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San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan’s decision to lift all 20 injunctions against street gangs in six cities around the county is long overdue. Allowing city or district attorneys to obtain lifetime lifetime! restrictions on the movement and activities of individuals who allegedly belong to gangs even if they’ve never been convicted of a crime is a staggering intrusion into people’s lives. It is amazing that such laws have persisted to this day despite sharp criticism of their vagueness by U.S. Supreme Court majorities in 1983 (involving a San Diego case) and in 1999 (a Chicago case).
San Diego County district attorney moves to lift all gang injunctions
San Diego Dist. Atty. Summer Stephan speaks at a media briefing in 2019.
(Sam Hodgson / San Diego Union-Tribune)
SAN DIEGO
In a move some view as a win for criminal justice reform, San Diego County Dist. Atty. Summer Stephan said this week that her office has filed petitions in court to lift all 20 injunctions against street gangs in cities throughout the county.
Seven of the 20 gang injunctions court-approved orders that restrict the movements of alleged gang members were dissolved as of Tuesday, with approval from judges in San Diego Superior Court.
The injunctions are court orders restricting the most active and dangerous gang members from congregating with other known gang members, fighting, carrying weapons and intimidation. However, no gang injunctions have been filed by the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office in the past eight years. The oldest existing injunction dates back to 1997.
The order remains in effect for a lifetime unless that person applies for removal and meets certain criteria.
“In our county, civil gang injunctions were put in place 10 to 20 years ago and for the most part had become stale, and in many cases, continue to cause hardships for people who have moved on and are trying to get a job or connect with relatives,” Stephan said in a statement.
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In a move some view as a win for criminal justice reform, San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan announced Tuesday that her office filed petitions in court to lift all 20 injunctions against street gangs in cities up and down the county.
Seven of the 20 gang injunctions court-approved orders that restrict the movements of alleged gang members were dissolved as of Tuesday, with approval from judges in San Diego Superior Court.
For decades, police and prosecutors used the injunctions to curb gang violence. But in some cases, the restrictions under the court-approved orders made it difficult for those who left that life behind to move on. Critics for years said injunctions, which stay in effect for a lifetime, impede the ability of people who put their gang days behind them to get jobs and housing. Some said the orders target communities of color.
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Marivi Soliven Blanco, a San Diego-based award-winning author, often draws inspiration for her writings from her 20-year job as a Tagalog-English telephonic interpreter.
Most calls pre-pandemic were regarding car loans, bankruptcy, immigration hearings and domestic violence. However, during the pandemic the calls focused more on unemployment, divorce court and hospital requested end of life interpretation for Filipino patients who had little, if any, chance of recovery.
“They cling to the voice on the phone,” Soliven Blanco said. “I infuse words like
Ate to bring them a feeling of familiarity during the difficult time. They put so much trust in the voice on the other side of the phone at the moment of duress.”