California Congressman Eric Swalwell has filed a state damages lawsuit against Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, who faces dismissal over alleged “defamatory statements.”

Joseph Goethals of Goethals & Stone, PC in Burlingame, said Sunday that he filed the damages suit in Alameda County. The filing of a lawsuit is a proper requirement before the initiation of an actual lawsuit. Alameda County now has 30 days to reply, Goethals said. It will either accept the lawsuit and compensate Swalwell or reject the lawsuit and possibly file a defamation lawsuit in state court.

“Pamela Price intentionally made false claims,” Goethals said. “She is retaliating because the congressman supports the recall effort. This is an attempt to distract people from their gross incompetence that is endangering the residents of Alameda County.”

Media representatives for the prosecutor's office didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment on Sunday.

Swalwell, who represents California's 14th Congressional District, has been a vocal critic of Price, whose recall effort goes before voters on Nov. 5. After the congressman held a press conference in early October advocating for the recall, Price published a post on her personal Facebook page That raised the query of whether Swalwell had anything to “hide” from his time as a prosecutor within the DA’s office from 2006 to 2012.

Price's campaign then released an announcement saying, “Voters would be better served if Congressman Swalwell focused less on overturning the will of the voters and more on defending our democracy.”

Price's campaign previously suggested on X.com that the The congressman was just beginning to complain about crime when “Alameda County residents historically elected the first black woman to serve as district attorney.”

“Pamela Price leaves me no choice but to file this lawsuit against her because of her deliberate and untrue statements,” Swalwell’s office said in an email Sunday. “No one is above the law, especially the Alameda County District Attorney. Price may be trying to bide time for her likely recall, but her intimidation tactics and efforts at political retaliation may not hold up. I will not allow her to attempt to tarnish my personal and professional reputation.”

Originally published: November 3, 2024 at 4:52 pm PST

policy

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is promising the most important deportation effort the U.S. has ever seen if he’s elected — a promise he bases partially on the concept immigrants within the U.S. steal what’s legal and illegal he mentions “black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs.”

However, government data shows that immigrant employees contribute to economic growth and supply advancement opportunities for native-born employees. And mass deportation would cost U.S. taxpayers as much as $1 trillion and will send the price of living, including food and housing, skyrocketing, economists say.

Here's a take a look at immigration and the US job market and what Trump's plan would mean for the US economy.

Trump, who often uses anti-immigrant rhetoric, made references in his campaign to immigrants who he said took “black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs.”

At a recent rally in Reading, Pennsylvania, Trump said, “There is an invasion of people into our country.”

“They're going to attack black jobs and Hispanic jobs – and they're already doing that – and they're also attacking union jobs,” Trump said. “So when you see the border, it’s not just the crime. Your jobs will also be taken away.”

Trump's rhetoric about jobs was widely condemned by Democrats and black leaders, who called it a racist and offensive option to insinuate that black and Hispanic Americans are taking menial jobs.

Janiyah Thomas, the director of Team Trump Black Media, told The Associated Press that Democrats “continue to prioritize the interests of illegal immigrants over our own Black Americans who were born in this country” and that within the Biden era Employment increases on the labor market have come primarily as a result of illegal immigration.

The latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Current Population Survey shows that in 2023, native-born Black employees are predominantly employed in management and financial operations, sales and office support roles, while native-born Latino employees are most frequently employed in management are , office support, sales and repair jobs.

Foreign-born black noncitizen employees are most typical in transportation and health care, and foreign-born Hispanic noncitizen employees are most typical in construction, constructing, and grounds cleansing.

In 2023, international migrants — mostly from Latin America — accounted for greater than two-thirds of the population growth within the United States, and to this point this decade they’ve accounted for nearly three-quarters of U.S. growth.

After reaching a record high in December 2023, the variety of migrants crossing the border has fallen sharply.

The claim that immigrants are taking job opportunities away from U.S.-born Americans is echoed by Trump's advisers. They often cite a report by Steven Camarota, research director on the Center for Immigration Studies, a right-wing think tank that seeks to scale back the flow of immigrants into the United States, claiming that foreigners disproportionately drive U.S. labor force growth and reap a lot of the advantages.

Camarota's report said there have been 971,000 more U.S.-born Americans within the workforce in May 2024 in comparison with May 2019 before the pandemic, while the variety of working immigrants increased by 3.2 million.

It's true that international migrants have grow to be a serious driver of population growth this decade, increasing their share of the overall population as fewer children are born within the U.S. in comparison with previous years. That's in keeping with the U.S. Census Bureau's annual American Community Survey.

Economists who study the impact of immigrant labor on the economy say that people who find themselves within the U.S. illegally don’t take the roles of native residents since the roles these immigrants tackle are mostly positions that don’t need to fill local employees, for instance in agriculture and food processing jobs.

Giovanni Peri, a labor economist on the University of California, Davis, conducted a study examining the impact of the 1980 influx of Cuban immigrants in Miami (the so-called Mariel Boatlift) on the employment of black employees. The study found that wages for black and Hispanic employees in Miami were higher than those in other cities that didn’t see a surge in immigrants.

Peri told the AP that the presence of recent immigrant employees often improves employment outcomes for native-born employees, who often have different languages ​​and skills in comparison with recent immigrants.

Additionally, there is no such thing as a fixed variety of jobs within the United States, immigrants are likely to help existing businesses survive (and create recent opportunities for local employees), and there are currently more jobs available than there’s a workforce available. U.S. natives have little interest in working in labor-intensive jobs in agriculture and food production.

“We have a lot more vacancies than workers in this type of manual labor, in fact we need a lot more of them to fill these roles,” Peri said.

Stan Marek, who employs about 1,000 people at his Houston construction company Marek Brothers Holdings LLC, said he has seen this firsthand.

Asked whether immigrants within the U.S. illegally are taking jobs away from native-born employees, he said: “Absolutely not, absolutely.”

“Many of my workers are retiring, and their children will not go into the construction and trades industry,” Marek said. He added that the U.S. needs an identification system that addresses national security concerns in order that those within the country illegally can work.

“There aren’t enough workers here,” he said.

Data also shows that when there should not enough employees to fill these roles, firms automate their jobs through machinery and technology investments fairly than turning to local employees.

Ethan Lewis, an economist at Dartmouth University, said: “There is numerous research on the impact of immigration to the US on the labor market. Most of them conclude that the impact on lower-skilled employees is comparatively small and that, if any, jobs exist for people born within the United States. “Workers could be created by immigrants, not 'taken along'.”

Trump has said he’ll concentrate on rounding up migrants by deploying the National Guard, whose troops will be activated on a governor's orders.

Peri says a deportation program would cost the U.S. as much as $1 trillion and end in massive losses to the U.S. economy. The cost of food and other staples would skyrocket.

“They contribute enormously to our economy and we wouldn’t have fruits and vegetables, we wouldn’t have gardens,” if deportation efforts bore fruit, he said.

Since employees living within the U.S. illegally account for about 4% of U.S. GDP annually, he estimates that mass deportation would end in a lack of about $1 trillion.

“The cost is unimaginable in terms of lost income and lost production, and there will be logistical costs to organizing it,” he said.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a podcast interview with David Axelrod this month that immigrant labor is “an important source of workforce growth.”

“All in all, it helps the economy grow without other people actually losing their jobs,” she said. “It’s not a zero-sum game in any way.”

Over the past 4 years, U.S. courts and state bar associations have taken motion to guard the integrity of the U.S. justice system by punishing lawyers who filed baseless lawsuits claiming – without evidence – that the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election were invalid.

Despite the aggressive litigation of lawyers who deny any wrongdoing, the U.S. legal community has, over time, exercised the oversight essential to carry most of them accountable for his or her abuse of American courts.

Most of the lawsuits difficult the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election were filed in federal court. Federal judges not only dismissed the lawsuits for lack of evidence, but in some cases also penalized the lawyers who filed them.

Judge Linda Parker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan acted first, ruling in August 2021 that a lawsuit filed by nine attorneys was “a historic and serious abuse of the judicial process.” In a 110-page reportAccording to her, the abuses included:

“Making claims that are not supported by law; making claims that are not supported by evidence (but instead rely on speculation, conjecture, and unjustified suspicion); making factual allegations and claims without conducting the necessary pre-filing investigations; and dragging out these proceedings.”

“Print media, television and social media” were the places where the lawyers could have expressed their “protests” and “suppositions,” Parker wrote. But “such statements are neither allowed nor welcome in court.”

The judge imposed three penalties on the attorneys: $175,000 in legal costs for the defendant, 12 hours of mandatory classes on litigation standards and election law, and referral to the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission and their home state's disciplinary authorities for possible suspension or expulsion from the bar.

Appeals to the sixth District And Supreme Court The try and lift the sanctions failed. After three years of litigation, the penalties imposed by Michigan are still in force.

“Fantastic” claims

Courts in other states have taken similar measures to carry lawyers accountable who filed abusive or frivolous lawsuits difficult the outcomes of the presidential election:

Colorado: A federal district court convicted two lawyers, Ernest Walker and Gary Fielder, for filing a lawsuit in search of $160 billion in damages from 19 defendants for alleged misconduct related to the 2020 presidential election. After the court found the claims were “fanciful” and “filed in bad faith,” the court ordered Walker and Fielder must pay the defendants' legal fees totaling $187,000. complaints failed before the tenth Circuit and the Supreme Court.

Arizona: A federal district court imposed similar sanctions on three lawyers – Andrew Parker, Kurt Olsen and Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz – who challenged the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election in Arizona. The court found Her grievance contained “false, misleading and unsubstantiated allegations of fact” and “had no adequate basis in fact or law.” ordered The lawyers must pay the defendants' legal fees totaling $122,200. The lawyers have appealed.

Florida: A federal district court even heard a 193-page lawsuit filed by Donald Trump in 2022, during which he claimed that 31 defendants spread false details about him in an try and rig the 2016 presidential election. The court wrote: “This case should never have been brought to trial. … No reasonable lawyer would have filed it.” The court ordered Trump and his lead attorney, Alina Habba, to pay the defendants' legal fees totaling $938,000. Both are appealing.

These cases set a solid precedent for punishing lawyers who challenge election results with improper briefs.

Suspension and exclusion

In addition to courts penalizing attorneys for inappropriate filings, bar disciplinary boards in several states have initiated proceedings to suspend or disbar these attorneys from practicing of their jurisdictions. Despite lengthy, multi-step proceedings and aggressive counterclaims, these disciplinary proceedings are nearing completion.

In New York, the important disciplinary authority stated:undisputed evidence“that Rudy Giuliani, who served as legal counsel to President Trump and his campaign team, “has been shown to have made false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the general public.” It ordered his immediate suspension from the practice of law in New York pending the end result of further proceedings. The DC Bar Association, counting on the New York lawsuit and without conducting its own fact-finding, did the identical within the District of Columbia.

While no further proceedings to permanently disqualify Giuliani were initiated in New York, the disciplinary body of the Washington DC Bar Association issued a Report 2024 and recommends his expulsion from the Bar of this judicial district.

The 2024 report focuses on his actions in Pennsylvania, finding that he violated Pennsylvania's Rules of Professional Conduct by filing a lawsuit in search of to “disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania voters without the slightest factual basis.” It concludes that “disbarment is the only action that will protect the public, the courts, and the integrity of the legal profession, and will deter other lawyers from bringing similarly baseless lawsuits.” The advice for disbarment from the Washington, DC, Bar is currently under review by the Washington, DC, Bar's chief disciplinary body.

In the same case against one other lawyer, the DC Bar Disciplinary Board issued a preliminary result that Jeffrey Clark, former deputy chief of the Justice Department's Civil Division, had also violated the Justice Department's ethics rules and must be sanctioned. The move was a response to Clark's alleged efforts to Help Trump overturn the 2020 election Results.

Similar disciplinary measures were also taken in other federal states.

The disciplinary power of the California Bar recommended exclusion by John Eastman, a law professor who filed defamatory briefs and otherwise behaved unethically while representing President Trump and his campaign.

When the Georgia State Bar Association’s Disciplinary Board asked Trump campaign attorney Lin Wood to a psychiatric examinationHe sued to forestall this. A federal district court dismissed his case, and his appeal failed. In 2023, Wood announced his everlasting retirement from legal practice.

The Michigan Attorney General Disciplinary Chamber Rejected several applications by the lawyers who filed illegal lawsuits there for the dismissal of pending proceedings for disqualification from practicing their occupation.

Not all state disciplinary authorities prevailed. Sidney Powell, who represented Trump and his campaign, won dismissal of ethics charges brought against her in Texas. However, she still faces expulsion from the Michigan Bar and plead guilty on criminal charges in Georgia in reference to the 2020 presidential election there.

Integrity of the justice system

Many lawyers who tried to challenge the 2020 presidential election with abusive pleadings have paid a high price: legal costs, court convictions, and reputational damage. Some now not practice law.

The legal community's strict oversight policies should make lawyers think twice about abusing American courts, nevertheless it remains to be unclear whether past disciplinary actions will prevent potential misconduct after the 2024 presidential election.

What is for certain, nonetheless, is that the integrity of the US justice system is barely as strong as its commitment to the facts.

Although Hollywood courtroom drama movies often glorify lawyers' closing arguments, in point of fact, the opening statement might be the one most significant event of a trial.

It was like this the case within the hush money trial against former President Donald Trump and alleged payments Pornstar Stormy Daniels as lawyers for either side presented theirs Opening speeches on April 22, 2024 in New York.

In this caseManhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg accused the previous president 34 crimes of falsifying business records before the 2016 presidential election to influence voters' knowledge of him. Trump pleaded not guilty.

While his opening statement, prosecutor Matthew Colangelo told jurors that Trump was a part of a conspiracy to cover negative details about him to assist get him elected. “He then covered up this conspiracy by lying over and over again in his New York business filings,” Colangelo said.

Attorney Todd Blanche was chargeable for Trump's defense. “President Trump has committed no crimes.”

Blanche explained that Trump was “not involved and unaware of the details of the hush money payments” because he left every little thing to Michael Cohen, his former lawyer and fixer who is predicted to testify before the prosecution. Blanche described Cohen as a “criminal” who was “obsessed” with Trump and searching for personal revenge.

How will these conflicting opening arguments impact the jury?

Academic psychologists tell us that between 65% and 75% of jurors make up your mind a couple of case after the opening statement. What's much more incredible is that this 85% of those jurors maintaining the position they formed thereafter the opening speech Once all of the evidence is presented and the method is complete.

In most cases, it is just too late to win over the jury through closing arguments.

This phenomenon isn’t any surprise to experienced litigators. You're accustomed to two theories that outline how jurors – actually, people typically – process information: the concepts of Primacy and topicality.

These ideas suggest that jurors remember best what they hear first and what they hear last. Therefore, it’s critical for attorneys on either side to start their opening arguments with a bang.

The psychology of the jury

I taught a course about it Litigation representation at Harvard Law School for twenty years. Part of my curriculum involves teaching aspiring attorneys the best way to give effective opening statements.

If the goal is to persuade the jury by the top of the attorney's opening statement, how does that work in practice?

Trial attorneys who’re deep in research know that jurors reply to a well thought out theory of the case, interrupted by a succinct topic.

A theory of the case is a brief statement of three to 5 sentences, just like an elevator pitch. The theme is a brief, concise summary of the speculation of the case that is straightforward for a juror to recollect. The topic is commonly the primary sentence out of the lawyer's mouth, followed by a more detailed description of the speculation.

In fact, the very first skill I teach in my course at Harvard is developing theories and themes. To effectively convey a theory in a case, many attorneys begin their opening statement with “This is about…” after which fill in the precise details.

This is what happened on the primary day of Trump's trial.

“This case is about a criminal conspiracy and fraud,” Colangelo, the prosecutor, told jurors. “Defendant Donald Trump orchestrated a criminal plan to rig the 2016 presidential election.”

In stark contrast, Trump's defenders said, “There's nothing wrong with influencing an election. That's called democracy.”

Although prosecutors have tried to place a “dark” tone on the matter, Blanche says jurors will learn that there isn’t any crime involved.

In each example, the jury is given enough information to border the evidence they may hear through the trial.

After either side complete their openings, data will show that greater than two-thirds of the jury could have reached a choice that can stand for the remainder of the trial.

Why do jurors are likely to behave this fashion?

Research has also taught trial lawyers that if you happen to connect the jury together with your theory of a case at first of the trial, the jury will view all remaining evidence – no matter whether it’s potentially helpful to the prosecution or defense – through the prism of process this theory.

The importance of opening statements can’t be overemphasized. They set the tone and supply a framework for the jury to know the testimony they may hear in the approaching months.

Material utilized in this story was originally published on April 22, 2024.