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JOHNSON: Denver attorney sees rough ride for free speech at DNC

By Bill Johnson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published July 18, 2008 at 11:50 p.m.

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I know now, thinking back on it, that I did not go simply to figure out a new way to attend the DNC and not get my backside thrown in jail.

Experience has taught me that avoiding jail at any political convention is often a matter of sheer luck, combined with good timing and really fast feet.

If I had a quarter for every completely innocent convention-goer I've seen swooped up willy-nilly and hauled off to jail, I would be sitting right now with a mai tai on a beach somewhere.

No, I wanted to know what the lawyers know, the people who at the end of the day, after the last delegate boards a plane in Denver for home, will come forward to clean up the legal mess the convention will necessarily leave behind.

Besides, I like David Lane, the Denver attorney who is often described as "controversial" by apologists for the establishment, into whose wallet he is regularly dipping, most often on behalf of the powerless.

I like him, too, because at the same time he is advocating for and dragging money and apology letters from City Hall, he is going to the legal mat for people like Douglas Bruce, the "eccentric" Republican state legislator from El Paso County.

Lane was speaking at a public seminar on dissent and the First Amendment at the Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver, the last of three forums held by the Colorado Chapter of the National Lawyer's Guild aimed at getting everyone up to legal speed ahead of the Democratic National Convention.

It was a rambling chat co-hosted by Sean Dingle, a former 10th Judicial District prosecutor, that provided a fairly dim view of what is likely to occur next month.

Maybe David Lane was simply playing to his audience. Like him, they were mostly civil rights attorneys who have signed on to monitor and take cases arising out of convention arrests.

Expect, he told them, a rash of disturbing the peace violations, "or disturbing the police citations, which is what we call them in our office."

The most common charge, he continued, laughing and smiling throughout, will be failure to obey a lawful order.

"And what (police) often mean by lawful order," he said, "is 'Stop watching me beat this person!' "

Only those who have never seen this happen in real life found it funny.

Sean Dingle explained he was not participating to counteract David Lane, only to amplify his views from a law enforcement point of view. The vast majority of police officers, he said, struggle hard to stay on the right side of the tension between maintaining order and respecting individual rights.

The problem, he said, is rank-and-file officers are not well-trained in First Amendment issues.

"They are going to be pushed," he said, "and in a heightened state. They are going to be thinking to themselves, 'If I let you get away with this, you'll just push harder, and I'll lose control of everything.' "

It is there, he said, where law enforcement often clashes with free speech.

Both men batted down a host of conspiracy theories, including the Secret Service planting agitators to provoke a police response, an assertion even David Lane rolled his eyes at.

"If they want to do that," he said, struggling for words, "well, (how) are you going to stop that?

"Honestly," he said, "I don't know what's going to happen. The problem is, I have not heard a coherent plan on what will happen on the streets outside of the Pepsi Center security zone. That's where arrests and resulting civil suits will emanate."

My money is on the so-called Free Speech Zone, a fenced-off patch of asphalt being set aside near Pepsi Center, but inside the sealed-off security perimeter.

At the Republican National Convention in New York four years ago, a protester stepping even one little toe outside the area was zip-cuffed and hauled away.

"The Free Speech Zone is a problem, and not only because all of the United States of America is a free speech zone," David Lane said. "The Fourth Amendment will take a serious pounding there, I believe."

How do you get into the security zone, he wondered, in the first place? Do you have to go through a metal detector, submit to pat downs and searches of your backpack and pockets? Is that reasonable? He asks.

In the end, Sean Dingle said, it will all come down to leadership. It will work its way down from the police chief to the street sergeants. If they are ill-trained and ill-led, he said, 1968 Chicago will be visited upon the streets of Denver in 2008.

In the end, I am not certain I heard what I had hoped to hear. As he made his way out of the lecture hall, I pulled David Lane aside.

"If I had to guess," he said, "I think a lot of people unfortunately are going to go to jail and be forced to contest it all later. The old saying will be true: arrest everyone and let the courts sort it out."

His scores of detractors will insist he's gotten it, once again, all wrong.

In this, I hope they are right.

johnsonw@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2763.

Comments

  • July 19, 2008

    6:19 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Mike_In_Hartsel writes:

    "If I had a quarter for every completely innocent convention-goer I've seen swooped up willy-nilly and hauled off to jail, I would be sitting right now with a mai tai on a beach somewhere."

    That sets the tone early. We can see your bias. The demonstrators NEVER do anything wrong; it's always the big bad police.

  • July 19, 2008

    8:52 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    arby writes:

    Mike

    Sure the demonstators don't do everything right. But it is "the big bad police" that have the upper hand and will use any means to make things work out the way they and their bosses want them to.

    Thats the facts Mike. Come on down to the big city and see how things really work.

  • July 19, 2008

    9:46 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    MNM writes:

    Thanks to the attorneys and/or whoever hosted the event.

    I asked the question about ID that prompted David Lane to talk about his case representing Douglas Bruce. Lane's answer was great, one more story I can use to illustrate clearly why we're lucky to have Douglas Bruce in Colorado.

  • July 19, 2008

    10:06 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    SL10 writes:

    MNM, you like Bruce? Man I find him to be a joke. He kicks camera man in the head, calls minorities names. Not the kind of guy I would want to represent me at the capitol. YMMV.

  • July 19, 2008

    10:39 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    sheepherder writes:

    David Lane is a moron! Yes, have your free speech, but when you start breaking wondows, blocking delagates, throwing piss bombs ect, you have stepped over the line. These rae the kind of retards Lane wants to represent...a merry bunch of morons they are!

  • July 21, 2008

    10:28 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Marshdale writes:

    Sheephearder: You speek as if all protestors are law breakers. Obviously you buy into that idea. The fact is that they are a small minortity. In New York during the republcan convention in '04 people were arrested simply for inadvertantly stepping over a painted line. They were not breaking any laws. There were thousands of witnesses to this behavior by the police. That is not the kind of country I want to live in. Not all protestors are are some kind of liberal nut jobs as you seem to suggest if I may read between the lines. There were plenty of conservative protesters arrested as well. I would agree with you that people who are violent and destroy public and private property, or impede the the scheduled events should be arrested. It's called vandalism and obstruction and should not be tollerated. The problem is that those are the types who get all of the media attention. We never get to see the vast majority of those who protest peacefully whether they are liberal or conservative. Most Americans conduct themselves in a rational manner. We should keep that in mind.

  • July 21, 2008

    9:37 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Mike846 writes:

    Sadly, I think Lane is right. There are people who, for their own reasons, will start trouble, and it won't be the police. Once rung, that bell can't be un-rung. Like Chicago, a lot of people may just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Radical Left has only one agenda: overthrow the status quo, whatever and whoever that is. Unless you truly understand that, you're never going to see what's going on. I'll give David Lane credit, though. Unlike the ACLU, who picks and chooses who's speech to defend, depending on whether it suits their agenda, Lane will defend ANYONE'S right to free speech, even Douglas Bruce's, or at least so it seems. If that's so, then he's one of the good guys. I also agree that disruption and violence is NOT free speech. I think I'll take a pass on the tear-gas. I'm taking vacation that week. Mike

  • July 22, 2008

    8:33 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    sheepherder writes:

    Marshdale, you got me totally wrong! I was trying to say that Lane wants to defend the R68 morons, Blackblock, anarchists ect. I fully agree that 99% of protestors are and want to be peaceful. Those people won't have any contact with police. But that 1% of morons that wish to disrupt events by unlawful methods are who Lane has stated he will defend.

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