News Brief From New Jersey Law Journal

'DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL' RULE SET FOR ILLEGAL-ALIEN PLAINTIFFS
In a case of first impression, an Appellate Division panel held Wednesday that defense counsel cannot ask the plaintiffs about their immigration status during discovery in a putative class action suit alleging that an employer cheated its workers out of required just compensation and overtime pay. Nor can the plaintiffs be asked about whether they lied to their employer or made false statements, unless the defense can make a showing that those statements have a direct impact on their credibility in determining whether they are, in fact, eligible for back pay and overtime, the court said in Serrano and Vivar v. Underground Utilities Corp.

Norwegian Day Parade In Brooklyn

Zhao Ziyang's Taped Comments on the June Fourth Movement Being Released

赵紫阳录音结集出书

A secret recording of Zhao Ziyang, the former Premier of the People's Republic of China (1980-1987) and fromer General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (1987-1989), that was taped around 1992 during his house arrest was released recently. See the article here: http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/zhaoziyang-05142009121836.html and listen to the recording using the YouTube link below.

The recording includes his views and comments on the June Fourth Movement, reform and China's future.

In an interview byRadio Free Asia, Bao Tong (鲍彤), a former member of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, indicated that he plans to publish the English edition of the transcript first before issuing the Chinese edition. He explained that if the Chinese edition is published first, it will be immediately censored. If the English edition is published first and received international recognition that the contents are factually accurate, then it will not be possible for the Chinese edition to be censored.

Transcript of part of the recording, copied from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7__pLe39rsg&annotation_id=annotation_320753&feature=iv:

6月3日夜，我正同家人在院子裡乘涼，聽到街上有密集的槍聲。一場舉世震驚的悲劇終于 未能避免地發生了。六四悲劇三年後，我記下了這些材料，這場悲劇已經過去好多年了。這場風波的積極分子， 除少數人逃出國外，大部分人被抓，被判，被反覆審問。情況現在應當是非常清楚了，應該 說以下三個問題可以回答了：第一，當時說學潮是一場有領導，有計劃，有預謀的反黨反社會主義的政治鬥爭。現在可以 問一下，究竟是什麼人在領導？如何計劃，如何預謀的？有哪些材料能夠說明這一點？還說 黨內有黑手，黑手是誰呀？第二，說這場動亂的目的是要顛覆共和國，推翻共產黨，這方面又有什麼材料？我當時就說 過，多數人是要我們改正錯誤，而不是要根本上推翻我們的制度。這麼多年過去了，審訊中 得到什麼材料？究竟是我說得對還是他們說得對？許多外出的民運分子都說，他們在六四前 ，還是希望黨往好處改變。 六四以後，黨使他們完全絕望，使他們和黨處在對立的方面。在學潮期間，學生提出過很多 口號，要求，但就是沒有提物價問題，而當時物價問題是社會上很大的熱點，是很容易引起 共鳴的。學生們要和共產黨作對，這麼敏感的問題他們為什麼不利用呢？提這樣的問題不是 更能動員群眾嗎？學生不提物價問題，可見學生們知道物價問題涉及改革，如果直接提出物 價問題動員群眾，實際上要反對，否定改革。可見不是這種情況。第三，將六四定性為反革命暴亂，能不能站得住腳？學生一直是守秩序的，不少材料說明， 在解放軍遭到圍攻時，許多地方反而是學生來保護解放軍。大量市民阻攔解放軍進城，究竟 是為了什麼？是要推翻共和國嗎？當然，那麼多人的行動，總有極少數人混在人群裡面攻打 解放軍，但那是一種混亂情況。北京市不少流氓，流竄犯乘機鬧事，那是完全可能的。難道 能把這些行為說成是廣大市民，學生的行為嗎？這個問題到現在應當很清楚了。

The Way We Are 天水圍的日與夜

Things are never what they appeared to be. This is what the movie “The way We Are” impresses me most. At the beginning of the movie, we saw Mrs. Cheung working hard at her job in the supermarket while her teenage son lazy around at home watching T.V. all day. Then we saw Mrs. Cheung back at home after work making and eating dinner with her son without much interaction between the two. That comes across as if the son is a no-good loser and Mrs. Cheung as a not caring mother, and there seems to be an enormous divide between the two. This impression is further reinforced at the son’s bible study group scene when his mentor asked how he would response to his mother if she tells him to study, to be back home early, to do chores, etc., and his answer to all those questions was a simple “Yup.”

However, it was gradually revealed that the son is a quiet, obedient and self-disciplined child. That he is lazing around the apartment is because he is unable to find a job to preoccupy himself during his summer break while awaiting his HKCEE results. When his grandmother is hospitalized, he goes to visit her everyday and turns down invitations from his friends to go out. He is not embarrassed to let his friends know that he would rather go home to be with his mother on mid-Autumn festival than to fool around with them. Also, whenever and whatever his mother asks him to do, he will do it without any objections or hesitations.

Mrs. Cheung, on the other hand, turns out to be a very compassionate and loving person. Her husband has passed away quite a while ago already—long enough that her son can’t remember whether his father was slim or fat. Yet she continues to keep her husband’s jeans in the drawer as if he has not left them. When she finally throws her husband’s old pair of jeans out, she breaks down in tears. We also learn that she is a selfless person and that in the past she supported her now successful brothers’ studies overseas. Mrs. Cheung’s compassion also extends beyond her immediate family. She and her son befriend her elderly co-worker. They help her carry a T.V. set home, do grocery shopping together, and change a light bulb for her apartment. Mrs. Cheung even accompanies her elderly co-worker on a trip to Shartin to have tea with her co-worker’s son-in-law.

Her co-worker is a lonely elderly woman. Her only daughter passed away some time ago and her former son-in-law remarried another woman. The elderly co-worker misses her grandchild, but is prevented by the former son-in-law and his new wife from having any relationship with her grandchild. Mrs. Cheung and her son’s friendship brighten up the elderly woman’s otherwise mundane, meaningless life.

Throughout the movie there is an undercurrent of loneliness--the loneliness of Mrs. Cheung without her husband; the loneliness of her son without a girlfriend or close friend; and the loneliness of her co-worker without her daughter and grandchild.

Counter-balancing this is perhaps the compassion of the characters, especially that of Mrs. Cheung, her son and her elderly co-worker. Even her brothers turn out to be loving and compassionate characters. One of her brothers tell her son that they will support his overseas studies if he could not get promoted to Form Six—a sort of repaying their gratitude for Mrs. Cheung’s support of their overseas studies in the past.

“The Way We Are” set in the background of Tin Shui Wai is about the lives of average people. A town built on reclamation land by the government in the 1990s, which earned its nickname “The City of Sadness” through a series of media coverage of widespread unemployment, organized crimes, domestic violence, and tragic suicides. Just as the feeling of loneliness that seep through the movie, it is a portrait of the way average working people go about their lives copying with their sorrows, tragedies and disappointments both individually and collectively. It is a rare gem out of Hong Kong cinemas and deservingly garnered a number of awards at film festivals.

Legal News

From the New Jersey Law Journal:

U.S. HIGH COURT LIMITS WARRANTLESS VEHICLE SEARCHESThe U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that police need a warrant to search the vehicle of someone they have arrested if the person is locked up in a patrol cruiser and poses no safety threat to officers. The Court's 5-4 decision in a case from Arizona puts new limits on the ability of police to search a vehicle immediately after the arrest of a suspect, particularly when the alleged offense is nothing more serious than a traffic violation. Justice John Paul Stevens said in the majority opinion that warrantless searches still may be conducted if a car's passenger compartment is within reach of a suspect who has been removed from the vehicle or there is reason to believe evidence will be found of the crime that led to the arrest.

REASONABLE-CONTINUATION DOCTRINE JUSTIFIES SECONDARY SEARCH

Following the lead of the federal courts, a New Jersey appeals court ruled Tuesday that law enforcement officials can rely on the "reasonable continuation" doctrine when they decide to conduct additional searches of a suspect's property following a valid initial search. The Appellate Division ruling, in State v. Finesmith, A-1056-08, means prosecutors will be able to use evidence of child pornography seized from a suspect's laptop computer, even though police did not find the laptop during the initial search of the suspect's home and only learned of its location when a detective questioned him after he had invoked his right to counsel. The warrant authorized the police to search the home for "any and all computers" and the court said it was clear the police would have considered their search of the home incomplete without finding the laptop.

司徒華、蔡耀昌 北美巡迴訪問 Szeto Wah & Richard Tsoi North American Tour

“Remember June 4th, Inherit the goals of those before us; Pass on the torch, and Relay the message of democracy to those after us” are the objectives of Hong Kong activists Mr. Szeto Wah's and Mr. Richard Tsoi's North American tour. For the past two days, Mr. Szeto and Mr. Tsoi have been delivering this message to the Chinese community in New York. Yesterday, Mr. Szeto and Mr. Tsoi appeared on WZRC AM 1480 in the morning and on Chinese Radio New York (http://www.chineseradiony.com/) in the afternoon. Both radio stations broadcast in Cantonese Chinese and service the greater New York metroploitan area. Earlier this afternoon, Mr. Szeto Wah and Mr. Richard Tsoi delivered their respective speeches to an audience tightly-packed inside the conference room at the Chinese Consolidated Benovelent Association (中華公所) in New York's Chinatown.

It was twenty years ago in April to June 1989 that students in Beijing held one of the largest patrotic pro-democarcy, anti-corruption sit-in demonstrations in modern Chinese history. The death of the popular Chinese reformist, former party secretary Hu Yao Bang, and the widespread corruprtion and price manipulation of commodities by government officials ignited the idealistic student movement which advocate an end to unfair privileges and illegal dealings of government officials. The movement quickly turned into a call for democracy and reform, and spontaneous demonstrations organized by sympathatic citizens appeared in cities across the country.

On May 15, 1989, party secretary Zhao Zi Yang declared that the student movement was patriotic and called for an end to the hunger strike. However, on May 20th, premier Li Peng labeled the student movement as a riot/rebellion and declared martial law on Beijing. On June 3, 1989, troops and armored vehicles moved in on Tiananmen Square. At 4:00 AM on June 4, the final crackdown came with tanks rolling in onto the square.

Mr. Szeto, one of the founders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, has been calling for a vindication of the student movement for the past twenty years. He stated that an official vindication of the movement is the first step towards a real democracy for China.

This author was a college student in Hong Kong during those critical months and shares similiar sentiments towards the objectives as expounded by Mr. Szeto, and wishes that Mr. Szeto and the Alliance will continue their good work.

It was a privilege to listen to Mr. Szeto again, after twenty years, and in New York.

Napoleonic Fusilier-Grenadier Officer

Over the past two weeks, I painted up the Officer for the Fusilier-Grenadier. Here are two pictures.