Civil Rights Law
Civil Rights Law
It’s not just your rights to property, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that are too often under attack from prying eyes and puritanical prosecutors. Your fundamental rights to freedom of speech, to circulate petitions, access to the ballot and to partake in the public process remain under constant assault.
The Constitution protects it all, and Robert Barnes protects it for you. In fact, very few (if any) practicing attorneys in America have ever won precedent-setting, high-profile, life-changing cases in First Amendment law in civil cases, tax cases and criminal cases. Robert Barnes has achieved all three.
1. WESLEY SNIPES’ ATTORNEY – THE “UN-WINNABLE” TAX LAW CASE
In United States vs. Wesley Snipes, Robert Barnes’ stunning jury-won, not-guilty felony verdicts for Wesley Snipes led the government, for the first time in 30 years, to stop even using the term “tax protester” as a reason to prosecute people. Yes. We have a right to free speech.
2. RALPH NADER’S ATTORNEY – BALLOT ACCESS SUPREME COURT CASE
In Ralph Nader vs. Brewer, Robert Barnes’ five-year court case went up to the U.S. Supreme Court and had more than a dozen governments trying to overturn the Robert Barnes-led victory. But the case led to a decision that experts in election law and the First Amendment agreed was “groundbreaking” and a “severe blow” to the government’s attempts to prohibit people circulating petitions for the cause and candidate of their choice. The decision also strengthened access to the ballot and First Amendment rights in all election cases.
3. PRISON SUICIDE – ESTATE OF MILLER V. TOBIASZ
In Estate of Miller vs. Tobiasz, Robert Barnes and the Barnes Law team achieved a full victory in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, vindicating the rights of two young brothers. Barnes made the government pay for its indifference to a suicide in their custody of the brothers’ mentally ill older brother, expanding the rights in cases of inmate suicide for all.