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 Charges against 46 protesters are upheld 12/02/00 - by Linda K. Harris - Philadelphia Inquirer In a key pretrial ruling involving people arrested inside the "puppet warehouse" during the Republican National Convention, Municipal Court Judge James M. DeLeon refused to dismiss charges against 46 defendants accused of a variety of misdemeanors. DeLeon ruled that even though those arrested were never identified by state police, because they refused to give their names, authorities could use police lineups next week in an attempt to identify them. Those who are not identified Monday and Tuesday will have their charges dismissed. The ruling came yesterday after 3 1/2 days of sometimes tedious and often contentious testimony and arguments involving two prosecutors, four undercover state troopers, several attorneys from the city Law Department, the deputy director of the Department of Licenses and Inspections, nine defense attorneys, three defendants acting as their own attorneys, and the judge. DeLeon ruled that there was sufficient probable cause for the raid on the warehouse, and that there was no prior restraint of free speech, no improper police conduct, and no destruction of evidence by police. "The judge today ruled that there was probable cause based on the fact that people possibly could have done something," said Bradley Bridge of the Defender Association. "That's possible cause, that's not probable cause, and that's not a reason to go to trial. Why the city has to waste any more time and money is completely beyond me." On the prior-restraint motion, defense attorney David Rudovsky argued that police had a special obligation to wait until protesters actually broke the law to arrest them because their activities - the protests - involved First Amendment issues. "Here you have a puppet warehouse where many of them were engaged in First Amendment activity. You have to have a warrant that specifies what has to be seized. They didn't specify the puppets and they also didn't specify anybody," Rudovsky said. In the destruction-of-evidence motion, defense attorneys had argued that puppets and political materials destroyed by L&I workers after the warehouse raid would have proved the defendants' innocence. DeLeon said police could not be held responsible for the destruction of those materials. Five protesters refused to join the petitions of the 46 and will go to trial either Dec. 11 or Dec. 15, the trial dates set for people arrested in the warehouse. Some of the 75 arrested in the warehouse accepted the district attorney's offer of three months' probation and a fine. Others have already been acquitted. The defendants who choose not to submit to the lineup will automatically go to trial, Bridge said. At one point yesterday, the arguments about papier-mache and cardboard productions and third-degree misdemeanors moved a prosecutor to comment. "Discussing the pig is not exactly where I thought I'd be in this stage of my career," Assistant District Attorney Joseph LaBar said. |
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