rnc8

In recent weeks supporters of the so-called RNC Eight, accused of conspiring to violently disrupt September’s Republican National Convention in St. Paul, have ratcheted up their campaign to have criminal charges against the activists dismissed. The Duluth Central Labor Body, with 17,000 members, passed a resolution condemning the prosecutions. A petition signed by roughly 3,000 people was delivered to Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner’s office by serenading protesters. And one of the RNC Eight defendants made an appearance on MSNBC earlier this week.

The high-profile nature of the prosecutions, coupled with Gaertner’s ongoing campaign for governor, means that today’s decision to drop the most inflammatory terrorism charges against the defendants was certain to be viewed through a political prism.

“It’s becoming a real national issue of controversy that obviously is embarrassing for somebody who’s running for governor,” says Jordan Kushner, an attorney for one of the defendants. “I don’t think she’s going to get out of it just by dropping those charges, as far as the political implications go.”

Bruce Nestor, another of the defense attorneys, is slightly less cynical in assessing Gaertner’s motivations.

“I think this is a political case,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be about her own personal ambitions. … If this had proceeded as a typical anonymous prosecution, our clients would still be facing terrorism charges.”

Gaertner disputes that her political ambitions — or any factors beyond the merits of the case — played a role in her office’s deliberations.

“This case, like many the county attorney deals with, is a no-win situation politically,” she says. “In this case, as in so many, some people will think I’m too harsh; some people will think I’m too soft. I have to put aside the background noise and make decisions based on how I can achieve justice and public safety. That’s what this decision was based on.”

The news that the terrorism charges would be dropped, first reported this morning by Minnesota Independent, is being cheered by the group’s supporters. But the defendants — Erik Oseland, Eryn Trimmer, Garrett Fitzgerald, Luce Guillen-Givens, Max Specktor, Monica Bicking, Rob Czernick and Nathanael Secor — still face felony counts of conspiracy to riot and damage property, punishable by up to five years in prison. Nothing in the criminal complaints, which detail a purported criminal conspiracy to sow chaos at the Republican National Convention, has changed. The next hearings in the cases are slated to take place in May.

According to Gaertner, the dropping of terrorism charges was a routine decision the likes of which her office makes on a daily basis. “We amend complaints as a part of trial strategy frequently,” she says. “As you get ready for trial, you get a better sense of what you think the core is of your case, what you think the jury is going to respond to and you proceed accordingly. That’s exactly what happened here.”

Gaertner further insists that the decision is not an acknowledgment that the prosecution lacked sufficient evidence to secure convictions.

“We cannot proceed on a case unless we believe as prosecutors that we have sufficient evidence to convict the defendants as charged beyond a reasonable doubt,” she says. “That’s true in every case; that’s true in this case. The terrorism charge enhancement wasn’t dropped for evidentiary reasons. It was dropped for trial strategy reasons.”

But defense attorneys for the RNC Eight say it’s an admission that the prosecution didn’t have a credible case. “The reality is that they recognized that it was a charge that couldn’t be sold to a jury, and it hadn’t been sold to the public,” says Nestor. “While we welcome it, it doesn’t change what’s wrong at the core of the investigation and the prosecution, which is that the investigation and the public statements about it to date have proceeded as if these eight organizers are terrorists.”

Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher, whose office played a central role in the criminal investigations that lead to the RNC Eight prosecutions, is supportive of the county attorney’s decision. “This will eliminate one element of the crimes that needs to be proved at trial and will make it easier to convict the defendants on the charges of riot and criminal damage to property,” he says. “The terrorism charge would have been a distraction at trial and further confused the journey.”

The RNC Eight were thought to be the first defendants indicted under what’s been billed as the Minnesota version of the federal PATRIOT act, which provides for enhanced penalties in terrorism cases. Gaertner says her office was simply following the law in bringing the prosecutions.

“This law, as written, was passed in the post-9/11 atmosphere of fear,” she says. “I don’t know what the Legislature intended when they wrote the law the way they did. But if they didn’t intend it for cases like this, they should amend it.”