Daily Archives: June 4, 2021

Georgia poultry plant hosts in-house vaccination clinic for workers; eployees roll up0 their sleeves to take advantage of easy access. (May 28) AP Domestic

Businesses can require their employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 without violating federalEqual Employment Opportunity Commission laws, the agency says.

Businesses can also offer incentives to employees to get vaccinated or to provide documentation of vaccination "as long as the incentives are not coercive," the EEOC said in a news releaseFriday.

The updated EEOC guidance indicates employers must make "reasonable accommodations" for employees who don't get vaccinated because ofa disability, religious beliefs, or pregnancy.

The agency also noted that other federal, stateand local laws may come into play.

The updated technical assistance released today addresses frequently asked questions concerning vaccinations in the employment context, EEOC Chair Charlotte A. Burrows said in a statement.The EEOC will continue to clarify and update our COVID-19 technical assistance to ensure that we are providing the public with clear, easy to understand, and helpful information."

Vaccination or termination?Why this Tennessee caregiver would rather be fired

Employee incentives: Publix, other national companies offer incentives for employee vaccination

Ask HR: What incentives can I offer employees to get a COVID-19 vaccine?

Legal experts say federal laws dont block businesses from asking customers or employees about their vaccine status, despite social media posts claiming the opposite.

Posts circulating widely on Instagram this month cited excerpts of the Fourth Amendment and the 1964 Civil Rights Act to falsely claim that a business asking for proof of vaccination or denying entry based on vaccination status is a violation of your privacy and property rights protected by federal law.

The posts claimed the Fourth Amendment protects individuals against businesses asking about vaccines because it protects the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.

However, legal experts say that amendment refers specifically to searches and seizures by the government, not by private entities.

The Fourth Amendment only applies to governmental searches and seizures and certainly not to businesses asking for proof of vaccination, said Lawrence Gostin, a law professor at Georgetown University who specializes in public health law.

Contributing: Associated Press

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Can employers require a COVID-19 vaccine? Federal agency says yes, and they can offer incentives, too - USA TODAY

A federal judge in Washington is set to decide whether to dismiss a case on behalf of protesters who claim they were injured during the June 1, 2020, protests around Lafayette Park next to the White House. In the course of the arguments, one lawyer stood out in insisting that the use of tear gas against the protesters was entirely reasonable.

What was so striking is that the lawyer,Richard Sobiecki, represents the D.C. governmentof Mayor Muriel BowserMuriel BowserHogan announces Maryland will close mass vaccination sites, shift to local clinics Biden and Bowser administrations change their tunes on last summer's riot response Pride Month organizers to draw attention to anti-transgender laws MORE, who condemned the federal government for its clearing of the area and alleged use of tear gas. Much of the medialionized Bowser for her stanceat the time. She received national acclaim for painting Black Lives Matter on the street next to the park and renaming it Black Lives Matter Plaza.

Now, one year later, Bowser is keeping the BLM plaza but opposing the BLM protesters. Her administration insisted in court that the protesters were legitimately teargassed by the metropolitan police to enforce her curfew that night.

After the park clearing, the media uniformly denounced then-Attorney General Bill Barr for ordering the park to be cleared so that President TrumpDonald TrumpFacebook to end policy shielding politicians from content moderation rules: reports US government found no evidence that Navy UFO sightings were alien spacecraft: report More than a dozen police officers still on medical leave from Jan. 6 injuries MORE could hold his controversial photo op in front of the St. Johns Church. The accounts in virtually every news report were quickly contradicted, but few reporters acknowledged the later facts coming out of federal agencies. As I noted in mytestimony to Congresson the protest, the clearing of the park raised serious legal questions, particularly the unjustified use of force that night.

However, the repeated claim that Barr ordered the clearing of the area for the photo op was never supported and quickly contradicted.The plan to clear the park was set long before there was any discussion of the photo op, and it was based on the threat posed to the White House compound. Barr said he was unaware of any planned photo op when he approved the plan and that the delay in implementing it was due to the late arrival of needed personnel and fencing. Nevertheless, legal experts like University of Texas professor and CNN contributor Steve Vladeckcontinued to claim thatBarr ordered federal officers "to forcibly clear protestors in Lafayette Park to achieve a photo op for Trump.

The media has also stressed that the clearing and the force used were unjustified because the protests were entirely peaceful and there was no attack on the White House. That is untrue. As discussed in my testimony, an exceptionally high number of officers were injured during days of continuing protests around the White House complex;some 150 officers were injured, half of those around the White House. That is similar to the level of injuries during the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.And, as with the Capitol riot, authorities decided that a perimeter had to be established around the White House last summer. Indeed, they used the same type of fencing, although the White House perimeter was much smaller than at the Capitol.

While there was less violence that night a year ago, the rioting included the burning of a historic structure, extensive property damage nearby, and the attempted burning of historic St. Johns Church. Indeed, the violence led the Secret Service to move the president into the White House bunker, and officers said they were concerned that the complex might be breached.

That brings us back to the new admission from the D.C. government.

There has long been a dispute as to whether the federal operation employed tear gas. The federal government has maintained that it used pepper balls. As I stated in my congressional testimony, the distinction is really not significant, practically or legally; pepper balls and tear gas can have the same effect on protesters, and both are often referenced together in court orders as non-lethal riot control devices.

However, as this debate over the denial of tear gas by the federal operation raged, neither Bowser nor her government stepped forward to say that D.C.s Metropolitan Police used tear gas in their operations a block or so from Lafayette Park. Instead, Bowser denounced the force used by the Trump administration, including the use of tear gas.

Now, with Trump out of the White House, Bowsers administration insists there was nothing unreasonable in the use of tear gas to enforce a curfew and is asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit by protesters, including Black Lives Matter DC. The media that spent the past year denouncing the Trump administration over its alleged use of tear gas seems largely silent as Bowsers administration claims its own use of force was reasonable.

The federal government still apparently denies using tear gas. D.C. police admit to using tear gas nearby to enforce Bowsers curfew, but she has long insisted that the district did not assist in clearing Lafayette Park, which began before the curfew.

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich now must decide if the clearing of the park was done for Trump's photo op or, as federal agencies claim, to protect the White House as a national security priority.

After the Lafayette Park operation, Bowser declared that if you are like me, you saw something that you hoped you would never see in the United States of America.Now, her government is arguing not only that the protesters claims should be dismissed but that the district did and can continue to use tear gas in such situations, even to enforce a curfew.

In the meantime, the Biden administration agrees that the case should be dismissed entirely. The Department of Justice (DOJ) maintains that Presidential security is a paramount government interest that weighs heavily in the Fourth Amendment balance. The DOJs counsel, John Martin, added that federal officers do not violate First Amendment rights by moving protesters a few blocks, even if the protesters are predominantly peaceful.

The response to that from the media has been crickets.

What a difference a year and a new president can make.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can find his updates on Twitter@JonathanTurley.

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Biden and Bowser administrations change their tunes on last summer's riot response | TheHill - The Hill

Wont somebody please think of the police dogs? On Saturday, the Associated Press ran the latest example of a genre of news story thats become a regular accompaniment to marijuana legalization: the fate of now-superfluous drug-sniffing dogs.

Drug-sniffing dogs are notoriously unreliable at detecting drugs, and yet many American police ... [+] departments still insist on using K9 units.

Virginia is set to legalize the possession of up to an ounce of cannabis beginning in July. That means the early retirement of at least 15 drug-sniffing dogs throughout the state, as the AP itempicked up by outlets across the countryreported, because these dogs are trained to alert to the scent of cannabis.

Any alert is interpreted by police (and prosecutors, as well as most courts) as probable cause to effect a search under the Fourth Amendment. Since the dog cant discern between a large amount of cannabis and a single joint, and because a dog trained to detect both cocaine and marijuana cant inform its handler what was detected, the only path forward for police narcotics units is to retire their drug-sniffing dogs and acquire new hounds trained only to suss out cocaine, heroin, MDMA, or other substances still part of Americas war on drugs.

For civil liberties advocates as well as anyone concerned with criminal justice, this is a good development. Drug dogs should retire, because drug dogs are extremely bad at detecting drugs.

As Reason reported last month, drug dogs are often about as useful as a coin toss to determine whether a school locker, vehicle, or individual has drugs. In other cases, drug dogs simply respond to commands from its handler and ignores whatever scents are actually out there.

That is, the drug-sniffing dog isnt there to sniff out drugs at all. The drug-sniffing dog is just there to give the police probable cause to searchand to impound vehicles and detain people who later turn out to be innocenton demand.

Reason offered the story of Karma, a drug dog in Republic, Washington, as a parable. A K-9 unit handled by former Republic police Chief Loren Culp, Karma had a perfect record: he detected drugs every time he did a search. The problem was that Karma detected drugs when there were no drugs present.

When he had the chance to stop the impound of an innocent owners vehicle, his success rate was zero percent, Reason reported. That didnt stop Culp from employing Karma in searchesand that also didnt stop Culp from boasting on Facebook about Karmas perfect record.

A drug dog in action in Turkey in 2014.

Criminal-justice scholars and observers have known for years that the problems with Karma are found throughout the United States wherever drug dogs are employed.

As Jane Bambauer, a law professor at the University of Arizona, wrote in an article published in 2013, dogs are often wrong, alerting where no drugs can be found. Worse, dogs can be biased, she added, picking up on subtle cues from their handlers.

Bambauers analysis followed a 2011 study from the University of California, Davis, which found that police dogstrained to detect explosives as well as drugsare affected by human handlers beliefs, possibly in response to subtle, unintentional handler cues.

If the police dogs handler wants the dog to alertconsciously or otherwisetheres a good chance the dog will alert.

Marijuana legalization isnt the only reason why drug dogs value and purpose are being re-evaluated. Courts are becoming increasingly aware that drug dogs just arent good at finding drugs. In a reversal from the position of the Supreme Court 30 years ago, when drugs were considered such a scourge that drug dogs unreliability wasnt a concern, courts are now openly questioning police dogs merit.

As TechDirt.com noted, in a decision published last year, a federal court in Utah granted a defendants motion to suppress a drug dog search and dismissed his indictment, after noting serious concerns about the dogs training and reliability.

The court questioned the reliability of every drug dog in the statewhere cannabis is not legal beyond medical applications. This is an enormous boon to defense attorneys handling cases where a dog alert was the probable cause. If Utah thinks that drug dogs arent reliable indicators of the presence of drugs, what about other jurisdictions?

So far the nations highest court has affirmed law enforcements use. In Florida vs Harris, a decision issued in 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that if a drug dog has recently passed a training program, an alert from that dog is sufficient probable cause.

But as the record of Karma and other drug dogs with perfect training scores demonstrates, probable cause is a fait accompli. If the handler wants it, the handler can get it. Drugs need not be present.

So if drug dogs cant be relied upon to detect drugs, if drug dogs are often wrong, and if the courts think drug dogs are unreliable, whats the point? Why have them at all?

The real application of police dogs is psychological. The presence of a dog grants its police handler a sense of power and authority. If a search is desired, a search is granted. With a record like that, the sight of a dogor the chance that a dog will be encountered, at an airport, at a border crossing, or at a school, whateverwill deter and discourage the public from flouting the law. The approach of a drug dog might even compel a wavering lawbreaker to give himself up.

Thats not very fair or just, but in an era where all drugs were illegal, you could argue that this was at least legally defensible. Today, when cannabis is legal in some form for more than 200 million Americans, drug dogs snare innocent people in the criminal justice system.

Drug dogs are a vestige of the drug war. If a vast majority of Americans think cannabis should be legaland they doand if legal scholars and the courts think drug dogs are bad at their jobsand they do, and they arethen police departments probably should have been prepared for this moment, rather than providing grist for gauzy news items. But people love dogseven dogs that are civil-rights violation machinesand so here we are.

A Colombian policeman from an anti-drug unit walks with a sniffer dog amidst marijuana packages on ... [+] display for the press on August 24, 2012, at the anti-drug air base in Tulua, department of Valle del Cauca, Colombia. Four tons of marijuana "red dot" type allegedly belonging to the Sixth Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were seized from a truck in the town of Buga, Valle del Cauca department, while being transported from the town of Corinto bound for the department of Norte de Santander. AFP PHOTO/Guillermo LEGARIA (Photo credit should read GUILLERMO LEGARIA/AFP/GettyImages)

So what about the dogs? The retired drug dogs in Virginia are all being adopted going home with their police handlerswhere, if so desired, they will alert to the presence of drugs every day, for the rest of their days.

The rest of us should wish them a happy and healthy retirementand encourage every other drug-sniffing dog currently in police employ to join them as soon as possible.

Link:
Marijuana Legalization Is Retiring Police Dogs. Why Thats GoodAnd Why All Drug K9 Units Should Go. - Forbes