UpFront News Briefs
August 29, 2003
Overheard“They searched our car. I was scared out of my mind. They finally let us in, but I learned you ought to have a passport.”
— Taking a break from competing against male pros, 13-year-old golfer Michelle Wie ran into trouble with U.S. customs officials returning from shopping in Ontario, Canada. She wasn’t old enough to hold a driver’s license and her parents forgot to bring their passports.
FILIPINO AMERICAN MURDERED
Two Face Lynching Charge
Filipino American Anthony Buco David II died on his 24th birthday, two days after he was beaten outside a Virginia Beach nightclub.
Following a month-long investigation, prosecutors charged two sailors in David’s July 7 death — not with murder, but with lynching.
Though the term is commonly thought to suggest mob hangings, the charge was brought because the 1928 statute defines lynching as an act of mob violence that results in death. And though David was of Filipino descent and the suspects are white and Hispanic, authorities determined race was not a factor.
Virginia Beach Commonwealth’s Attorney Harvey L. Bryant III declined to discuss the evidence.
“The last thing we would want to imply is that there are roving mobs down at the oceanfront attacking people,” Bryant said. “If anything, I wish this statute had another name.”
The law holds all members of a mob equally responsible for the death, Bryant said, “regardless of who threw the fatal blow and whether you can prove who in that mob threw that fatal blow.”
Bryant said charging all the members of a mob makes it easier to try them together. With a murder charge, prosecutors have a much more difficult time persuading a judge to hold a single trial for all the defendants.
A person convicted of lynching is found guilty of murder, with the jury determining the degree of the crime. First-degree murder carries a sentence of 20 years to life in prison.
David was hit in the head and neck after he and a group of his friends got into an argument with another group. Police do not know what prompted the exchange.
Diego L. Gutierrez, 23, and Terry B. Mandall, 21, were arrested Aug. 5 and are being held in jail without bond. Both are stationed aboard the Norfolk-based aircraft carrier U.S.S. Harry S. Truman.
South Carolina is the only state that still regularly makes use of its lynching law, defined as any act of violence by two or more people against another, regardless of race.
While “lynching” came to be associated with racial matters, no one has ever successfully defined the word in a way everyone agrees with, said historian Christopher Waldrep, author of The Many Faces of Judge Lynch and a history professor at San Francisco State University.
“This is sort of a natural result of that,” Waldrep said of Virginia’s broad anti-lynching law. “If you can’t define something very well, it’s going to be used in ways that don’t fit what people’s image is.”
— The Associated Press
CONSUMER RIGHTS
Governor OKs contracts in Asian languages
A bill requiring sales contracts negotiated in Asian languages to be written in those languages, received approval from Gov. Gray Davis.
“This is good business and good ethics,” the Governor said, a day before the Aug. 19 approval in the state Senate. “If a company is conducting business with Asian customers in those customers’ native language, it’s only fair that any resulting contracts are written and understood in that same language.”
The bill would put “everyone on the same playing field [and keep] certain businesses from taking unfair advantage of our hard-working non-English speaking communities,” said Davis.
Assemblywoman Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) said her legislation (Assembly Bill 309) is intended to protect immigrants who speak little or no English, from unscrupulous businesses.
Current law, passed in 1974, requires that when certain types of consumer contracts and agreements are negotiated in Spanish the customer must be given a written copy of the deal in Spanish.
Chu’s bill would extend the requirement to contracts and agreements negotiated in Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and Tagalog. The proposed law would require a translated copy of the contract be submitted to the consumer before the contract becomes binding.
She said she introduced the bill in response to a “bait-and-switch” case in which a Chinese-speaking customer who negotiated to buy a new Toyota van at an Alhambra dealership ended up with a contract in English for a six-month lease of a used Chevrolet.
“This bill will protect Asian Pacific American consumers throughout California from fraud and unscrupulous business practices,” she said.
The Senate’s 26-11 vote on Aug. 19 returned the bill to the Assembly, which had passed it in a slightly different form in May.
— Associated Press with AsianWeek
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
Funds for Legal Outreach
The Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach (APILO) of the San Francisco Bay Area will receive $450,000 in federal grant money through the Legal Assistance for Victims (LAV) program at the U.S. Department of Justice. LAV programs fund legal groups that assist victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and/or stalking.
“Along with our partners, the Asian Women’s Shelter, Cameron House and Narika, we are grateful to receive this funding from the Office of Justice Programs,” said Dean Ito Taylor, executive director of Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach. “This grant will allow us to provide critical services to survivors of domestic violence through our unique collaborative encompassing legal representation, emotional counseling and shelter services.”
Currently, APILO can assist clients in 23 Asian languages and dialects, and is the only project in California that provides attorney assistance exclusively for domestic violence.
Announcing the grant, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said. “Combating domestic violence requires a comprehensive, culturally-sensitive approach. Legal representation can provide people who feel isolated with the legal and financial means to permanently escape abuse.”
APILO and its collaborative victim service agencies will use these supplemental funds to continue expanding legal assistance to victims of domestic violence in APA communities in San Francisco, Alameda and San Mateo Counties.
— AsianWeek
RACIAL PRIVACY POLL
Plurality for Prop. 54
A controversial ballot initiative to bar the state in most cases from asking people about their race is favored by a plurality of California voters but support appears to be slipping, according to a poll released Aug. 19.
Proposition 54, the so-called “Racial Privacy Initiative,” was supported by 46 percent of likely voters — compared with 50 percent in July. In the nonpartisan Field Poll, 35 percent said they opposed the measure, compared with 29 percent last month. Still undecided were 19 percent of respondents.
The proposal would prevent the state from asking the race or national origin of anyone when collecting data about public education, contracting and employment. It includes an exemption for racial data collected for medical purposes.
Proposition 54 will appear on the ballot Oct. 7, the same day as the special recall election against Gov. Gray Davis.
The poll found the measure could boost turnout among the state’s ethnic minority voters, especially Hispanics, who oppose the measure by a margin of 50 percent to 38 percent.
While just 17 percent of white voters said they are inclined to vote in the special election because of Proposition 54, fully 39 percent of Hispanic voters say the measure will make them more likely to vote.
Proposition 54 has the backing of Ward Connerly, a University of California regent who successfully spearheaded the 1996 proposition that banned affirmative action programs in the state’s public institutions. Connerly has argued the new measure would bring the state closer to becoming a colorblind society.
Groups opposing Proposition 54 argue the measure would harm anti-discrimination efforts in law enforcement, education, public health and other areas.
— A.P.
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