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JOHNSON: DNC protest trials a bit trying

By Bill Johnson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published October 24, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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By the time I walked out of the courthouse late Wednesday, the person I felt the most sorry for was , oddly, the judge.

By her own count, she has 55 more of these trials over the next few weeks to go.

For her sake, the court's budget and each member of the entire Denver County Court jury pool, I hope prosecutors bring more evidence with them for the remaining cases than they did these past three days.

It was big news when police surrounded and arrested more than 100 people Aug. 25 at 15th Street and Court Place following an impromptu street demonstration on the first night of the Democratic National Convention. The media were everywhere.

But it was just me and one TV news camera crew there when the first trial verdicts were handed to the judge: Three cases were dismissed or thrown out for lack of any evidence.

Tiffany Bray, 20, and Eli Hardy, 33, were the last two standing. After dropping two of the three charges they filed, prosecutors pressed ahead to trial on the remaining charge of blocking a public street or passageway.

The trial would last three days. The only evidence presented was that the two were, well, arrested there.

It was later expanded to the fact that Eli Hardy was wearing a black shirt, the same color an anarchist group was said to have told their members to wear.

In Tiffany Bray's case, the chief evidence of her complicity was only that she might have been wearing a white surgical mask after the police closed in. Anarchists, prosecutors maintained, are known to carry such things.

Tiffany Bray took the stand and said, simply, that someone handed it to her after the police shot pepper spray.

That was, dear readers, it. If I am on that jury, it is not even close. Tells you what I know.

The jury in this case went out shortly before noon on Wednesday. They would not return until nearly 7 p.m., perhaps a municipal court record.

The verdict? An even split - three for conviction, three for acquittal. Mistrial.

Wait, it gets better.

Qusair Mohamedbhai, Margaret O'Neill and Lonn Heymann, attorneys for the pair, immediately renewed their request for the judge to direct a verdict in the case. Judge Kathleen Bowers, a patient woman throughout the three days, went the way of King Solomon.

She immediately dismissed the charge against Eli Hardy. "Absolutely no evidence" against him, she ruled. Tiffany Bray, mostly because she testified on her own behalf, generating additional evidence, well, the prosecution would be given 45 days to retry her.

Tiffany Bray, in the moments after the judge's decision, wept.

"I am not an anarchist," said the young woman, a petite, likely not-5-foot-tall Community College of Denver student. "I was coming home from shopping."

She had moved from Chicago to Denver last spring. It was the first day of the convention. She wanted to witness history. She and a few girlfriends had spent the afternoon in the Civic Center, listening to the musicians, hearing the speakers and gawking at the legions of police officers there.

They ate lunch and went shopping. Tiffany Bray was on her way home to her Capitol Hill apartment when she encountered the mob at 15th and Court.

She would spend 19 hours in "Little Gitmo on the Platte," as the cages of the temporary jail at 38th Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard became known.

She was urged to plead guilty, that it would get her home faster. She refused.

"I wasn't guilty, why would I take a plea?" she said as the jury deliberated.

A friend in Chicago arranged her $300 bail.

"I got too curious that day, and I got too close. That was the mistake I made," Tiffany Bray said.

Qusair Mohamedbhai, with the Denver firm of Lane, Kilmer & Newman that is representing the pair for free, said after the verdict: "They're torturing this little girl now for no reason."

For the jury, the issue came down to time: How long does it take for a person to realize they should get out of a volatile situation?

"It came down to the instruction of 'knowingly obstructing,' of putting themselves into a place where obstructing occurred," Vickers Myers, the jury fore- person said after the verdict was returned.

"Three of us felt they did so knowingly. Three of us felt there was enough doubt that they didn't," she said.

Even at that hour, attorneys for the nonprofit People's Law Project, which is representing the bulk of the other defendants in the Aug. 25 mass arrests, filled the courtroom for the verdict.

Most had spent the previous three days shaking their heads over the city's lack of evidence in the first five trials. Not one could fathom a reason for a hung jury. Yet since she had them all there, Kathleen Bowers - her ruling dismissing Eli Hardy's case still hanging in the air - immediately began prodding them to get their paperwork in order for the next day's proceedings.

It turns out that Thursday more than 30 DNC demonstration cases were scheduled for preliminary hearings in her courtroom. Not a single defendant, she reminded them, has waived their right to a speedy trial.

There will be no continuances or other delays, she further reminded. There is not, she further scolded, even one day available on the court's docket.

Kathleen Bowers will definitely earn her paycheck these next few months. This, perhaps, is as it should be.

"And justice for all," I am fairly certain, is written somewhere.

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

Comments

  • October 24, 2008

    4:23 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    mrfxx writes:

    Perhaps the next time this comes to trial - at least in the case of the young lady who was on her way home from shopping and got curious about the crowd - the defense attorneys ought to pose the following question: What if the police arrested all the folks who tie up traffic after an accident? Would they be guilty of blocking traffic and have to face fines, penalties and jail time - even if they were caught behind the "lookie loos" looking for blood and would have proceeded at normal speed if it weren't for them?

  • October 24, 2008

    8:40 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    NunyaBitnes writes:

    Hmmm.... let's see, at some point it would be apparent that instructions were given to a crowd by law enforcement to "disperse" or something to that effect. As a law abiding citizen, do you ignore that order and "press on" ? Even if you bought NOTHING during your "shopping" trip, when you were suddenly surrounded by people shouting at law enforcement and carrying face masks, as if prepared for confrontation, wouldn't you think to yourself... this is no longer me being curious about a crowd and "...gawking at legions of police officers." Maybe, just maybe I should turn around and leave from the direction I came? ... No she made a decision to enjoy the rush of the moment and the crowd mentality.. Thus "..putting herself in a place where obstructing occured".. Guilty, pay a fine and chalk this up to learning to stay the heck out of those kinds of situations.

  • October 24, 2008

    11:45 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    tao41 writes:

    When I commented yesterday, it was ahead of the verdict. An even split? How ridiculous is that? The fact that the city of Denver is wasting money like this is stupid enough, but for three of the jurors to bring such uninformed bias into the process affirms my belief in the evaporation of some peoples common sense in our thin mile high air. How could anyone with ANY common sense feel this woman was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? I have sat on many juries over the years, both state and federal, and when finished laughing at the prosecutors in this case I would have found for the defendants!

  • October 24, 2008

    5:52 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    CapnPoon writes:

    This is just the tip of one big iceberg. For every case the city dismisses for lack of evidence, you can and should expect a reciprocal lawsuit for false arrest, false imprisonment, kidnapping, violation of constitutional rights, etcetera and et al. Don't spend that extra DNC revenue yet, Hick, cause you're gonna have a whole BUNCH of settlement checks to write. And they will be written, cause gettin' clipped in this manner is pretty much a guaranteed payday. New shirt for DPD, "WE GET UP EARLY TO F*%K UP OFTEN."

  • October 24, 2008

    6:31 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    carryBIGstick writes:

    UNPOPULAR OPINION IS COMMING.......
    The Denver Police Department did an outstanding job during the DNC. The only ones that don't agree were the dirtbags that got arrested. A supermajority agree that they did a superburb job. Those that don't are the ones who wanted to protest, or in some childish way demand they things go their way, it did not go their way and they had a big temper tantrum.
    In the future hippies/protestors/civil unrest types. If a cop tell you to leave a public place.....LEAVE!!!!

  • October 25, 2008

    6:27 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    LaFajita writes:

    The only outstanding job the DPD did was to show the ugly, brutish face of the American Police State. Their only figleaf is the police riot in St. Paul. The only supermajority they can claim is from race-baiting haters, fevered fanatics, and other Republicans.

    A shout-out to the 1st Amendment, and the Bill of Rights. They are all that protect us from thugs and bullies who carry big sticks, and absurd little foot patrolmen who dream of being Bull Connor.

  • October 25, 2008

    12:13 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    CapnPoon writes:

    "We get up early....to get BEAT in court."

  • October 26, 2008

    4:34 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    NunyaBitnes writes:

    Conservativeslayer: The FIRST time they told her to leave was the time to leave... next, she was told to sit on the ground out of the way ... finally a warning to leave BEFORE pepper spray was used.

    -What's next.. I wasn't speeding, I was staying out of the way of other speeders?

    As for the case, I see her taking a plea to maybe disorderly or failing to obey law enforcement and I hope my tax dollars see a conviction so we can recover costs of her stupidity.

    NEXT TIME GET A PERMIT TO ASSEMBLE OR STAY OFF THE STREET. SHE WOULDN'T HAVE HAD HER TOOTSIES IN THE STREET IF CARS HAD BEEN ON IT.