City dismisses all charges against 9 Occupy Sacramento defendants

City dismisses all charges against 9 Occupy Sacramento defendants

by Dan Bacher

The City of Sacramento late Monday – under a barrage of questioning by the court about a failure to provide discovery to the defense – dismissed all charges against nine Occupy Sacramento defendants scheduled to start their trials on Tuesday, December 13.

After trial court judge Earnest W. Sawtelle repeatedly chastised city attorney Gary Lindsay for turning over only 2 of 44 items of discovery – which were due no later than Dec. 5 by court order – Lindsay conferred with his office then announced the City would drop all charges "in the interest justice."

Occupy Sacramento Legal Committee coordinator Cres Vellucci called it a victory for the First Amendment, noting:

"We have said all along, and our lawyers have argued, that this local ordinance that proclaims the Bill of Rights only relevant before 11 p.m. weekly or midnight on weekends is unconstitutional. We think the City of Sacramento knows that and does not want to see it challenged in a court of law.

"One-hundred and eleven (111) people have now been arrested at Cesar Chavez Park peacefully protesting the law. They have risked their freedom to preserve the rights our founders fought for, and Americans have died for more than two centuries.

"We now ask the City of Sacramento to save the taxpayers of Sacramento the cost of arresting and prosecuting other people simply expressing their free speech rights. Now is the time to sit down and work out an agreement that allows all Sacramentans their First Amendment rights."

In total, there have been 111 arrests at Cesar Chavez Park for curfew violations. Thirty-five people had their charges dismissed earlier, according to Vellucci. After today's decision, 7 people may still face trial in January.

Another 24 people, including "Joe," who was arrested by police after occupying a tree in Cesar Chavez Park, were arrested last week. "There is no word yet regarding those arrested last week," noted Vellucci.

The crackdown on the First Amendment by the cities of Sacramento, Oakland, Los Angeles, San Francisco and others across the country is apparently part of a nationally coordinated campaign by the Department of Homeland Security and other federal law enforcement agencies in collaboration with local police departments, as exposed by author Naomi Wolf in her November 25 article in the UK Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/25/shocking-truth-about-crackdown-occupy),

"So, when you connect the dots, properly understood, what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence," wrote Wolf. "It is a battle in which members of Congress, with the collusion of the American president, sent violent, organised suppression against the people they are supposed to represent. Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams. Even though they are, as yet, unaware of what the implications of their movement are, those threatened by the stirrings of their dreams of reform are not."