Sept. 15 Protest Arrestees Win At Trial

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Sept. 15 arrestees win at trial

Government case collapses during trial -- judge dismisses all charges

An important victory was won today in the case of 11 defendants who were arrested at the Sept. 15 March on the Capitol, which drew 100,000 anti-war protestors to Washington, DC.

Judge Henry Greene of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia dismissed all charges against the defendants, who were accused of crossing a police line. The government's case collapsed in the early stages of the trial during the the testimony of a witness from the Capitol Police.

The protestors asserted that the government and the Capitol Police had illegally and unconstitutionally sought to prevent demonstrators from engaging in First Amendment protected speech and assembly in an area in front of the Capitol building routinely kept open to tourists and others. This attempt to exclude people engaging in free speech activities could not form the basis for a lawful arrest or conviction for "crossing a police line."

The government's case disintegrated as protestors' attorneys demonstrated that the government had withheld key evidence from the defense.

Under pressure from the defense, the government revealed that they had withheld documents and material that was central to the defendants' challenge to the government's efforts to prevent demonstrators from exercising their First Amendment rights at Congress under the pretext of "national security," including a "police sensitive" document supposedly related to "terrorism." The defense argued that the government was using this pretext to prevent antiwar protest at a time when General David Petraeus was making the Bush administration's case that Congress should continue to fund the Iraq war.

Many of the defendants represented themselves and were given pro bono legal counsel and advice from attorneys Michael Madden, Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the Partnership for Civil Justice, Stephanie Snyder of the Georgetown Criminal Justice Clinic, and Harriet Adams. The defendants, including leaders from Veterans for Peace, the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), and Iraq Veterans Against the War, were Elliot Adams, Brian Becker, Ellen Barfield, Carla Boccella, Adam Kokesh, Jay Gillen, Rodney Centeno, Polly Miller, Sholom Keller, Shawn Peterson, and Rich Reinhart.

Time to take back the streets.

I bet the MSM doesn't even put this on the crawl at the bottom of the screen. The criminal justice system does work, though not as often as we would like.

by withholding evidence, and the prosecution for conspiring to deprive the defendents of their constitutional rights?

and unfortunately be correct

I would sue with prosecution as the settlement rather than money.

-Hoot

"Who cares," shrug the fascisti, "We stopped them from marching on the day of their precious little rally, and even though we didn't make the charges stick, they weren't there at the appointed hour for their protest, the arrests scared a bunch of other people, they spent a lot of money defending these bullshit charges (we'll pay for our prosecution of them out of their tax dollars), and they spent more time in jail for doing nothing than Scooter Libby did for an act of treason during wartime."