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DoJ Drops All Charges Against All 38 Remaining J20 Protesters

Rejected submission by -- OriginalOwner_ http://tinyurl.com/OriginalOwner at 2018-07-09 04:32:01 from the collective-punishment-is-unconstitutional dept.
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Common Dreams reports [commondreams.org]

Prosecutors Drop All Remaining Charges Against Trump Inauguration Protesters After "Epic Failure" to Prove Wrongdoing

More than three dozen defendants in the year-long #DisruptJ20 trial celebrated Friday evening [July 6] after prosecutors dismissed all remaining charges against them, following a number of failures to prove the protesters were guilty of wrongdoing.

"The state failed at silencing dissent and today our movement is stronger than it was on #J20", tweeted Dylan Petrohilos, who was charged with conspiracy, rioting, and destruction due to his participation in planning to protest--even though he did not attend. "I'm proud of all my co-defendants, and everyone in the streets who resisted fascism and state violence."

[...]The Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped charges against 38 people who were among the 234 arrested on January 20, 2017 at a protest against President Donald Trump's inauguration. Some of the charges had carried sentences of more than 60 years in prison.

The government initially charged the protesters with felony rioting, but were able to secure [huffingtonpost.com] only one guilty plea to the charge. Twenty pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges.

The protesters have been tried in groups, with six defendants acquitted [theintercept.com] late last year after prosecutors failed to convince a jury that the protesters were responsible for the property damage they were accused of committing.

Prosecutors also came under scrutiny for relying on videos shot by the right-wing group Project Veritas to build their case--leading to a judge's ruling in the trial of 10 protesters in May, that the government had withheld evidence.

From the transcript [fair.org] of the Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting program CounterSpin

Media Coverage of This Case Has Been Sloppy When Present at All

[...]At the beginning of the show, you noted a limo was set on fire [cnn.com] on Inauguration Day. That actually happened five hours after the anti-fascist, anti-capitalist march was kettled [aclu.org]. So it was an unrelated incident, and that's been sort of an ongoing question, especially with media coverage. Many stories, especially in mainstream media, have used [washingtontimes.com] the limo fire as sort of a splash page, and it doesn't have anything to do with this particular case.

Previous: Jury Acquits First Six J20 Defendants, Rebuking Government's Push for Collective Punishment [soylentnews.org]


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