Weekend Report

[moon_custafer]

I didn’t make it to the Friday-evening protest of Bannon and Frum getting paid to talk. I tried to show up as courthouse-support the following day for those arrested, only to find they hadn’t yet been brought from the police station for the bail-hearing. Our lawyers seemed glad of the coffee and doughnuts I brought, though. I later heard only one protester was brought for the hearing. Does that mean the others were realeased without charge (after having been held overnight)? Then I spent the rest of the morning running errands, and a man on the streetcar rolled up his sleeves to show me his extensive self-cutting scars, because some time in the past few months a big sign has apparently manifested over my head that says WILLING TO LISTEN. I’ve given up being weirded out by anything, I guess.

Chapter 9 of 1983 is now up. I don’t know whether I’m going to keep alternating this with making notes for my Yuletide assignment, but it does seem paradoxically easier to work on multiple pieces at once. I suppose because any one story counts as procrastination from the others. In this chapter, Lohmann continues to be not quite his usual self, and Skuld, Evie and Maxie find nothing in Dana’s fridge but food.

Comments

[kore]

I R Not a Lawyer, but yeah, that was what one TV analyst said was happening to the people who were blocking the Supreme Court after the Kavanaugh hearings. What I know is, if you leave when they tell you to, you're not charged (and they shouldn't be able to arrest you, but sometimes they do). If you're arrested, you get handcuffed, charged (mug shot taken all that jazz) and released, typically after a night in jail. Then you show up at the courthouse later and get arraigned, often as a group. Organized protests tend to have a lawyer for the whole group ahead of time, often one who's working pro bono -- a court-appointed lawyer is not only harried and overworked but won't get up to speed until you've been arrested and brought to court. IIRC the charge for protesting is typically always a misdemeanour.

This is why it was a HUGE FUCKING DEAL when protesters against Trump's inauguration were charged with inciting to riot, because that is a felony and carries serious jail time, and was accurately seen as a possible attempt to terrify people into not protesting the new administration. And the protesters were charged with all sorts of shit -- conspiracy to riot, incitement to riot, of forming some kind of bullshit "black bloc" network, on and on. Nothing based in reality.

And then surprise! they dropped most of the charges -- MONTHS AND MONTHS later.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/22/donald-trump-administration-punishing-dissent-protesters

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/01/18/drops-charges-against-129-inauguration-day-protesters-trump/1046324001/

....well I got a little carried away there. I just remember being INCENSED, because for one thing the cops nowadays typically grab people by "kettling" them (herding them into an area where they're surrounded on all sides) and that nearly happened to me while I was walking through a May Day protest and it was fucking terrifying. We're supposed to have freedom of assembly! It is the ACTUAL freeze peach issue. But "oh those hooligans and anarchists, lock them up," etc. (sorry if you know all/any of this already, I just get worked up about it because protesting was a big thing for me all through college)

Altho did the white supremacists in Charlottesville who were parading around with torches, making Nazi salutes and shouting racist slogans get charged? with anything? funny we should ask, right?

[moon_custafer]

There were a couple of lawyers there who in retrospect had likely been awake most of the night. I think they said the arrestees had been arraigned as a group and as a group had refused to sign some form that would have constituted an admission of guilt or something? One of the lawyers was on the phone to 52 Division trying to see when they’d be released; the police seemed to be stalling.

[kore]

as a group had refused to sign some form that would have constituted an admission of guilt or something

Hunh, that is a wrinkle! Maybe they are refusing to plead guilty to a lesser charge?

[kore]

LOL, tl;dr girl missed the point. Yeah, they were probably released without charges, altho that doesn't mean they might not be charged at a later date, before the statute of limitations for whatever (trespassing usually I think) expires. It's the prosecutor's decision to bring you up on charges before a judge within a fairly strict time limit, and sometimes they let that time limit expire so the person leaves jail without going to court. (If you watch Law and Order, this is when the Obvious Perp smirks and says "You have no evidence" and gets out on bail.) Then I believe lawyers can either bargain down what the person is eventually charged with, or keep charges from being filed at all. Which again is why it was so shocking when the inauguration protesters were charged with serious felonies -- the original defendants included at least one photojournalist and someone who was there as a medic.

[sabotabby]

I’m sorry that I didn’t make either the protest or court support. Still looking for a way to help with legal fees.

[moon_custafer]

Don't worry, it sounds as though you've already got enough on your plate at the moment.