Golden Gate University School of Law GGU Law Digital Commons Caveat Other Law School Publications 11-1969 The aC veat, November 1969 Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/caveat Part of the Legal Education Commons Recommended Citation "The aC veat, November 1969" (1969). Caveat. Paper 22. http://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/caveat/22 This Newsletter or Magazine is brought to you for free and open access by the Other Law School Publications at GGU Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Caveat by an authorized administrator of GGU Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CAVEAT VOLUME 5, NUMBER 2 GOLDEN GATE COLLEGE SCHOOL OF LAW NOVEMBER 1969 I F YOU THINK YOU'RE RIGHT Willie Brown To STAND UP AND FIGHT! Speak At Golden Gate Editor - Walter Gorelick The Student Bar Association will "I cannot sign Series I because my be­ present the Hon. Willie Brown, member liefs are not based on religion but rather of the California Assembly, as a guest on philosophy ... " "My ethics are based speaker on Monday, December 8th at on a reverence for life ... " 12: 30 in the 5th floor auditorium. The foregoing words were written by a Assemblyman Brown, an attorney, young native of North Carolina, William represents the 18th district in San Fran­ Martin, to his draft board as an adden­ cisco. In the last session of the legislature, dum to his request for conscientious ob­ he was a member of the following com­ jector status. Under the 1967 Selective mittees: Education, Elections and Consti­ Service Act, Sect. 162.14,50 U.S.C. App. tutional Amendments, Urban Affairs and Sect. 456 G) the law has given preference Housing, and Select Committee on Cam­ to religious conscientious objectors over pus Disturbances. someone who is conscientiously opposed to war, but for non-religious reasons. PEACE MARCH PLANS Hence, Martin was classified I-A and later Golden Gate Constitutional Law Pro­ found it necessary to refuse induction in fessor Mrs. Judith Grant McKelvey Attorney Terence Hallinan, the San Francisco. (See "Like It Is" column, page 3) western coordinator for the New Mobili­ William Martin had his day in court zation Committee's November 15th several weeks ago and I attended the trial EDITORIAL march in San Francisco, said at least five as a personal friend of the defendant. The speakers with a wide range of views have preliminary motions interestingly were NO BUSINESS AS USUAL agreed to speak at the Golden Gate Polo made on October 15th, the day of nation­ The time for debate is over. We Grounds Rally. The speakers are: former Senator Wayne Morse, Southern Christian al protest against the Vietnam war. We agree with the New Republic Magazine entered the Federal Building on that day Leadership Conference chief Dr. Ralph (September 1969) that "Richard Nixon strengthened by the thousands assembled Abernathy, Chicago Eight defendant Ren­ has had eight months in which to pry us outside and the conviction that the hour nie Davis, Black Panther Chief of Staff loose from the trap in Vietnam and has of decision is at hand for America. Per­ David Hilliard, and farm worker union not done it. He has promised withdrawals haps a challenge to the draft law through leader Dolores Huerta. and ordered some, but over a half-million Bill's personal commitment and the con­ Entertainers at the 2:00 P.M. rally, U.S. troops remain. He has said that the stitutional challenges raised by his attor­ following the march, will include Phil greatest honor history can bestow is the ney Michel Willey would in some way Ochs, Arlo Guthrie, and Buffy St. Marie. title of 'peacemaker,' but he marches to right some of the injustice others were the drums of the generals in Saigon and March routes and further information will protesting in the street outside. be posted on the Law School bulletin on his Asian trip described Vietnam as The factual situation in Bill Martin's boards. America's 'finest hour.' The only force case was similar to what occurred in U.S. that can assuredly move him to get us out HIGH SCHOOL SPEAKERS PROGRAM vs. SISSON, currently on appeal before is public opinion, fed up finally with the For a large number of urban adoles­ the U.S. Supreme Court. In the SISSON killing of 39,000 Americans, and the cents, secondary education is, unfortun­ case, 297 Fed. Supp. 902 (1969), Judge wounding of a quarter of a million ately, an irrelevant, frustrating, and un­ Wyzanski, in essence, ruled that the 1967 more." motivating experience which does little to draft law was unconstitutional on 1st and We call upon our fellow students to enhance the social functioning of the in­ 5th Amendment grounds. Attorney Wil­ join the Saturday, November 15th, peace dividual. High school civics and citizen­ ley, using SISSON as a basis, argued that march in San Francisco and help make it ship classes fail to relate in terms of prac­ Martin should be acquitted because the the largest demonstration of popular tical day-to-day situations. The evolution Draft Act encourages the establishment opinion on the most important task fac­ of law or the Bill of Rights as taught in of religion and restricts the free exercise ing the American people - the ending of the abstract bear little relevance to the of religion contrary to the guarantees of the Vietnam war. temptations of narcotics, theft, or statu­ the 1st Amendment. Further, the Draft No business as usual until the tory rape and the reality of repossession, Act, under which the defendant was clas­ troops come home must become a mean­ eviction, and criminal prosecu tion. sified and ordered for induction, deprives ingful slogan to the administration in A program jointly sponsored by the defendant of his liberty without equal Washington. This peaceful exercise of Law Student Division of the American protection of the laws guaranteed to him constitutional rights on November 15th Bar Association and the San Francisco continued on back page will be such a start. continued on back page White Juries And Black Defendants Under The Law Of The Land By Attorney Fay Stender non-white communities of either the precisely that true understanding, which Franck, Hill, Stender, Ziegler north or the south. leads to a judgment not based on the fear and Hendon The British in 1776 were not more which the dominant white group feels o~ Post Kerner Report (President's Na­ foreign than the white police officer in the rising, militant black group, or ever'. tional Advisory Commission on Civil Dis­ the black community of the late nineteen to an identification with the motivations orders, 1968) officially admitting that sixties; the language of the British and the and actions of the black defendant, which white racism is a genuine American dis­ colonists was more similar in tone, nu­ the district attorney wishes to exclude ease, responsible for disorders previously ance and shared values than that of the from the jury? officially attributed to the faults of blacks suburban or hill white community and The district attorney wishes to ex­ and other minority groups, the district the black ghettoes of today; the taxes clude those persons biased in favor of the attorneys of this State, and closer to levied by the Crown were less oppressive defendant; in the racial confrontation sit­ home, in Alameda and San Francisco than the unemployment of the blacks, or uation he assumes that the black juror counties, either permit, condone or en­ their disposition by selective service to will be sympathetic to the black defend­ courage the trial deputies to peremptorily the jungles of Southeast Asia today. ant. The operation of the other processes excuse the last few blacks who survive Yet the relations between the of exclusion and the fact that the blacks selection and excuse procedures, which blacks who take arms, symbolically, or in are still a minority results in the presence weed out minority and poor citizens be­ self-defense, against these conditions, and of so few blacks in the jury panel that the fore they ever reach the jury box. the whites who impose them, are defined district attorney can exclude all blacks Black defendants are today being by white legislatures; the laws interpreted from the jury, not just those whom he tried by all-white juries for alleged of­ and enforced by white policemen, their feels to be pro-defendant in the classical fenses often arising out of confrontations reports submitted by white prosecutors sense in which every attorney intuits who in the black communities with white to white grand juries, their criminal is a good juror or bad juror for his client. A police officers who patrol, but do not charges tried before white trial juries; and The reader is referred to the unpub- • reside in those communities. Within the upon conviction, sentences are imposed lished opinion, available in the Alameda past few months, Black Panthers Charles by white judges and served in jails and Superior Court records, by Judge George Bursey and Warren Wells were tried in penitentiaries run by white sheriffs and Phillips. PEOPLE vs SMITH, (No. 42219, Alameda County by all-white juries, and prison officials. July 1968), where a mistrial was declared so was a young black student, Wayne The political power of black people when the district attorney exercised 26 Greene. is increasing, (as is that, at perhaps a peremptory challenges, the majority of Recently, in San Francisco, Black slower rate, of other minority ethnic which were against non-whites, and in Panther John Bowman was tried by a jury groups in the United States) and it is true fact excluded all non-whites sitting a~ from which Municipal Judge Donald Con­ that due to the recognition and exercise part of the prospective jury.