by Jean Peterson | Jan 25, 2018 | Americans with Disabilities Act, Case news, Civil rights, CREEC in the news, CREEC news, Disability rights, Discrimination, Effective Communication
Pepsi Center to Provide Open Captioning for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Sports Fans Class action settlement provides for captioning on LED boards at non-concert events. DENVER January 25, 2018 – Kirstin Kurlander and Kroenke Arena Company are pleased to announce that the Pepsi Center will start providing open captioning for Deaf and Hard of Hearing sports fans beginning this fall. The Pepsi Center — a roughly 18,000-seat arena in downtown Denver — is home to the Colorado Avalanche, Denver Nuggets, and Colorado Mammoth. Starting with the first preseason Avalanche game in October of this year, the Pepsi Center will caption all of the information spoken over the public address system on LED ribbon boards mounted on the front of the third level at the four corners of the arena. Ms. Kurlander, a deaf woman and Mammoth season-ticket holder, filed a class action lawsuit against the company that owns and operates the Pepsi Center in 2016, after informally requesting captions at the arena. The Pepsi Center began providing captions on handheld devices — smartphones or tablets — in late 2016, and has been working with Ms. Kurlander and her attorneys at the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center (CREEC) on a solution that provides open captioning that is generally visible throughout the arena. The parties reached agreement at the end of last year and Judge Wiley Y. Daniel granted preliminary approval on January 9, 2018. “I am very pleased that the Pepsi Center will provide captioning and I look forward to attending lacrosse and other games there with full access to the information broadcast in the arena,” said Ms....
by Jean Peterson | Jan 25, 2018 | Civil rights, CREEC news
Clarence Moses-EL was falsely imprisoned for 28 years. After he was released, the former Denver D.A., Mitch Morrissey, decided to retry him. This jury found him not guilty, and he’s now free after losing the best part of his life. Susan Greene has a complete — and hair-raising — description of the case in her Colorado Independent article. I urge everyone to sign the petition on Change.Org urging the current D.A. Beth McCann and the Colorado Attorney General, Cynthia Coffman, to approve compensation for his lost years, and not force a third trial. Tomorrow is the deadline, so please sign today! Below is CREEC’s letter to Ms. Coffman and Ms. McCann: January 25, 2018 Cynthia H. Coffman Colorado Attorney General Ralph L. Carr Judicial Building 1300 Broadway, 10th Floor Denver, CO 80203 Cynthia.Coffman@coag.gov Beth McCann Denver District Attorney 201 W. Colfax Ave. Denver, CO 80202 Beth.McCann@denverda.org RE: Compensation Due Clarence Moses-EL Dear General Coffman and District Attorney McCann: I am writing to urge that you not oppose compensation for Clarence Moses-EL. The Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center is a Denver-based nonprofit devoted to protecting civil rights in all walks of life. My Co-Executive Director, Tim Fox, and I are both Colorado lawyers and Denver residents — and we are both devoted to the integrity of the justice system in the state and the city we love. We are deeply concerned about the treatment of Mr. Moses-EL’s case over the past 30 years. It is hard to read about this flawed process — the destruction of dispositive evidence, a conviction based on a dream, and a retrial (opposed by...
by Amy F. Robertson | Jan 24, 2018 | Americans with Disabilities Act, Civil rights, CREEC in the news, Discrimination, Title III
When an accessibility barrier at a chain of businesses affects people with similar disabilities in the same way — narrow queue lines at a restaurant; steps at the entrance to a store; parking lots with excessive slope — the most efficient way to address these violations is through a class action under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) against the common owner or operator. This was the conclusion reached by a federal district court in Pennsylvania in an order certifying a class of people with mobility disabilities challenging noncompliant parking lots at Steak ‘N Shake restaurants around the country. Steak ‘N Shake challenged this decision in the Third Circuit, supported by two amicus briefs on behalf of various business associations including the National Retail Federation and the Chamber of Commerce. CREEC — for itself and disability rights legends Corbett O’Toole, Julie Farrar, Carrie Ann Lucas, and Julie Reiskin — filed an amicus brief to the Third Circuit in support of the plaintiffs and the righteousness of Title III class actions. Eve Hill, of Brown, Goldstein & Levy, and Michelle Uzeta drafted an amicus brief on behalf of Disability Rights Pennsylvania and the National Disability Rights Network, also supporting the plaintiffs, and explaining the importance of not just achieving, but maintaining access for people with disabilities. CREEC’s brief explained the many ways in which Title III cases — based on objective measurements and the DOJ’s design standards — are ideally suited for class treatment. CREEC also took the opportunity to respond to Steak ‘N Shake’s amici — the business associations — who filed briefs full of insults and random context-free...
