On Tuesday, May 18, at 1PM, there will be an antiracist
picket at the courthouse in downtown Ann Arbor. At that time the Ann Arbor Antiracist
Defense Campaign, the National Women's Rights Organizing Coalition (NWROC), and
Anti-Racist Action (ARA) will deliver well over 6,000 petition signatures to Washtenaw
County prosecutor Brian Mackies office demanding that all the charges against the 20
antiracists be dropped.
At 1:30PM, the ten antiracist felony
defendants will have a hearing on the question of whether each defendant will be allowed
their own trial.
witchhunt, n. A political campaign
launched on the pretext of investigating activities subversive to the state. Houghton
Mifflin 1995. witchhunt, n. search for witch(es), (fig.) search for
suspected Communists or other persons with unorthodox views. Oxford University 1976.
witchhunt, n. an intensive effort to discover and expose disloyalty,
subversion, dishonesty, or the like, usually based on slight, doubtful, or irrelevant
evidence. Random House 1980. |
At 3:15PM the same day (5/18), the
misdemeanor defendants, ten of whom are accused of having damaged a rental fence during
the protest of the KKK rally, will have a hearing on their motion to drop the charges on
the grounds that the only physical evidence in their cases was destroyed with the
authorization of the police before any of the charges were brought.
NO EVIDENCE & NO RECORD
The police and prosecutors office
are claiming that the fence was damaged, but the police department never made any
assessment of the condition of the fence. The fence company made a casual and
entirely cursory assessment of the fence. Knowing they had a standard blank-check
insurance policy from the city for any assessment of material loss they had a
financial incentive to bend the stick in the direction of assessing damage. No record was
ever made of the alleged damage by either the police or the fence company.
The police then allowed the subject of
these charges to be scrapped and melted down, leaving only the bill from the fence company
as "evidence" of damage.
This bill is now the lynchpin of ten
misdemeanor charges. The fence company, of course, could have no notion that the bill they
wrote up on the basis of this cursory assessment of the condition of the fence would later
be the central piece of evidence in criminal charges against ten people. Now the company
has a vested interest in maintaining the position that the fence was damaged.
Police photographs of the fence after the
rally, still images secured from police video, eyewitness affidavits of neutral observers,
including several Peace Team members, and an expert witness affidavit from the
owner/operator of a fence company who viewed the fence in question on multiple police
videos all indicate that there was no damage done to the rental fence. In fact,
the Peace Team re-erected the fence after it was pulled from the poles by the
counter-demonstrators.
Below is a quote from the introduction to
the defendants Motion to Dismiss the Charges on the grounds that the only physical
evidence in the casethe fence itselfhas been destroyed. The legal defense team
submitted this motion on November 17.
FROM THE MOTION TO DISMISS THE CHARGES
"There is, however, an even more
weighty obstacle to proceeding with these cases than the demonstrable innocence of the
accused.
There is no evidence.
The police authorized the removal and
allowed the destruction of the decisive and the only piece of physical evidence -- the
subject of the alleged crime itself -- the chain link fence. Without the fence there
is no case.
The police made no record of the damage
they allege; no video, no still photographs, not so much as a leaf from a police notebook
is to be found in the police reports that document the damage that defendants are alleged
to have caused.
It is bad faith for the police to pay the
fence company to remove and destroy the very subject of charges and yet continue to pursue
prosecution.
While facing nonexistent evidence is a
daunting prospect for the defendants, we should think that the nonexistence of the
evidence presents supplementary difficulties for the prosecution in a modern court of a
democratic society as well. [
]
Not only does the nonexistence of the
physical evidence make genuine, searching evaluation impossible for a future jury, it
makes independent investigation impossible for the defendants.
Justice, common sense and law dictate the
impossibility of proceeding without this evidence."
PROSECUTOR PUSHES FOR SHOW TRIAL
The prosecutor of the felony cases is
aiming at a show trial by filing a motion that if granted by judge Donald
Shelton would deny each defendant their own trial. In doing
this, the prosecution is demonstrating its lack of concern for the due process rights of
the defendants. The show trial and show trial atmosphere that the prosecutor is aiming at
would be inherently unfair. One of the fundamental rights in a democratic society is the
right to a fair trial on the facts.
In the motion to consolidate the misdemeanors, the
prosecution showed their real attitude toward consolidation of these cases. The entire
substance of the motion was a tirade about the supposed political associations and beliefs
of the defendants which are wholly irrelevant to the applicable law and to the
allegations. This kind of show trial would be a travesty of justice; it must not be
allowed to happen.