HEARTBROKEN - Thoughts on the Eric Garner tragedy.

By Rev. Mario Gonzalez, Esq.
For more, visit www.gonzlawgroup.com

Eric Garner should not have died. Plain and simple. This is a case of excessive force, not necessarily motivated by racial animus. Sadly, more care is typically taken handling animals than was given to this man. The NYPD should man up, admit their mistake here, apologize to the family, and pay up.

This case must be distinguished from Ferguson where the decedent was a thug and the behavior displayed following the incident by the hoodlums feigning concern dishonored the distinguished memory of our revered civil rights icons. Both the autopsy and the video in Garner's case rightly indicate probable criminal negligence. Unlike Ferguson, there should have been an indictment in this case. 

Hearing this man beg for air only to be ignored by the NYPD directly leading to his death is both heartbreaking and inexcusable. Once he let the officers know that he couldn't breathe, the officers were under a moral and legal obligation to release him enough to remedy the life threatening activity. End of story. The type of "hold" that was used to restrain Garner is irrelevant. There were no exigent circumstances here justifying turning a deaf ear to this man's cries for his life. Let's pray for his family and that the NYPD realizes its errors and does the honorable thing here to make this right.

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/…/Timeline-Eric-Garner-Chokehold-…

PRAYER IN SCHOOL - Prayer & Religious acts in public schools cannot be constitutionally forbidden.

By Mario Gonzalez, Esq.
For more, visit www.gonzlawgroup.com

Contrary to myths spread by the legally misinformed, the Supreme Court has not ruled that students are forbidden to pray, read a religious book, or otherwise worship on their own while at school.

In Engle v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962) the Supreme Court simply concluded that officially conducted prayer, promulgated in this case by the Board of Regents in New York, violated the Establishment Clause.  Similarly, in a subsequent Supreme Court ruling the following year involving school prayer and Bible reading, School District of Abington Township v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963), the Court decided that opening exercises promoting either the reading of the Bible or recitation of the Lord's Prayer in a public school violated the Establishment Clause as applied to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment.

That said, it is critically important to point out to legally uninformed school officials that these decisions of the Supreme Court did not "remove prayer [or other religious observances] from public schools."  The Supreme Court simply and exclusively removed only government-sponsored worship from the public schools, as is expressly outlined in the Court’s rulings in both cases. Public school students have always had and still possess the right to pray, read the Bible, or worship on their own while attending a public school as class schedules permit.

Conversely, a public school official’s interference with such private religious observances would constitute an impermissible intrusion into religion by the state and would thereby violate the student’s First Amendment rights. Officially interfering in any manner with an individual’s non-disruptive religious observance, even within a public school environment, is proscribed by the U.S. Constitution. This would include interfering with such activities as quietly praying, reading the Bible, worshiping, or even outright proselytizing during a scheduled break time or even during class time when objectively appropriate due to the subject matter being discussed. Public School officials, including teachers cannot engage in viewpoint discrimination, even if the viewpoint in question is inherently religious.

I hope this information will help many of you in defending your particular student’s constitutionally protected rights. 

NOT EVEN A “SMIDGEN OF CORRUPTION” IN THE IRS SCANDAL? Examining the cover-up.

By Rev. Mario Gonzalez, Esq.
For more, visit www.gonzlawgroup.com

President Obama, a Harvard educated lawyer, used these words in his description of an investigation of the IRS that had not yet concluded at the time. He spoke of “knuckle-headed decisions” having been made, thereby denying by implication that laws had actually been broken with a straight face.  This was said in the face of the legal fact that when Lois Lerner, a lawyer herself and head of the IRS Exempt Organization Division, was brought to testify before the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, she decided to invoke her rights under the 5th Amendment. In order for her to legally do this, as Ms. Lerner and President Obama both clearly know (a rookie lawyer knows this), it is mandatory that she have a “real and substantial fear” that her testimony would result in self-incrimination, or minimally contribute to her criminal conviction in the United States. She could not rightfully plead the 5th if there was absolutely no possibility of her being found guilty of a crime as a result of her testimony. Her actions evidently speak to her belief, notwithstanding the President's assertions, that answering Congress’ questions might well provide more than a “smidgen” of proof of criminal conduct on her part.

The President’s statement concerning the non-existence of criminal activity and Lois Lerner’s actions are thus both factually and rationally irreconcilable. Subsequent to the invocation of her right against self-incrimination, Ms. Lerner joined our previous U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, in the now highly esteemed “contempt of Congress club.” Ms. Lerner was rightfully held in contempt of Congress for which she could have, and perhaps should have, been jailed on the spot. This is where it really gets interesting. Now it appears that years of emails from Ms. Lerner to various parties in Washington have been “lost” by the IRS, along with her hard drive. Furthermore, it also appears that other critical parties in the IRS have also mysteriously lost their emails and hard drives as well – a statistical impossibility. These facts alone establish the need for the appointment of a special prosecutor - now.

One thing can be said of all of this - the present administration lacks a “smidgen of credibility,” a fact on which the American public, both conservative and liberal, seem to wholeheartedly agree.