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 Legal Updates 10/25/00 Update from: the defenestrator PO Box 30922 Philadelphia, PA 19104 defenestrate68@hotmail.com 420 people arrested during the Republican National Convention and their court situations. Numerous people have been asking about what's going on with our legal situation and there is truly little info out there. Most folks who would be on top of that sort of stuff are immersed in meetings and tying together the basics around the legal office. In short a good deal of people are overwhelmed with work, too much to really get the information out. Some (oldish) info is up on the web at thepartysover.org and the Philly indymedia (phillyimc.org) site. [editor's note: www.r2klegal.org will now be updated ongoing.] OVERVIEW Around 420 people were arrested during the Republican National Convention. Most of us were taking part in actions to disrupt business as usual during the RNC to bring attention to this country's criminal injustice system. Some of us were beaten in the street before our arrest; many more of us underwent various forms of abuse while in jail and alleged leaders or scapegoats were given insanely high bails ranging from $10,000 to $1 million. Known organizers were slapped with amazing number of felonies and misdemeanor charges, a clear attempt to curb their political work. And although we as organizers and political troublemakers had no illusions as to our surveillance and infiltration by undercover cops, a good deal of news has surfaced into the mainstream press about it all. Our press coverage, by the way, has improved tremendously since the days directly following the convention. COURT SOLIDARITY After hundreds of us underwent an inspiring week or two of hell and solidarity in Philly's jails all the while disrupting and sabotaging our imprisonment, we've switched over from jail to court solidarity. The idea basically is to keep the issues clear about why we were raising a ruckus in the first place and to keep the world aware we are in the middle of one big political trial. There's a real consciousness on the part of most misdemeanor defendants with keeping solidarity strong with those facing harsher felony charges. The RNC 420 trials won't be over till the last felony case is dropped. Misdemeanor defendants have been seen engaging in disruptive and educational behavior such as reading lengthy political statements to the court, sporting defiant statements on their clothes, pumping fists of power and cheering in solidarity with others. Even radical cheerleading has taken place. At the bigger court dates (three consecutive Saturdays, large numbers of misdemeanors had their status listings), rallies and puppet shows turned out to support the defendants and press has been on the up and up. Despite vowing not to back down, or give in to solidarity tactics, the city is showing clear signs of weakness: hundreds of misdemeanors are being offered diversion and some felonies have been offered some suspicious sounding deals themselves. Granted a ton of these charges against us are bullshit, but nevertheless Philly is notorious for framing people and the courts take it all casually, so these deals being offered is seen as a small victoryesque situation fr us. Not that the deals are good. Most people aren't going for it and are demanding jury trials. Over 200 jury trials, involving for the most part very determined radicals and hell raisers will be a nightmare, even for Phila's hellcourts. Already at the status listings the assistant D.A. is often frazzled and overloaded with mountains of paperwork for individuals, while defendants have spent hours working on their court appearances as one unified thing. THE FELONIES On October 12th, the Timoney 3 went to court on motions to quash (throw out charges). The judge threw out all charges except for 3 each including all the conspiracy charges. Both Camille Viveiros and Eric Steinberg had their remaining assault charge knocked down to a less severe charge (F2 from F1) and Darby Landy is now a misdemeanor defendant. The judge mentioned we had a good cause, and that the corporations were probably paying us off to engage in such teenagerish behavior. So that's one huge victory for us. The T3, for a while were looking at some of the harshest charges of us all. The Timoney 3, by the way are the defendants charged for the much publicized incident during which the Police Comissioner Timoney was allegedly attacked with a bicycle (ironic after police had attacked us using their own bikes all day long). The following day Kate Sorensen went to court on the same quashing motion for her charges, but nothing was thrown out. Of the original 41 with felony charges, over 22 still are being charged as felonies. A number of felony charges were dropped to misdemeanors and some were thrown out during preliminary hearings. So far, nothing has gone to trial. A good deal of court dates have been pushed back for various reasons and some are dealing with motions filed by lawyers. Of those no longer listed as felonies, the breakdown is as follows: 3 had their prosecution withdrawn (including one John Doe, suspected of being an undercover); 2-3 were discharged because of lack of evidence; 2 were offered ARD and 10-11 were remanded to misdemeanors. Just to keep it clear: Those accused with felonies are the ones looking at doing serious time and the ones under a real attack by the State. We need to have their backs. This is where the new movement fucked up after N30 in Seattle, when the felonies were basically left to fend for themselves when everyone else was off scot free. The felony cases are our potential future political prisoners. And that's something we don't ever need. Numerous accused felons are seasoned and valuable activists, organizers and important souls we can't afford not to have with us on the street. So get in touch with the support entities, put out the word and help co-ordinate the important work of keeping them all free! MISDEMEANORS All misdemeanors have finished their first round in court which was their status listing, a bureaucratic process during which the defendant chooses from among the undesirable options presented to them. The plan was to go ahead with lots of individual trials and really force the District Attorneys earn their salaries. But the DA's office convinced the judge to consolidate trials. So the upcoming misdemeanor trials are made up of groups of defendants arrested together. There are more or less 12 different groups with upcoming consolidated trials. They include among others, the Pupettistas arrested for "blocking a highway" from inside a warehouse, numerous street blockades and the School of Americas Watch street theatre performers. 20 - 30 others weren't groupable and have their own individual dates. The consolidated court dates are listed at the end. 7 of the groups are affected by a slew of motions filed by lawyers on their behalf. These include motions for selective prosecution addressing the anti-Mumia march in south Philly which went unmolested by cops while we got jumped and arrested. Currently, of all the misdemeanors, 220 chose to go to trial to continue to tie up their system and keep the heat up, while 110 accepted ARD for various reasons. Many who took ARD couldn't afford to skip out of work or other obligations, but made it clear they were still in solidarity with us. Some made a point of talking to the media about it. Others just weren't into it , but that's just how it goes. PAST COURT DATES - THE STATUS LISTINGS On Saturday, September 30, 190 protesters went to court for their status listings, all misdemeanor cases. This was the biggest court date so far and defendants kept it political, reading statements in the courtroom while puppets and drummers grabbed attention outside of the Criminal Injustice Center. 128 RNC defendants demanded jury trials while 62 accepted ARD (or accelerated rehabilitation) which translates into expungement (erasing the charges from defendant's record), six months probation and a $300 fine. While outside the CJC, a small number of cops drove supporters first across the street and then forbade drumming period, judge Thorpe imposed a ban on statements being read. An impromptu defendants meeting was held after which many returned with their mouths duct taped shut in protest of the judge's decision. The previous 2 Saturdays other misdemeanors had their status listings. On September 23rd, defendants read a long statement in court explaining why they were refusing ARD and demanding the charges against the felons and high level misdemeanors be dropped. Individual defendants who refused ARD also read shorter statements about why they were refusing ARD. September 16th was the first status listing for misdemeanors. A rally was held outside which included a puppet performance by the Insurrection Landscapers (ex-Bread and Pupetteers and part of the RNC 420 codefendants) and what a defiant and brisk morning it was. DISCOVERY Last Thursday (October 19th), a judge ordered the DA's office to give up all their evidence, specifically 42 police videos shot during the actions (41 of local and State police and 1 FBI tape) to the Public Defender's office. Despite the DAs pleas, the judge decided on the grounds that the PD's office are representing so many RNC defendants in the case and the tapes were all from public institutions (the police), that they should share their evidence. Also part of discovery were interviews with cops involved in the raids and arrests on August 1st and some of the undercover infiltraitors. Also references to involvement of numerous Federal agencies popped up including the ATF, FBI, secret service and of course the State Police, who acted as infiltrators. That only 1 FBI tape was turned in is significant, because it implies the feds are keeping their investigations open and don't want to out themselves quite yet in regards to their level of continued surveillance and infiltration. R2K Legal Collective is currently organizing the logging of the tapes if you're a defendant and want to help view and log the contents, give R2K legal a call! AFFIDAVIT One of the more amusing reads lately was the affidavit which Philly cops submitted in order to get a warrant for the pre-action raid on the warehouse where people were building puppets and props to support the direct actions and demonstrations later that day. After pages of descriptions of direct action terms and organizations (ACT UP described as a non-artisan organization), it goes on to quote several now famous activists on their intentions to disrupt and passes on information from infiltraitors. Some direct action tactics were exposed such as throwing cardoard boxes filled with water at police and our intent to use 1" PVC pipe spotted at the Puppet Warehouse for lockdown purposes. It contains a good deal of slanderous lies, but more than anything is an amusing peek into the minds of some cops and bureaucrats lacking the necessary intelligence to consciously tap the enormous humor potential in their very own brains. The affidavit also exposes our source of funding: the Soviet Union. Read it yourself at www.thepartysover.org! SELECTIVE PROSECUTION MOTION This Thursday (October 26th) a motion will be filed to dismiss some of the cases based on selective prosecution. A highly political motion that some folks should come and hear at 9:30 AM in room 506. There is a chance that Mayor Street among other "famous" rights violators will be called to the stand by us. The outcome of this motion will effect our ability to file similar motions to dismiss in the future. It could give us more rights on paper. SUPPORT First off, a shout out to everyone who's done benefits, demonstrations, direct action, speaking gigs, handed out info, written articles etc. It's extremely important the heat stays on and those doing the work of support and spreading the word are primarily responsible for this happening. We are grateful for it. Locally, here in Philly, the work is mostly done by the R2K legal collective. Within this collective the defendants themselves decide what strategies and paths to follow. A good deal of our lawyers say we're crazy for some of our choices, but the point here is to keep the power in our hands and as much as possible not allow manipulation by lawyers or non-defendant entities. That doesn't mean the defendants don't listen at length to advice by lawyers and others involved in our support and defense. One thing about the legal collective is they are way overworked. As a result a good deal of things are overlooked or simply not done. So help is needed. Give a call if you want to help. Otherwise, the most important support work is fundraising (we're looking at a projected budget of $200,000) and putting out information on the trial. We have a number of different fliers and copyable materials available from defenestrator or R2Klegal. We also put out a special tabloid thingy about the RNC 420, covering the issues we were on the street about and the trials (available from us for postage). SIGN ON LETTER R2K Legal Collective put together a sign on letter to Mayor Street and DA Lynn Abraham which expresses grave concern for the city kicking our asses. It can be photocopied and distributed and signed by anyone. Simple really. Get your organization to sign on, or do it yourself. The letter can be downloaded from www.r2klegal.org. [editor's note: this sign-on letter is now closed.] SUPPORT PACKETS A supporters packet is available from the defenestrator. It contains some newspaper clippings and fliers to copy and distribute. Send a donation for postage and printing costs, please. (address below) |
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