But in the view of their allies in social-justice circles, they were dedicated activists seeking to shine a bright light on war, poverty and other injustices.

Those competing visions of the so-called RNC Eight (pictured above) will be at the heart of any criminal trials for the defendants — Erik Oseland, Eryn Trimmer, Garrett Fitzgerald, Luce Guillen-Givens, Max Specktor, Monica Bicking, Rob Czernick and Nathanael Secor.

The defendants were rounded up in a series of police raids in the days leading up to the GOP gathering in St. Paul late last summer. Led by the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department, the officers seized smoke bombs, sling shots, bolt cutters, bottles of vinegar, buckets of nails, two-way radios and other items. These, prosecutors contend, were the tools of a criminal enterprise that planned to kidnap delegates, assault police officers and attack buses during the four-day gathering.

The defendants are charged with felony counts of conspiracy to commit riot in the second degree in furtherance of terrorism. In addition, the RNC Eight are believed to be the first defendants to be charged under the Minnesota version of the federal Patriot Act, which was passed in 2002. Under the law, their sentences can be ratcheted up by 50 percent, meaning the defendants could face up to seven-and-a-half years in prison.

But the conspiracy charges take the case into what some experts characterize as murky legal waters. Because the defendants were arrested prior to executing their purported criminal plan, the case will hinge on acts that prosecutors believe they credibly intended to carry out. Another novelty of such prosecutions: The entire group is legally culpable for the actions of each individual.

While conspiracy cases are common in federal court — particularly in taking down multi-state drug rings — they are comparatively rare in state courts.

“[In] state court we tend to be dealing with crimes of violence and a lot of individual actors,” says Phil Carruthers, head of the prosecution division at the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office, which is handling the RNC Eight cases. “It’s kind of more the meat and potatoes of crime: murder, rape, assault. In federal court, they have fewer cases and they can have a little bit better ability to handle more complicated cases.”

In the the RNC Eight prosecutions, as with all conspiracy cases, the defendants were arrested before they could commit the major elements of their alleged plan. “In a conspiracy, no one has to actually commit a crime,” says Peter Erlinder, a professor at William Mitchell College of Law. “The crime is the agreement itself.”

Erlinder argues that conspiracy cases draw “perilously close” to prosecuting people for thought crimes. “If there’s agreement among the people that has an illegal objective, and one of them takes one step in furtherance of the conspiracy, that is enough to make out the separate crime of conspiracy,” he says. “The object of the conspiracy never has to actually occur.”

Conspiracy prosecutions are also unique in that the entire group is deemed legally responsible for the individual actions of each member.

“The reason they are a great benefit to prosecutors is everyone who is a member of the conspiracy is guilty of everything that the others [do],” explains Stephen Cribari, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and a former federal public defender. “If they are members of the conspiracy — and the act was done during the conspiracy and in order to further the conspiracy — all the conspirators are deemed to have done the act.”

In the instance of the RNC Eight, this means that if one member of the group actively planned violent acts and then took meaningful steps to commit them, all eight defendants would be held responsible.

Another legal issue that is yet to be settled is whether the cases will be consolidated into one trial. Neither the defense nor the prosecution has formally indicated its preference with the court. But it’s clear that the defendants would prefer to face a jury collectively.

“The defendants have all indicated that their desire at this point is to have them consolidated,” says Larry Leventhal, who is representing Max Specktor. “If the state is contending that they all worked together to achieve something, a trial at the same time with everybody would seem to be mandated.”

But the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office sees things otherwise. “The presumption in state court is that there [are] separate trials,” says Carruthers. “That’s the way it’s proceeding. Obviously if the defense brings a motion to the contrary, we’ll respond.”

Cribari says that federal conspiracy cases are consolidated in most instances. “Generally at the federal level, you try to avoid repetitious, expensive trials,” he says. “It seems easier to me to try co-conspirators together.”

But even if everyone agrees that the RNC Eight should be tried together, the logistics would be daunting. With eight defense attorneys working the courtroom, and with the high-profile prosecutions likely to draw a significant number of spectators, the case has the potential to turn into a legal circus.

Ramsey County District Judge Teresa Warner has already made it clear that any shenanigans will not be tolerated. At a February hearing, she booted one observer from the courtroom after her cell phone went off in the middle of a legal debate.

However the trials ultimately proceed, the cases will come down to starkly different descriptions of the actions of the RNC Eight. Defense attorneys argue that their clients are simply dedicated social-justice activists.

“This is obviously a political prosecution, where people are being prosecuted for their political beliefs,” says Jordan Kushner, who is representing Guillen-Givens, noting that Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner is running for governor. “It’s amusing on one level, but it’s also very disturbing that our clients are being used as political pawns in this way.”

“There’s also the public spectacle of being branded a terrorist,” adds Leventhal. “I think after the trial is over, it will be shown that they are not. During the interim, who knows what people think.”

Carruthers, naturally, sees things differently. He says the RNC Eight cases are about protecting the constitutional rights of citizens whatever their political beliefs. “Even if you disagree with Republicans, do Republicans have a right to have a convention and meet and discuss issues?” he asks. “Do only certain people have a right to expression?”

The cases are unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. The defense team is in the process of reviewing thousands of pages of police documents, surveillance tapes and other evidence that could be introduced at the trials. There will almost certainly be substantial legal wrangling over what materials ultimately can be entered into evidence. Trials are tentatively slated for September.

With several members of the RNC8 — the people charged with felonies in conjunction with planned protests at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul last month — heading to court today for hearings in their cases, the Friends of the RNC8 are asking supporters to phone three local officials today to urge that charges be dropped.

The call-in’s targets are: Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner (651-266-3222), St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman (651-266-8510) and St. Paul City Attorney John Choi (651-266-8710).

“Please be polite, but firm,” organizers advise, in asking Gaertner to drop terrorism charges, Choi to drop misdemeanor charges, and Coleman to hold police accountable for actions. The stated hours of the “Call-In Day’ are 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

The RNC8 are eight people – Luce Guillen-Givins, Max Spector, Nathanael Secor, Eryn Timmer, Monica Bicking, Erik Oseland, Robert Czernik and Garrett Fitzgerald — who face federal terrorism charges after being rounded up in pre-emptive raids on protest groups in the days before the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

Arrested in preemptive raids, Eryn Trimmer and Monica Bicking

Police would like to to paint 23-year-old Monica Bicking, whose home was raided on Saturday, August 30, as part of a preemptive strike against RNC protesters, as a “terrorist.” But her brother, Ian Bicking, has come out to speak in support of his sister, whom he says was arrested in an attempt to preemptively suppress the protests at the Republican National Convention.

“That war is still with us,” he writes on his blog, “and is still the most significant motivation for the RNC protests…I don’t have any third path to offer, but I just want to make it clear: none of us know what is best to do, none of us have figured out the way to effect change. People complain protest doesn’t work. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t, but frankly most things don’t work. Doing nothing definitely doesn’t work, and frankly that’s what most of us are doing. It’s hard to take criticisms seriously when they are made from a stance of inaction.”

In Monica Bicking’s South Minneapolis home, where are least 13 people were staying for the RNC, the police seized, among typical household items and laptop computers, curtain rods, foam mattresses, “propaganda literature,” 37 caltrops (nail-like devices used to puncture tires), and a few throwing knives. A total of three homes in Minneapolis were raided (and a fourth surrounded in St. Paul) the morning after the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office, supported by the Minneapolis Police Department, Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, raided the RNC Welcoming Committee’s convergence space in St. Paul.

The raids resulted in five arrests and more than 100 people handcuffed and detained. Last week, Ramsey County formally charged eight members of the RNC Welcoming Committte, Bicking, her boyfriend Eryn Trimmer, Luce Guillen Givins, Erik Oseland, Nathanael Secor, Robert Czernik, Garrett Fitzgerald, and Max Spector, with conspiracy to riot in futherance of terrorism.

The word “terrorism,” at least by definition, is fairly innocuous: “The use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.” Under that definition, any government could be a terrorist. But after 9/11, the media and Bush administration gave it a much more frightful and sinister meaning, one that led to the creation of the Federal Patriot Act. It’s under the 2002 Minnesota version of the Federal Patriot Act that Bicking and others could receive as much as seven years in jail simply for having “evidence” in their homes. The terrorism enhancement charge allows for a 50 percent increase in the maximum penalty for conspiracy to riot.

Ian Bicking says Monica and others in the RNC Welcoming Committee had no plans of their own to protest during those four days, but to offer a safe place for those who wished to protest their own issues, whatever they might be. “The preemptive arrest was surprising to everyone,” he writes. “It is normal in the course of civil disobedience that some people expect to be arrested. Civil disobedience is confrontational. You have to go into it knowing that there will be certain consequences. Those are the consequences of the confrontation [his emphasis]. They are not the consequences of the possibility of future confrontation. As organizers I know Monica and Eryn weren’t planning on being arrested.”

Minneapolis Police Department officers stand guard outside the Food Not Bombs house. Photo: Jeff Severns Guntzel

Minnesota Independent RNC reporter Jeff Severns Guntzel is at the Minneapolis Food Not Bombs house, which was raided by police this morning. Facts are still coming in, but Guntzel says that at 8 a.m. neighbors near the home, located at 2301 23rd Avenue South, reported hearing a loud bang followed by yelling. A single police squad car was parked out front. When Guntzel arrived he saw eight or nine officers enter the house in what he says is a joint operation between officers of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department, the Minneapolis Police Depatment, and the FBI. According to one witness who was in the house at the time of the raid, the action is related to last night’s raid on the RNC Welcoming Committee’s “convergence space.” Several other spaces have been raided this morning.

Around 9:20, two Minneapolis Police Property & Evidence trucks pulled up. Present were a Hennepin County Sheriffs’ crime lab truck, a Ramsey County Sheriffs’ squad and an MPD squad, plus at least four unmarked cars parked facing the wrong direction in traffic. Police tape is marking off the yard.

Two men are released from the Food Not Bombs house as reporters, neighbors, and supporters look on. Photo: Jeff Severns Guntzel

At one point a five-year-old boy was escorted from the home by police. In what Guntzel calls a “sweet moment,” the boy told police he wanted his markers, and the officer went in and came back out a few minutes later. “These are the only colors I could find,” the officer said. “Did I get the right stuff?”

As MnIndy reported on Thursday, rumors of a weekend sweep of activist organizations have been swirling. In the last 12 hours, at least three other sites, from the RNC Welcoming Committee’s “convergence space” in St. Paul to sites in South Minneapolis have been raided.

Officers and agents from the Minneapolis Police Department, Hennepin County Sheriff's Office, Ramsey County Sheriff's office and the FBI collaborated on the raid. Photo: Jeff Severns Guntzel

9:45 A woman named Heather Adams just came out of the Food Not Bombs house and gave Guntzel the following account: She arrived from Chicago at 3 a.m. this morning with plans to protest at the RNC. At 8 a.m. she woke up to find police in the house wearing riot gear and camouflage flak jackets. She says they had rifles drawn. Adams has a broken ankle, and when officers ordered her to roll over on her stomach, she says she was slow to do so and the officer, she says, pushed her with his boot.

Adams says one arrest was made. Nathanael Secor, a main organizer of FNB, was arrested on charges of conspiracy to riot, she says.

9:54: Guntzel says a Ramsey County warrant was served, and the house is now occupied only by law enforcement agents. Evidence has been taken out the back of the house. Adams said law enforcement took photos of maps of St. Paul which were present in the house, as well as house plants. Adams also said that a city inspector was on site as well. The house, according to one law enforcement official, has links to the RNC Welcoming Committee.

10:03: Guntzel has in hand a Hennepin County warrant. It indicates law enforcement was searching for incendiary devices, smoke bombs, urine and feces, and other items. See a transcription of the warrant here. [Update: PDF]

In the alley behind the house, two Minneapolis Police Department Property & Evidence trucks wait to be loaded. Photo: Jeff Severns Guntzel

10:44: The RNC Welcoming Committee issued a press release noting that four individuals were arrested in the raids: Monica Bicking, Eryn Trimmer, Garrett Fitzgerald, and Nathanael Secor. The press release also notes that “Search warrants for 2 of the 3 raided houses listed only one name apiece, each of individuals not present at the houses and, thus, not arrested.”