ACLU settlement will cost $700,000

Posted on March 23, 2006

A Tic In The Mind’s Eye and Public Figures Beware point us to how the ACLU made a half million dollars.

A settlement reached by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico and the state Children, Youth and Families Department over conditions within the juvenile justice system will cost the state more than $700,000… The money part of the settlement includes $220,000 for the six months that ACLU attorneys spent preparing their lawsuit and $400,000 for the attorneys to monitor CYFD’s compliance over the next four years. Another $85,000 was paid to six former residents of the New Mexico Boys School in Springer and one former female resident at an Albuquerque juvenile jail as compensation for physical injuries received from guards and other inmates and for insufficient medical and mental health care.

Public Figures Beware notes:

So the ACLU attorneys kept $620,000 for themselves for all their past and future “hard work” and gave the seven victims $85,000 to split between them for their physical and mental injuries? Some genuine characters, indeed. Mind you, this is a settlement, not a court order, where the attorneys fees and “monitoring costs” were roughly 7 1/2 times higher than the damages for the victims.

Indeed, can you imagine how much the ACLU would have gotten from taxpayers if they actually won a lawsuit?