Franklyn Williams is a 32-year-old Black Ohioan who, at his sentencing hearing, was talking. Judge John Russo thought he was talking too much. So with Williams surrounded by six officers, Judge Russo ordered them to place red tape over Williams’ mouth. 

The judge explained his reasoning for having tape put over Williams’ mouth. It was to “maintain decorum.” After silencing Williams with duct tape, Russo proceeded to sentence Williams to 24 years in prison, in absentia, for aggravated robbery, kidnapping, theft, misuse of credit cards, and unlawfully possessing weapons. 

What Russo did to Williams isn’t just humiliating and unnecessary — it’s against the law. 

All criminal defendants have a right to speak at their sentencing hearing. Under both federal and Ohio law, a judge at sentencing must address the defendant personally and ask if he wishes to make a statement on his own behalf or present any information that the judge should take into account before delivering punishment. 

This is why the requirement is so important — it’s the last opportunity for a defendant to influence a judge’s decision about the punishment to be imposed. If the defendant chose not to testify at trial, or go to trial at all, then the sentencing hearing is oftentimes the only opportunity for the judge to hear directly from the person she or he is about to punish. 

Judges in Ohio who silence defendants face the possibility that their original sentence will be tossed out by an appellate court. In Silsby v. State, the Supreme Court of Ohio found that the defendants in the case were not allowed to speak at their own sentencing hearings, even though they properly raised the issue at the time. As a result, the court ordered the defendants to be resentenced. Silsby has been the law since the 1920s, it is still the law, and it still protects the rights of defendants, like Williams. 

In Williams’ case, even though the judge allowed him an opportunity to speak on his own behalf, it is clear from the video that Williams wanted to present more information about his case and his experience in the system. He wanted to tell the judge that he was handcuffed on a bus for five days on the way back to Ohio and that he’d met his public defender only a few days before the sentencing hearing. This particular fact is important information because the new lawyer may not have known all of the mitigating information, so allowing Williams to present his own evidence was critical to the appearance of fairness at his sentencing hearing. 

Whether Judge Russo’s denial of Williams’ right to fully express himself constituted a violation of federal or state law, or both, is a question left to an appellate court. Judge Russo has since shown remorse for his actions, issuing the following statement several days after Williams’s hearing:

“A judge has a moral and ethical obligation to avoid the appearance of impropriety. To my colleagues on the bench in Cuyahoga County, and the 700+ judges in the state of Ohio, I regret any impact or repercussions from my actions last week, I never want the fairness and justice you deliver in your courtrooms to be questioned, no matter the circumstances.” 

As a former public defender, I appreciate Judge Russo’s apology to Williams. With the jail or prison time looming, a criminal sentencing hearing can be emotionally charged for the defendant. It is, arguably, one of the lowest points in a person’s life, and judges need to take that into account. I’ve had former clients cry and express sincere remorse, and I’ve also had former clients cuss everyone out, including the judge. It may not be the smartest thing to do, but it is the defendant’s right to say whatever he wants.

Williams is going to be in prison for a very long time. He should have been able to speak his mind at his own sentencing. The law demanded it, and Ohioans deserve courts that uphold the people’s rights, no matter which defendant is facing a judge or which judge is presiding.

It has been a rough week for the GEO Group, a private prison company that contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to lock up undocumented immigrants. And it’s making the contractor lash out in erratic fashion.  

All week, activists have been raising support for a national day of action against GEO Group, which has been profiting off of the Trump administration’s war on undocumented immigrants. And on Tuesday, a federal judge certified a class action against GEO for systematic wage theft of detained immigrants, who are paid $1 a day as part of GEO’s Voluntary Work Program. 

Under pressure from activists, GEO did what too many embattled corporations do: It threatened to sue. GEO’s lawyers served a cease-and-desist letter on Dream Defenders, the Florida-based human rights organization that had called on allies to push their elected officials to cut ties with GEO, rally at GEO prisons and detention centers, and “creatively disrupt” GEO offices on August 7. 

The letter accuses Dream Defenders of making “knowingly false statements” which “likely give rise to... claims for defamation and tortious interference with GEO’s contracts.” Not content with making baseless defamation claims, GEO goes on to accuse Dream Defenders of “inciting a dangerous ‘disruption’” and “encouraging threatening and violent behavior.”

Neither of these allegations passes the laugh test. First, the allegedly defamatory statements — that GEO “separates” and “cages” people, that it “puts Black, Latino and poor White people into jail” and that it asserts “improper influence over the United States political system” — are protected statements on matters of public concern. As Dream Defenders’ nonplussed response details, these are far from verifiably false statements, which GEO would need to show in a defamation lawsuit. 

In fact, Dream Defenders’ statements are well founded. The response letter highlights factual support for each of the allegations cited in GEO’s letter, from GEO’s own promotional materials referencing their sale of “steel cages” to news reports of GEO’s lucrative involvement in family separation. 

Against the weight of lawsuits, news reports, and government investigations into the company’s practices, GEO’s contention that Dream Defenders spread information they knew to be false falls flat. The activists’ allegations are exactly the kind of political speech that is protected against government censorship and defamation civil lawsuits. 

By the same token, calling on allies to “creatively disrupt” GEO’s “business-as-usual” is quintessential political speech, not incitement. GEO argues that Dream Defenders’ call for protest amounts to “encouragement” of unlawful behavior. But there are countless lawful ways for activists to heed Dream Defenders call for protest, and GEO’s letter fails to identify a single statement by Dream Defenders that instructs activists to break the law. In any case, even speech encouraging unlawful action is protected by the First Amendment, as we recently argued to a federal appeals court. Although GEO considers Dream Defenders’ rhetoric “reckless” and “incendiary,” a call for protest is not a parliamentary motion, and activists are not required to observe Robert’s Rules of Order. The First Amendment protects “reckless” and “incendiary” rhetoric, so long as it doesn’t intentionally and directly incite immediate violence. 

Cease-and-desist letters like GEO’s can do serious damage to public discourse, even if the claims themselves are ultimately rejected in court. Strategic lawsuits against public participation (also known as SLAPP cases), like the one threatened here or the lawsuit filed last year against Greenpeace and other environmental groups, use the risks and costs of litigation to silence those who speak out against corporate malfeasance. 

Facing outrageous damages claims and ruinous legal costs, many critics choose to self-censor rather than risk annihilation. Defending these cases is a heavy burden, particularly for nonprofit organizations like Dream Defenders, which don’t have the same deep pockets as their corporate adversaries. Resources that should be spent on advocacy would be diverted to legal costs, which suits the corporate plaintiff just fine. 

That’s why it’s important to respond loudly and clearly to groundless threats like the one GEO made in response to a week of bad press. To quote the Dream Defenders, “Nah.” 

The ACLU and the Trump administration squared off in court on Thursday over Jeff Sessions’ new policy that denies asylum protections to immigrants fleeing domestic violence and gang violence. The hearing focused on whether U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan would issue an emergency order to block the deportation of our plaintiffs, many of whom are women and children fleeing extreme sexual and gang violence, while the case proceeds. 

As the judge deliberated the stay, disturbing news came to light: Early Thursday morning the government had pulled two of our clients—a mother and her young daughter—out of their detention rooms and put them on a deportation flight back to El Salvador. This directly violated government promises in open court the previous day that no one in the case would be removed before 11:59 p.m. Thursday night.  

Judge Sullivan was outraged, saying “it was unacceptable” that someone who had alleged a credible fear and was “seeking justice in a U.S. court” would be “spirited away” while her attorneys were literally arguing on her behalf.

He ordered the government to “turn the plane around.” Further, the judge suggested that if the situation was not fixed, he would hold contempt proceedings for those responsible—starting with Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Our clients on that deportation flight, Carmen* and her daughter, fled El Salvador to escape two decades of horrific sexual abuse by her husband and death threats from a violent gang. Carmen was repeatedly raped, stalked, and threatened with death by her abusive husband, even when they were living apart. In June 2018, she and her daughter escaped, seeking asylum in the United States. Despite asylum officers finding that their accounts were truthful, they were ultimately denied them asylum protection because they did not have a “credible fear of persecution.”

This disconnect is the direct result of new policies issued by Attorney General Jeff Sessions that wrongly instruct asylum officers to deny whole categories of asylum claims, specifically gutting protections for immigrants fleeing domestic violence and gang brutality.

Sessions has now characterized these types of persecution as insufficient to invoke asylum protections, despite decades of settled domestic and international law which recognize gender-based persecution as a basis for asylum. Federal courts have also recognized asylum claims in a variety of circumstances involving gang brutality.

The ACLU and the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies filed a lawsuit on Tuesday challenging the new policies. At the conclusion of Thursday’s hearing, Judge Sullivan issued the stay, temporarily blocking the deportation of any of the plaintiffs while the case proceeds.

What happened to Carmen embodies exactly why the stay is necessary: This administration has shown time and time again that in its rush to deport as many immigrants as possible, they will flout the law and callously put the most vulnerable people’s lives in danger.

*To protect the safety of the plaintiffs, names are pseudonyms.