On December 8^th, the NHCLU held its annual meeting at the Portsmouth Public Library.  Executive Director Devon Chaffee gave an update on the activities and progress of the NHCLU this year.  Her introduction was followed by the documentary film Defending Gideon which focused on the landmark 1963 Supreme Court case that resulted in the state guaranteeing indigent people the right to counsel in criminal cases.  The panelists talked in depth about about their varied professional experiences regarding poor people’s access to counsel and the courts, both in criminal and civil cases.

Numerous courts throughout the country have ruled that peaceful panhandling is protected expression under the First Amendment.  Indeed, public streets and sidewalks have always been deemed a special place for speech under the First Amendment; as the U.S. Supreme Court has held, they are “immemorially held in trust for the public for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens.”  Whatever legitimate concerns exist concerning truly criminal conduct by a few individuals can be addressed under existing New Hampshire law, which prohibits individuals from interfering with traffic and from engaging in threatening behavior in a public place.

We can understand how difficult and at times uncomfortable it can be to face poverty on our streets.  But we must also recognize that asking for assistance in a public space should never be a crime.  In this powerful video published by the Nashua Telegraph, you will see the faces and hear the voices of individuals in Nashua and Hudson who are poor and need to ask others for assistance.  As you will see, they are not criminals.  As one homeless man states in the video, “we are just struggling to get by.”

The NHCLU is proud to have submitted – along with Lambda Legal and other organizations, and with the help of Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (“GLAD”) – an amicus brief to the New Hampshire Supreme Court in support of the argument that construing RSA 168-B:3 to apply only to fathers, and not to mothers, violates basic equal protection principles.  Such a construction treats a child of same-sex parents differently from a child of different-sex parents, and treats a mother who parents with another woman differently from a father.

The case before the Supreme Court presents a tragic set of facts.  S.B. is a non-birth mother in New Hampshire whose female ex-partner, M.D., has kept her from seeing their eleven-year-old daughter, M.B.  M.D. is the biological mother of the child, and S.B. and M.D. raised M.B. together from her birth in 2002 until age six, and then co-parented her for over five years after they split up.  M.B. was conceived through donor insemination – a form of “assisted reproductive technology.”  At the time of M.B.’s birth, the couple could not marry in New Hampshire – which would have established S.B.’s legal parentage.  As a result, a guardianship was the only way to establish S.B.’s legal relationship with their daughter.  Earlier this year, M.D. terminated that guardianship in family court, cutting off contact between them, and began proceedings for her new husband to adopt M.B.

With representation by GLAD, S.B. is doing everything she can legally to see her daughter again – including filing a petition to establish her parental rights under RSA 168-B:3 on the basis that S.B. has and continues to openly hold out M.B. as her child.  Unfortunately, the family court dismissed S.B.’s parentage petition without providing for a hearing, and S.B. has appealed that decision to the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

As explained in the amicus brief before the Supreme Court, failing to protect the relationships between children who are conceived from assisted reproductive technology and their genetically-unrelated parents places the children at serious risk of emotional harm and financial insecurity.  The brief further addresses how the Court has multiple routes under New Hampshire law to protect children born through assisted reproductive technology by securing their legal relationships with both of the adults who brought them into the world and function as their parents, regardless of the marital status, gender, or sexual orientation of those adults.

Under the State’s position, indigent defendants who have secured private counsel are faced with the impossible choice of either (i) defending against a well-resourced prosecution without obtaining expert witnesses that are necessary to provide due process (and are provided to public defender clients), or (ii) retaining a public defender and giving up the private lawyer with whom they have a Sixth Amendment right to hire.  Only indigent defendants are forced to make this choice.  However, the New Hampshire Supreme Court has concluded that “there are some choices which the State cannot require a defendant to make, and a choice between constitutional rights is one of them.”  Opinion of the Justices, 121 N.H. 531, 539 (1981).

In its brief, the NHCLU asks the Supreme Court to reassert what its precedents and a majority of other jurisdictions have acknowledged: our legal system’s commitment to fairness and equal justice requires that indigent individuals have a right to state-funded experts that are necessary for an adequate defense regardless of whether they have a public defender, and it is fundamentally unfair to require indigent defendants—simply because they lack financial means—to choose between their due process right to receive such experts and their Sixth Amendment right to retain willing private counsel.

Sunday, December 8, 2013

 Portsmouth Public Library ~ 175 Parrot Avenue, Portsmouth, NH

2:00 — 4:00

Free and Open to the Public

Does everyone have equal access to counsel and the courts?

A brief documentary, Defending Gideon, will be shown to highlight the personal story of Clarence Gideon whose 1963 Supreme Court case resulted in the state guaranteeing poor defendants the right to counsel in criminal cases. The film will be followed by a panel of experts who will discuss the ability of all people in New Hampshire to access counsel and the courts fifty years after Gideon v. Wainright was decided.

Please contact Sheila Pappas at 255-3080 to RSVP.

This meeting is sponsored by the NHCLU and the Constitution Project

Macklemore: If you like being free like me, get the ACLU card

Rap superstar Macklemore today released a video urging people to join the ACLU and get its legendary membership card – the card “that lets my gay friends marry the hell out of each other. Read More

Bishop Doug Theuner, the Episcopal Church’s eighth Bishop of New Hampshire, pass away on Friday. The following statement can be attributed to the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union:

“Bishop Theuner was a staunch defender of individual rights, human dignity and equal opportunity.  His local, national, and international efforts helped to advance the rights of women, LGBT persons, and many others who faced injustice and discrimination.  The NHCLU mourns the loss of a good friend and an active collaborator.  We shall miss his leadership in our ongoing challenges to preserve civil liberties and fight for fundamental fairness.”

CONTACT: NHCLU, devon@nhclu.org, 603-224-5591

NHCLU on the New Hampshire Supreme Court Decision in the Michael Addison Case

CONCORD – Today the New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld the capital murder conviction of Michael Addison, but concluded that his death sentence needed further review to determine whether it was excessive or disproportionate to the penalties imposed in similar cases.

Below is a statement from Devon Chaffee, Executive Director, of the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union:

“Today’s decision is only the beginning.  Years of litigation likely lie ahead before Michael Addison’s case is resolved.  The State has already spent millions of dollars pursing the death penalty in this case, though the defendant was willing to plead guilty for a prison sentence of life without parole.  The ultimate cost of the case is still unknown, and the NHCLU will monitor future proceedings addressing whether Mr. Addison’s death sentence is arbitrary relative to penalties imposed by juries in similar cases.

The death penalty is not a deterrent, is imposed in a discriminatory, arbitrary and irrational manner, and remains capable of convicting innocent people.  That is why a bi-partisan group of legislators has filed a bill to repeal the death penalty in New Hampshire in 2014.  The NHCLU joins other groups and individuals throughout the state in urging our legislators to support death penalty repeal.”

In 2009, the NHCLU filed an amicus brief in the Addison case on the proportionality issue that can be accessed here.