 Tonight I have James Duff Lyle with me who's the executive director of the ACLU Vermont. Hi Duff and I call him Duff. How are you Duff? I'm good Melinda. How are you? Nice to see you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. You bet. Thanks for driving all the way up here from Montpelier. No problem. Yeah. I'm really glad you're here because we have a lot of things to talk about in this half hour. We do. We do. I mean the ACLU is doing a lot of great work and the ACLU Vermont is doing a lot of great work too when you've got your 50th year anniversary coming up. Yes that's right. We are in our 50th year. The ACLU Vermont was founded in 1967 so this week we're going to be looking back over five decades in defense of civil rights in Vermont. Wow. Yeah. And the ACLU nationally is 100 years old. Coming up on it. On 100. So you're having an event down in Montpelier right? Yeah we have our annual membership meeting where again we're going to be kind of looking back over some of the highlights from five decades as some of the highs and lows I guess. And just celebrating you know the work of some of the founding members who 50 years ago came together at a time when the country was really divided where civil rights were really contested where people were really worried about the direction of the country. Well I was part of that movement. I'm an old hippie. And out of that grew the ACLU in Vermont and you know the work that has flowed from that and from that initial seed is pretty remarkable. Well we're going to talk about that but you know before we go there I'd like to learn about you. So because you're new to the job you've been there for a couple of years right? Just over a year yeah. Just over a year and it seems like longer because I feel like I know you're like a brother. It's been a long year Melinda. It has been a long year but I feel like you've been here a long time you've done a lot of great work which we're going to get into. But talk to us a little bit about who you are where you come from a little bit about your background and why you ended up in the social justice work. Because you are a lawyer. Yes. You have your law degree from. Georgetown. Georgetown. There you go and you could have gone into private practice and certainly made a lot more money than you do as the director of the ACLU Vermont. That's true. So what inspires someone like you to take up this work of protecting the civil liberties of our citizens? Well so I'm from New England. I'm from southern Massachusetts. I went to school in Vermont. I have family in Vermont. So I've been. What brought you to school in Vermont? Where did you go in Vermont? I went to Middlebury College. So you went to college in Middlebury? Uh huh. Okay you're a Middlebury grad. That's right. My father's lived in Vermont last 20 years so I've been in and out of the state a lot. And it is wonderful to be back. Living here. Living here. Yes. Yes. No it's really, I couldn't be happier to be back in Vermont. Glad to have you here. But so I don't know how did I get into this work? I mean around the time that I graduated from Middlebury it was back in 2000. Where'd you go to law school? I went to Georgetown. Georgetown. So was it, you went to law school and were you following the social justice path or were you pretty much going to be a, what was your, did you specialize in anything in law school that? Well so I graduated in 2000, I went to law school in 2004 and that was of course around the time of the Bush administration and the second Bush administration. And 9-11 and the response to that and the so-called war on terror, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and all this stuff was happening. And I like many of my classmates in law school were really concerned and saw a whole lot of government excess and abuse and trampling of civil rights in this country and really around the world and saw that as a real threat to human rights and we did not like that. And saw law school as one way among many but one way to try to counter that or respond to that. And you know I think it was just consistent with something that I've always had just a kind of an aversion to the abuse of authority and certainly saw that coming from the Bush administration and of course we are certainly seeing that now with the current administration. So that, I mean that's essentially why I went to law school and that's why the ACLU made a lot of sense. For me this is an organization that specializes in holding government accountable. If I had to summarize it in just one phrase that's what the ACLU does. It is what it does. But was there anybody in your family or any, your family beliefs, your family values that inspired you to move into this social justice work protecting people's civil rights? No, I mean I was raised by you know good decent people with good values but you know I just think I have personally always had a visceral reaction to injustice. I remember that from an early age in history class. But I mean I wasn't thinking about it a whole lot growing up and even in college I was an art major at Middlebury. No kidding. Wow, I want to see your artwork. No you don't. Not a very successful one. My art professors helped steer me on a path other than art. To law school. To law school. Wow. But no I mean it was as much in response to what was happening historically and as I say real echoes with what's happening now at the federal level with this administration. Just a real concern of you know the abandonment of core American values and laws that were really under attack after 9-11 and they're still very much under attack today. So we're going to get deeper into that but what did you do after Georgetown? Where did you end up? Well I started out my first job out of law school was at a little non-profit called the Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project in Los Angeles. I defended immigrant children who were in deportation proceedings. A lot of people do not know that immigrants are not entitled to an attorney when they're facing deportation and removal proceedings. That includes children that can include infants. Do not have the right to an attorney unless it's provided for them by an organization like Esperanza. And of course people without legal representation have a much harder time succeeding or winning their cases. So anyway I represented dozens of unaccompanied undocumented children. Won a lot of green cards and then eventually moved on to the ACLU in Arizona as a staff attorney before coming here last year to be the director of the Vermont affiliate. Wow. What a great journey. It's been an adventure. And now you've landed and we're really lucky to have you. I can't believe it's only been a year. Like I said, it's great to be here. It is great to have you. So let's talk a little bit about the ACLU and the history and the mission for my viewers out there. It's the American Civil Liberties Union. It's a C-4, right? Did you say it was a C-4? We have a C-4 and a C-3. We have kind of our lobbying side is the C-4 and then our other advocacy and a lot of the other stuff we do is C-3. So let's say 100 years. So it's been around since 1917, the national. So the national ACLU was founded in 1920. So we're coming up on the centennial of the national ACLU. So let's talk about the history of the ACLU nationally because a lot of my viewers out there may not know. I'm sure you're hearing a lot about the ACLU right now because of the work they're doing on the band, the immigrant band. So let's talk about the history a little bit and this organization and how it got started. Well, so the ACLU was founded in 1920 at the height of the Red Scare and the Pomerades and a huge crackdown on war resistors during World War I and a big crackdown and hostility towards union organizers. When the ACLU was founded in 1920, there had yet to be a single free speech case decided at the U.S. Supreme Court. The idea of free speech was really non-existent. It wasn't recognized by the courts and the general public didn't have strong opinions or were outright hostile to the idea that people had free speech rights, that union workers had free speech rights. We've gone a long way. Well, we have and ACLU had a huge role over decades in changing that and eventually first shifting public opinion about the importance of the freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, other First Amendment protected rights, eventually bringing more and more cases to the U.S. Supreme Court to establish free speech rights. And of course, you know, today it's a very well-established right, but it hasn't always been that way. And I mean, that was one of the key fights at the outset. But in the years since, over, you know, the almost 100 years since then, the ACLU has broadened its scope really to take on anything that comes under the purview of the bill of rights and constitutional rights. We work every day in courts, in legislators, in communities to win the maximum protections possible under the Constitution for as many people as possible. For all people. For all people. Regardless of background, regardless of ideology. Income. In income, nationality, really any characteristic, the ACLU in Vermont and nationally represents people across the political spectrum from all walks of life. Really, as I say, to try to maximize constitutional freedoms and to protect people's rights when they are trampled on or threatened by government actors. That's what we do. That's what you do. So, a highlight for me. So let's talk a little bit about the ACLU of Vermont that's 50 years old. You're celebrating this Saturday. What over the last 50 years were some of the big issues that you had to face in Vermont? Where was Vermont 50 years ago? Well, Vermont has come a long way. In 1967. I was 17 back then. Oh, my. I was not yet born. You weren't born yet. But since I've arrived a little over a year ago, I've been studying up on the history of the organization and also in preparation for this our 50th year. So I've learned a lot and it's a fascinating history. I mean, a lot of people don't necessarily remember or realize how far Vermont has come. When the ACLU was founded in 1967, one of the first ACLU of Vermont was founded in 1967. One of the first cases we took on was the case of an Essex Junction librarian who was challenging a loyalty oath that was still required of state employees at the time. People had to make loyalty oaths. Again, this is during the time of the communist scare. Three years ago. So was it a loyalty oath that you were not a communist? Yeah. Is that what it was? Yeah. Because a lot of our viewers may not know what a loyalty oath is. Well, you still hear about loyalty oaths even to this day. History doesn't necessarily repeat itself, but it rhymes. At that time, loyalty oaths were about anti-communism. Anti-communism. Three years after the founding, the ACLU joined a legal challenge to overturn Vermont's ban on abortions, a major reproductive freedom victory in 1970. In the years since, as I say, we've represented people from across the political spectrum. We've represented police officers who are fired for criticizing their superiors. We've represented postal workers and Marines who were discharged because they were pregnant. We've fired, I mean, we've represented students, journalists. People targeted, repeatedly targeted with excessive use of force or racial profiling by police. We've represented prisoners in class action lawsuits challenging horrific conditions of confinement in Vermont's prisons. We've had cases go to the Supreme Court. One of the biggest cases here in Vermont at the Vermont Supreme Court was the Brigham case, which essentially led to the creation of the Vermont school funding system, which is now one of the most equitable school funding arrangements through Act 60 in the country, something that Vermonters are rightly very proud of. So you had a hand in all of that. There was a time when school teachers weren't allowed to be married. Yeah. I mean, there was a time when police were conducting roadside strip searches. Oh, stop. Oh, my gosh. And so, you know, the ACLU has had a big hand in the direction of the state when it comes to constitutional rights and civil rights. And, you know, I fully expect that we will continue to have a big role to play because as far as we have come in those five decades, it is also very clear that we still have a very long way to go to realize, you know, the promise of true justice and equality for everybody in this state. Well, and certainly nationally right now, I mean with what's going on, right? Yes. So I just want to tell my viewers that I'm meeting with James Duff Lyle, who is the director of the American Civil Liberties Union, Vermont. Their offices are in Montpelier and their website is ACLUVT.org. Visit their website. I'll learn about what's happening down with all the work that the ACLU of Vermont is doing and also donate. I mean, if you support the work of the ACLU, I encourage you to go on their website and make a donation. If you can't access a website or don't have the ability to access the website, their phone number is 802-223-6304. Also, if you have somebody you want to talk to them about that might be happening in your life that you think they need to know about. So there you go. That's the contact information. I'll bring it up again later in the show. Let's talk a little bit about what's going on in a couple of things in Burlington because I know I've been reading about that, about a couple of the issues that have been going on in the city of Burlington in the state of Vermont right now that you're working on. Can you share with us a little bit about what policies and issues that you're taking on? Are you focused on? Yeah. So the ACLU frankly has concerns about some of the actions undertaken by the city of Burlington in recent years with regards to the homeless population people living in the city, many with substance abuse problems, mental illness. And we absolutely recognize that city officials and city residents have serious concerns about public safety, about quality of life, and we do not for a moment assume that these are easy questions or problems with easy answers. That being said, we do have concerns about some of the responses proposed and pursued by the city in recent years. We have one pending lawsuit against the city of Burlington on behalf of a man, Joe Montagno, who after years of homelessness finally found housing in the city and wasn't very good housing. He was being harassed by his neighbors. He suffered assaults and break-ins and those sorts of things. So he was calling the police a lot. And rather than assist him or get in touch with him to work through the fact that he was calling the police an awful lot, the city went behind his back to his landlord and had him evicted. And he found himself back out on the street after years of homelessness. He was homeless again. And this is essentially something that, well, it's something that we've seen in other cities and towns around the country where using nuisance ordinances, cities will essentially intervene to have people evicted if they're calling the police too frequently. One of the problems with this is people calling the police frequently are often doing that for a reason. That includes victims of domestic violence. We had a client in Arizona who was a victim of domestic violence. He was calling the police a lot. And rather than help her, they had her evicted. So we reached out to the city to try and resolve that and unfortunately, that didn't happen. And so we are litigating that case. More recently, I mean, currently the city council is considering a proposal to possibly criminalize some low-level code infractions, repeat violations of things like littering or public drunkenness, which, I mean, again, we recognize that there are real problems in Burlington, but criminalization of... What does that mean criminalization? Well, currently, if you are littering, repeatedly littering, that's a civil code. What does that literally mean, just throwing a piece of paper on the ground? Yeah, or something like public urination or public drunkenness is a civil code violation. It's not something that's going to yet result in prison time. And essentially, the city is considering changing that. To make it a criminal offense? To make it a criminal offense if it's done repeatedly. You know, another thing that's in the news right now are the planned evictions of some homeless encampments in the city, where the city shelters are full. These are people who have nowhere else to go and they're being threatened with eviction and in the process of being evicted, their belongings are likely to be confiscated or possibly destroyed. And so we've communicated our concerns about that to the city, about the criminalization of low-level offenses. And again, we do not, for a moment, suggest that these are easy problems to solve. But at the same time, it's clear to us that there are limits to what the city can do and they do not include violating the constitutional rights of the homeless population. That's where the ACLU is going to get involved. And we hope that we can work with the city towards real solutions, recognizing that they're not easy to come by. But the fact is, cities and towns around the country have been pursuing a variety of creative solutions to try to get help to people in need. And city officials are pretty forthright about the fact that we need to address the root causes of these problems, that we need to provide better services. The governor has said this recently, and we hope will follow up on the promise to improve mental health services. There's clearly a need. As many services as there are provided currently, it's clearly not enough. The city shouldn't have to figure it out all by itself. But one thing it can't do is violate the constitutional rights of its residents. Can you share some of the solutions that you've read about in other towns and cities that... Sure. I mean, those of... Well, there's a variety of kind of diversion programs that divert people who are cited or arrested out of the traditional criminal justice system, so they're not just filling prison beds. You know, there is a... As many services there are, there's still a very real need for caseworkers, for social workers, for services, for substance abuse treatment programs. There's a need for beds for all of the... I mean, there's wonderful work being done in the city to care for people in need to provide services that people need. But the shelters are full. I mean, there aren't... There isn't enough being done to adequately meet the need and simply pursuing people, evicting them from where they're squatting or throwing the book at them and locking them up and throwing away the key. Isn't a long-term viable solution? And we really hope that a city that... Does a city have to provide them with... I mean, do they get provided with legal support if something like that happens? Do they... Do they get an attorney appointed to them if they end up... Because they can't afford a lawyer? Right. I mean, it depends on the offense. A certain offense is yes, others not. But, you know, again, my hope is that the city will start to pursue new strategies, additional strategies that don't involve civil rights violations. Or putting people in jail, I guess, is what you're saying. I mean, because changing an ordinance, they have the right to change an ordinance, right, that says we're going to... The city council can change this. It says, okay, if you urinate in Pueblo v. 3 or 4 times, then you're going to be arrested. I mean, they have the right to do that, but... Right. I mean, they can cite people for that. And then I think there's a lot of things that they can do subsequent to that. But what we don't think is going to help is sending them to jail. Yeah. Where they're not going to be getting any of the services that they might need. And where sooner or later they're going to wind up back out on the street worse off than they were before. Right. And that's not good for them. That's not good for anybody in this community. So where are you with your discussions with the city of Burlington to try to come to some common ground on this with the city council? Because I'm assuming this is coming to a vote in the near future, right? We submitted a letter to city council. I published an op-ed in the free press within the last couple of days. We've sent a letter to the mayor and council and police chief about the evictions issue. This is the eviction out of the place that... There are multiple homeless encampments that are facing eviction. And we're always willing and eager to discuss this with the city and I hope that we have the opportunity to do that. So basically what we're saying is for the city of Burlington and city councilors and to call James Duff Lyle down at the ACLU, 802-223-6304 and set up an opportunity to meet and talk about these issues and see if you can resolve it without encringing on people's civil liberties. Right? That's right. Is that your hope? Yeah. I think it's also to put it in a little more context you know, many people in this country across the political spectrum are calling for broad criminal justice reforms. I mean, even your city officials talking about that. State officials are very interested in bail reform and sentencing reform. People are looking at prosecutors across the country in their role in fueling what has become an epidemic of mass incarceration. We have 2.3 million people incarcerated in this country. Vermont's prison population has tripled since the 1980s. There are massive racial disparities in Vermont's prison population and it's in the prison system. We're not going to solve those problems by adding additional criminal penalties. Really we need to be moving in the opposite direction and a lot of people are. The ACLU has launched a campaign for smart justice nationally. We're going to be rolling that out here in Vermont in the coming year again with the goal of cutting the prison population in half which we think we can do through a combination of bail reform, sentencing reform and really looking at... Diversion. I mean, T.J. Donovan is all about diversion. Yeah, T.J. Donovan put in place a number of reforms to divert people out of the criminal justice system. I think one issue is that's not necessarily in place statewide and you see real disparities statewide county to county in terms of who's going to jail, who's going to prison for how long, why, what the demographics are. Have you done that study? Part of the problem I was going to say is we don't have a lot of data from the courts. We have some from the Department of Corrections but that data is not analyzed or collected in the way that it once was. We are trying to work with Department of Corrections to obtain and analyze it. I mean, we have extensive police data, police across the state are collecting data on police stops and so we know that racial profiling is a major problem statewide. But we know less about the decisions that are being made, the sentences that are being handed down, the makeup of Vermont's prison population and we need to understand that better if we're going to fix the problem. But knowing what we do know, we are pretty confident, A, Vermont should not be leading the nation in the incarceration rate of African-American men. Vermont is the worst... We're the worst in the country. Vermont should not be locking up people simply because they don't have money for bail. For no other reason than they do not have money for bail and that is happening. Well, also, I want to express something that concerns me is that women in the prison cannot get out if they don't have a place to... Maybe this is for all people in prison that they can't get out if they don't have a place to go to live. And what happens with women when they're imprisoned is their families abandon them more than with men because their boyfriends will leave them and women will tend to stay more devoted to a man in prison than the other way around. And so these women can't even get out of prison because they don't have a place to live because their families have abandoned them because for whatever reason our society, if a woman goes to prison, they're treated in a different way than men are and they can't even get out of prison if they don't have a place to live. I mean, you've touched on the collateral consequences of a prison term even for a relatively short period of time. People lose connections to family. They're children. I mean, it's not just the incarcerated individual who is impacted. You know, it impacts their employment, their housing, their mental health. It's, you know, this is something that is really devastating for me. So you've studied the prisons in Germany where they, you've probably seen in 60 minutes the story about the prison where they're, you know, we don't need to get into that. But look, prison reform is really important where they take much better care of their prisoners than they don't. I don't think that nonviolent criminals should go to prison. I mean, that's my opinion. I'm not a pundit, but I'm going to give out my opinion. Do you think there will ever be a time in Vermont or in this country where nonviolent offenders don't get put in prison? I mean, possibly. I think we also need to look at how long we're sending people to prison for, you know, violent offenders spending decades and decades in prison where their incarceration is not necessarily having any public safety benefit. Their returns are diminishing over time and the costs are going up. You know, you alluded to Germany. There are many other countries that don't do it this way. They don't do it this way. The return is like zero. But it's getting worse in our country. We didn't even get into the national stuff which I really wanted to get into because what's going on now in our country and our civil liberties and the rule of law and all this other stuff is pretty intense. The Campaign for Smart Justice is one of the things national... Campaign for Smart Justice, the website again is theacluvt.org Visit the website. Tell us quickly. We have a minute and a half left. I was just going to say, that's one of several ways in which the ACL... We were embarked on this campaign several years ago but it's become more important with the election of Donald Trump and of course with Jeff Sessions of the Department of Justice to really push back against a retrograde approach to criminal justice and it's one of the ways that we are trying to counter the Trump administration from criminal justice to LGBT equality to religious discrimination, women's rights. I mean we have our work cut out for us and so yes, we need all the help we can get. So I just want to say that the membership in nationally and statewide has quadrupled. It's four times bigger than it was at the national level and state level in the last... Within the last six to nine months. In the last six to nine months the membership has quadrupled in both the national and state. Now you can go online, you can become a member. Stop on down in Montpelier for the party if you want to stop on down and wish them well on their 50th anniversary. Duff, anything else you want to add before we say goodbye? I think Vermont is very lucky to have you here in this new role and all the great work that you're doing and so thank you from the bottom of my heart and for all that you do in this world. We need more people like you. You're a good man my friend. To my viewers, good night.