Miller Canfield's brief to the 6th Circuit invited the judges to imagine that the Justice Department had decided, based on unconnected criminal acts by some members, to designate the National Rifle Association, or the NAACP, or Greenpeace (or a list of other groups), as a gang. Any group whose members experienced fallout from being named in a government report would face the same problem. The 6th Circuit’s analysis of what constitutes a final agency action is not just a Juggalos problem, said Palacios, whose firm got involved in the case via a connection to the Michigan ACLU. “If there’s a constitutional injury, how can it not be reviewable?” Palacios said. That doesn’t make sense, in Palacios’ view. So basically, according to Juggalo lawyer Emily Palacios of Miller Canfield, the 6th Circuit ruling means her clients cannot get legal relief for what the 6th Circuit previously deemed to be plausible allegations of constitutional injuries. “Even if those third parties are government actors relying on an agency report, their actions ‘are not direct consequences of the report, but are the product of independent agency decision-making.” “Harms caused by agency decisions are not legal consequences if they ‘stem from independent actions taken by third parties,’” the 6th Circuit said, quoting the 4th Circuit’s 2002 decision in Flue-Cured Tobacco v. The opinion, written by Judge Alice Batchelder for a panel that also included Judges Danny Boggs and Raymond Kethledge, concluded the 2011 report naming the Juggalos as a gang did not meet the legal definition of a final agency action because third parties – and not the Justice Department or the FBI – actually committed the acts that supposedly harmed the Juggalo plaintiffs. Circuit Court of Appeals held the stigma the Juggalos had experienced from being listed as a gang in the 2011 report was sufficiently concrete to give them standing to proceed with the suit.īut on Monday, a different 6th Circuit panel ruled the Juggalos can’t use the Administrative Procedure Act to get themselves off of the 2011 gang list. Their lawyers at Miller Canfield and the Michigan ACLU argued the Justice Department and the FBI had been arbitrary and capricious in characterizing Jaggalos as a gang, violating the group’s Fifth Amendment right of free association and Fifth Amendment right of due process. In 2014, these four Juggalos, along with Insane Clown Posse members Joseph Bruce and Joseph Utsler, sued under the Administrative Procedure Act to force the Justice Department to remove Juggalos from the 2011 gang list. Robert Hellin, a Juggalo who is already serving in the Army, claims he was told he could be disciplined or even discharged because of his tattoos. An Army recruiting officer supposedly informed Juggalo Scott Gandy that his application would be denied unless he removed his gang-related Juggalo tattoo. Brandon Bailey, who wears Juggalo clothing and has Juggalo tattoos, asserts he has been frequently detained and questioned by California police officers because of his affiliation with the group. Mark Parsons, who runs a Utah trucking business and drives a rig decorated with a big Juggalo hatchet-man logo, claimed he was pulled over in Tennessee by a state trooper who suspected gang activity. The Justice Department’s gang report took a toll on some entirely law-abiding Juggalos who argue the group’s designation as a gang induced state and local law enforcement officials to target them. communities.” The report said that most crimes committed by Juggalos were simple assaults, drug use, petty theft and vandalism but warned of evidence suggesting a small number of Juggalos “are forming more organized subsets and engaging in more gang-like criminal activity, such as felony assaults, thefts, robberies and drug sales.” In 2011, the Justice Department’s National Gang Intelligence Center issued a report identifying Juggalos as a “loosely-organized hybrid gang … rapidly expanding into many U.S. They gather at the duo’s elaborate live performances and often display their Juggalo allegiance in bumper stickers, clothing, jewelry, clown-inspired face paint and tattoos, including depictions of the distinctive hatchet-man logo of Insane Clown Posse’s Psychopathic Records label. (Reuters) - Fans of the hip hop duo Insane Clown Posse, known as Juggalos, are admittedly more fervent than most.
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