The St. Paul city attorney’s office is not faring too well in prosecutions stemming from the Republican National Convention in September. Initially 672 cases were turned over to John Choi’s office for potential misdemeanor prosecutions.
The overwhelming majority of these — roughly 85 percent — have since been dropped owing to insufficient evidence. This includes the cases of 323 people who were picked up in a mass arrest on the final day of the convention and 39 journalists who were detained. In addition, as of last month, another 52 defendants had either pleaded guilty or paid a fine.
But of the small number of misdemeanor cases that have proceeded to court, the city attorney’s office has yet to secure a single conviction. The latest setback occurred Thursday when a jury acquitted two RNC protesters — Ilana Radovsky and Gracia Logue-Sargeant — of seven charges, including unlawful assembly and fleeing police, as reported by the Pioneer Press. In addition, two of the four charges facing Sean Patrick McCoy were dismissed by Ramsey County District Court Judge Edward Wilson owing to insufficient evidence. He was slated to be back in court today on the remaining counts.
In January, charges against seven protesters were dismissed after the prosecutors completed their case. Ramsey County District Judge Michael Fetsch determined that no jury could reasonably convict the defendants based on the evidence presented.













1 Comment »
Comment posted March 24, 2009 @ 2:15 pm
re: “323 people who were picked up in a mass arrest on the final day of the convention
and 39 journalists who were detained. ”
Amazing that the people of Minnesota tolerate this. Bush and Cheney have gotten away with their crimes against our Constitution and people. Perhaps everyone has just given up now that our Democrats have refused to impeach or prosecute the Bush criminals.
If the neocons can violate our laws, Constitution and rights with impunity, why shouldn’t our police?
The only way we will ever be able to stop these encroachments on our rights is to make sure the Democrats in Congress prosecute Bush, Cheney and and any other of their lackeys who broke the law.
They lied about WMD, aluminum tubes, & Niger Uranium to con Congress into approving an invasion of Iraq, a country that did not have anything to do with 9-11.
In WW-II, in 4 years, FDR put 13,000,000 men in the fight, beat 3 dictatorships, their leaders dead at the end.
After 7 years of War On Terror, neither Bush nor Cheney could find Osama Bin Laden, our US reputation is in the gutter, we’re still at war, over 4,200 US Soldiers are dead, over 30,000 maimed for the Bush-Cheney arrogance & lies. They ordered Torture, a violation of Federal Law.
Unless Obama’s statement that “no one is above the law” is a lie,
Obama must appoint a Special Prosecutor
Sign The Petition To Prosecute Them
http://ANGRYVoters.org
Please forward this to everyone you know.
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