Effort To Force Kelly To Testify On RNC Arrests

City lawyers are opposing efforts by civil rights attorneys to take Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly’s deposition for use in several lawsuits challenging the city’s treatment of protesters during the 2004 Republican National Convention.While the New York Civil Liberties Union had said it would be satisfied with three hours of Mr. Kelly’s time, one attorney has asked a federal judge to require the commissioner to answer questions for two days.Magistrate-Judge James Francis IV has not yet ruled on whether he will allow the deposition to go forward. Judges are frequently hesitant to pull city officials away from their duties to allow attorneys to take their depositions for private lawsuits. A lawyer for the city, Peter Farrell, wrote that the plaintiffs have not proved that Mr. Kelly knows anything that cannot be found in the testimony already available, according to an August 25 letter to the court.Lawyers for the plaintiffs said Mr. Kelly’s deposition is crucial to the case. They claim he is responsible for the policies that led to protesters being detained for more than two days in some cases.During the convention, police arrested about 1,800 protesters and held them at a makeshift detention center on Pier 57.Mr. Kelly has been deposed before in lawsuits relating to the Republican National Convention. On August 18, 2004, several days before the convention, a lawyer for the NYCLU deposed Mr. Kelly in a lawsuit relating to the coming convention, according to a court filing by an NYCLU attorney, Christopher Dunn.Both sides have agreed upon September 25 and 26 as possible days for the depositions. An attorney who represents 15 plaintiffs, Jonathan Moore, has said that he would like Mr. Kelly to submit to two days of questioning.He noted that the city has deposed some of his plaintiffs for that long in relation to the case. The deposition of the department’s top uniformed officer, Joseph Esposito, lasted four days, Mr. Moore said.

Effort To Force Kelly To Testify On RNC Arrests

Effort To Force Kelly To Testify On RNC Arrests

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