Legal Research Needed for Hurricane Katrina
Hello, everyone:
This is Angela Chung, 3L. I received your contact info from the "legal research committee" sign-in sheet that went around.Community Labor United and various legal groups are meeting in South Carolina this weekend and they, albeit, short notice wondered if people would volunteer to send them a short 2page primer on some legal areas of law, so that all of these organizations can have some basis to have a collective discussion:
1. Eminent domain.
3. Non-death tort claims.
7. Public information.
8. International crime.
14. Environmental.
Those of you who are interested, COULD YOU TAKE OUT SOME TIME THIS FRIDAY, September 30th AT 10AM AND MEET at the Law Library Lobby to do some general research for 4 hours on one of these issues. I will reserve a conference room, so bring your lap tops.
BELOW IS THE GENERAL REQUEST MEMO, SENT BY JENNIFER LAI:
Deadline still Friday: We thought about moving the deadline, but there is still 48 hours to go--plenty of time for basic memos says the experienced technicians among us. We'll just see what we get and then regroup this weekend at the retreat and send out a new set of questions on Monday or Tuesday.
M E M O R A N D U M
TO: Ishmael, Jen, & legal techies
Fr: Lisa Kung
Re: Legal questions
Date: September 25, 2005
These are the questions needing a basic 2-3 page overview by this Friday, September 30. It is more important to have some very general ideas down on paper by this Friday than having a fully developed legal treatise.
Eminent domain. If the state decides to turn some part of the 9th Ward and/or Gentilly into a marsh, what defenses could be raised against such a taking? If the state wishes to take property for redevelopment by a private entity or by a public-private partnership, what defenses could be raised against such a taking? Historically, what kind of state action have been taken with property following large-scale disasters?
Non-death tort claims. Consider three groups of people: (a) those who were unable to leave NOL before the flood went, as instructed, to the Superdome. The City then failed to activate the 200 school buses to evacuate them, and the state and/or feds turned away buses that could have evacuated them; (b) those who were turned away from Gretna by the Gretna police, and/or from other escape routes by other state actors; (c) those on the overpasses who were either told not to leave, or were strongly discouraged by National Guardsmen carrying automatic weapons not to leave. Does the DeShaney failure to protect exception for instances when the government creates the harm or restrains the person's liberty to act on their own behalf leave open a cause of action for any of these groups?
Public information. What are all available avenues for demanding transparency in the recovery and reconstruction process? For each (FOIA; Louisiana Open Records Act; Public Records Act: La. Rev. Stat. Ann. �44:31 et seq; La Const. Art. XII, sec 3 Right to Direct Participation; any statutory or regulatory requirements for public input and comment; what else?), what are the standards, procedures, & costs? When the government agency refuses to abide, what is the process for challenging denials?
International crime. Who would be charged, what would they be charged with, and what are the procedural & substantive requirements for bringing such an international criminal charge? (CCR?)