As a testament to their passion for justice and basic constitutional rights, Garvey Schubert Barer attorneys Robert C. Weaver and Sam Kauffman of the Portland office and Eldon Greenberg of the D.C. office volunteered to represent two detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Since 2005, the three attorneys have devoted thousands of hours to representing two men who have been held, without charge and virtually incommunicado, at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba.  Subsequently, GSB has taken on representation of two additional Guantanamo Bay detainees.

 

In January 2002, the U.S. Military began transferring prisoners captured in Afghanistan to hastily-built prison facilities at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba for interrogation. It was not until the summer of 2004 that the United States Supreme Court held that those prisoners were entitled to be represented by counsel in the Federal Courts of the United States, and that they were entitled to have their cases heard under the Habeas Corpus protections of the U.S. Constitution. Jurisdiction having thus been established, there was a critical need for attorneys to volunteer to assist the prisoners, which by 2004 numbered more than 500.  When the American College of Trial Lawyers asked for assistance, "We didn't think twice.  The legal fiction that this administration has created to hold these men without due process should offend every lawyer in the United States," asserted Mr. Weaver. "We volunteered and were initially assigned two Syrian men, Mahmoud Al Mohammad and Abdul Hadi Omar Mahmoud Faraj."

 

Our lawyers began by filing Habeas Corpus petitions in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, demanding that the government legally justify the detention of our clients and that they be afforded the protections provided by the Geneva Conventions. The government has responded by arguing, among other things, that as "enemy combatants" and not prisoners of war our clients are not covered by the Geneva Conventions; and that while the Supreme Court has established jurisdiction these prisoners are nonetheless not entitled to any "rights" other than the review procedures established by the Pentagon.
 
Our attorneys responded by asking the Court to declare that "enemy combatant" is an artificial classification that has no meaning in law, that the Geneva Conventions that prohibit torture do indeed apply, and that the procedures set out by the Pentagon to hold these prisoners against their will are unconstitutional. "Again, the government has fought us at every turn. Congress has merely passed legislation providing only minimal protections to the prisoners and attempting to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear the case we have filed," Mr. Weaver asserted. "Those issues are back before the Supreme Court."

 

In the interim, visits with our clients mostly consist of reporting on the progress our lawyers are making in the courts and trying to keep their hopes up in an almost hopeless situation. "When I was in law school, I would have never imagined that the U.S. government would imprison anyone indefinitely, without formal charges, let alone deny them access to a court of law," explained Mr. Kauffman.  "Now I represent two men being held at GITMO who have not been charged with a crime. After nearly three and a half years, it's impossibly frustrating for me to explain their legal fate as they sit in a windowless room, shackled to a floor, unable to trust that I am there to defend and represent their basic human rights," reflects Mr. Kauffman.

 

To date, only a handful of the prisoners have been charged with any crime. Their cases still have not gone to court. Our clients and the overwhelming majority of the prisoners who have not been charged have their files reviewed by a panel of military junior officers once a year. The burden is on the prisoner to prove he is not an enemy combatant. The panel, called an Administrative Review Board (ARB), will not permit the prisoner to be represented by counsel, and may rely on classified information and evidence produced by torture in order to keep the prisoner in custody. The prisoner is not allowed to see any of that and may not cross examine the witnesses against him. Not surprisingly, many of those held in GITMO as enemy combatants do not participate in this farce. One of the legislative pieces passed by the Congress gives us the right to petition the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to raise issues with respect to the procedures by which our clients were found to be enemy combatants.  Our attorneys are doing that now and awaiting the next decision of the Supreme Court to see if we can continue to press our Habeas Corpus cases in Federal District Court.

In 2007, Owner Scott G. Warner and paralegal Julene Delo, of Garvey Schubert Barer's Seattle office, helped the non-profit organization Childhaven develop a plan to protect their intellectual property and worked to educate them about the principles that govern IP.  GSB's pro bono assistance focused on Childhaven's copyrights in the materials it created to train therapists who work with families that are at risk, the issues related to licensing those materials to others, the trademark rights Childhaven holds in their logo, and the obligation a trademark owner has to protect their mark from infringing uses.

 

Childhaven President Debra Ronnholm gave special commendations to Scott G. Warner and Julene Delo for their work.  Childhaven's mission is to prevent and stop the cycle of abuse and neglect through scientifically-supported programs that protect and treat children ages one month through five years, and their families.

 

Many of the lawyers in our Seattle office have assisted refugees from other countries seeking asylum in the United States.  To date we have represented clients from Guatemala, Haiti, Togo, Bulgaria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

A number of our Portland litigators assist this legal services organization by representing indigent clients in contested court hearings.  Most of our clients are victims of domestic violence.  In addition, Lou Savage serves on the Board of Legal Aid Services of Oregon.

In 1997 the Washington State Supreme Court issued a favorable decision in a six-year class action lawsuit filed on behalf of homeless children in Washington State. Working as co-counsel with Columbia Legal Services (formerly Evergreen Legal Services), we persuaded the trial court and the Supreme Court that Washington's Department of Social and Health Services had a duty to implement a comprehensive plan for providing services to homeless children and to provide housing assistance in cases where homelessness was a primary factor in the decision to place or keep a child in foster care.

This organization provides support and services to people with AIDS and their families.  Garvey Schubert Barer has provided pro bono assistance to the Cascade AIDS Project on a variety of legal matters for many years. In April 2000 we represented Cascade AIDS Project in its role as a special limited partner in a substantial new low-income housing project in the Portland metropolitan area.

We drafted conservation easements to preserve wilderness areas adjacent to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness that were in danger of being used for mining or other development.

Over the years many of our lawyers have assisted this organization in advancing legal rights for women. They have litigated cases sponsored by the Law Center, served on and chaired its Legal Committee, performed legal research on civil rights issues, and provided leadership through the organization's Board of Directors. Two of our lawyers have served as President of the Law Center's Board.