I don't see the problem. After all, you do have a constitional right to . . . . shoes?
Police are said to have tricked protesters into pleading guilty, by giving them the impression they had to plead guilty in order to post bond or make
a phone call.
You'll need EVIDENCE to make me believe this one. Generally, members of an organization who are arrested will often claim they "were tricked" when
it comes out later that they pled guilty.
The fact is, you're not required to SIGN anything when you are charged. The only time a piece of paper would matter, would be when the charges are
read in front of a magistrate. So, somewhere in Denver, there is a magistrate who purportedly saw prisoners lied to, during their reading of their
charges. Prove that one, and
then I'll believe it.
Did you ever watch
The Sopranos? "Gee Tony, I didn't really plead guilty---they
tricked me into it!!!!"
If you read the original articles, their "proof" that detainees were tricked into pleading guilty seems to be that they were charged using
pre-printed forms . . . Anybody here ever get a traffic ticket that WASN'T a pre-printed, circle-one, type form?
Maybe the statements from the article are not mostly technically false, but they are definitely out of context, and written to manipulate readers
unfamiliar with the judicial process.
all the best.
.