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 Many Charges Are Dismissed In G.O.P. Convention Protests 12/10/00 - by Francis X. Clines - New York Times One after another, the city of Philadelphia's criminal cases have been collapsing against many of the 391 people arrested last August as they gathered for protests and civil disobedience outside the Republican National Convention. Sixty-nine cases have been dismissed in the last two weeks as prosecutors and the police have failed to convince the courts that there was any evidence tying those arrested to crimes. In one mass trial, 38 of 43 cases were dismissed when the prosecution failed to prove misdemeanor charges by submitting videotapes of crowds of protesters. The court demanded specific testimony from arresting officers about witnessing each person's alleged wrongdoing. In another mass trial, the judge found probable cause that there were plans to disrupt the convention with acts of civil disobedience. But undercover state police officers who had infiltrated the protesters' ranks at a factory where giant street puppets were being made could not identify any of 31 defendants as people they had seen break the law. "You're going to have to have somebody come in here and testify that somebody did something wrong," Judge James M. DeLeon of Municipal Court told prosecutors in dismissing cases against 38 demonstrators arrested Aug. 1, as they protested on downtown streets. Of the 5 others in that trial of 43 people, the judge convicted 3 on misdemeanor charges of blocking the streets, and 2 did not appear for trial. The convention was not disrupted as protesters managed only one day of hit-and-run street demonstrations. Some intersections were blocked and police cars were vandalized. The police reported that some officers were assaulted in street melees. Lawyers for the protesters arrested during the convention said the court results confirmed their complaint at the time that the arrests by the Philadelphia police were a pre-emptive street-sweeping tactic designed to stifle lawful protest and head off distractions from the convention agenda. Most of the protesters, who were interested in a variety of causes, including capital punishment and labor conditions in a global economy, spent a week or more in jail and were released after the convention, said the R2K Legal Collective, the main defense group for the demonstrators. "Essentially it was a war on free speech that the city has been gradually losing," said Lawrence S. Krasner, a defense lawyer who contended that the arrests amounted to preventive detention. "This is not a matter of misidentification," Mr. Krasner said. "It was a situation where these people never should have been arrested in the first place." Mr. Krasner noted that John Sellers, a California protest organizer, was arrested as a leader bent on riot and held initially in lieu of $1 million bail on a dozen misdemeanor charges. But the case was eventually dropped for lack of evidence, he said, weeks after the national spotlight had shifted from Philadelphia. City officials defended the arrests as justified under the circumstances, saying that the protesters were intent on civil riot. Officials noted that many of those arrested initially did not identify themselves to the police and that this prolonged their detention. City officials' accusations that some protesters were influenced by radical groups with ties to old-line Communist organizations have not been borne out in the continuing series of trials. Of the 391 people arrested, about 100 accepted plea bargains by which they each paid $335 in restitution and court fees in exchange for their freedom and six months of probation, according to Kris Hermes of the R2K Legal Collective. Trials for the rest are scheduled over the next few weeks. Of these, 18 of 35 felony cases have been reduced to misdemeanor charges, according to Mr. Hermes, who said civil-damage lawsuits would be filed against the city alleging false arrest and other violations of constitutional rights. |
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