Huge NEWS: Today the New York Times reported on a lawsuit, initially filed in secret, alleging a coordinated effort by NY officials to silence people attempting to expose pervasive corruption by prosecutors. It's a fascinating case for a few reasons: nytimes.com/2021/11/10/nyr…
The federal lawsuit alleges that the case had to be filed in secret because New York officials, including Queens DA and Corporation Counsel for the City of New York, threatened a group of law professors that **publicly talking about their prosecutor grievances was illegal.**
The lawsuit alleges that these New York "law enforcement" officials then violated the First Amendment again by threatening the professors that even **telling the public about the threats made against them** by the City's lawyers and Queens DA would be illegal.
The suit arises out of pervasive corruption among New York's unaccountable prosecutors, and the many years of NY officials doing little to hold them accountable. A group of professors simply took public findings of prosecutor misconduct by judges and filed ethics complaints.
Intentional violations of the constitutional rights of criminal defendants is itself a federal crime. But no NY prosecutors have been prosecuted for even the most egregious crimes they perpetrated, and they are very rarely disciplined at all. They are often promoted.
In order to address this problem, we @CivRightsCorps teamed up with an amazing group of law professors to bring attention to these problems:
https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1390343490303893509
After years representing the most vulnerable people in our society, this is first time we @CivRightsCorps have been forced to be a plaintiff ourselves, to vindicate our own rights alongside the professors who are being threatened for their speech. Read it: accountabilityny.org/wp-content/upl…
The NYT story describing the case was thorough and powerful journalism by @Jonesieman that does a great job describing the dedicated work of courageous professors like @nicoles_nyc, @SteveZeidman, @JustinNYLS, @cynthia_godsoe, Abbe Smith, @danielmedwed.
Stay updated on the case by following @CivRightsCorps. We'll keep you updated on what happens with this important 1st Amendment civil rights case, and with the epidemic of prosecutor misconduct in New York.
https://twitter.com/CivRightsCorps/status/1458472035080974343?s=20
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