Hi, everyone! We’ve had two long days in court so far in this round of RNC 8 hearings. Here’s a quick recap of what’s been going on. For detailed notes of the proceedings (in case any of y’all are legal nerds like us), go to: http://rnc8.org/info/courtnotes/.

Yesterday, May 3rd, was the first day of the hearings. The defense wanted to have a Florence hearing, in which they could challenge that the government has not shown any specific evidence to establish probable cause for the charges. The defense argued that the interpretation of the law that the government was using violated constitutionally protected free speech rights. They said that they would prove in these hearing that despite tens of thousands of pages of documents, hundreds of hours of audio and video recordings, and four infiltrators, the government has no proof of guilt in this case. The actions and activities advocated by the Welcoming Committee were acts of civil disobedience such as blocking traffic, and the actions actually taken were legal, logistical activities such as feeding and housing demonstrators. The main case of the government rests on a satirical video, guilt by association, statements and actions of people who are not the defendants, and discussions by the defendants that did not constitute any kind of a real plan or conspiracy to commit riot or damage to property.

After hearing arguments from the prosecutor and each of the defense lawyers, the judge ruled to allow the Florence hearing. If the judge rules in favor of the defense in these hearings, the charges will be thrown out for lack of probable cause.

The first witness called was Tony Samec of the Special Investigations Unit of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department (RCSD), who is a former member of the Secret Service. Samec authored parts of the search warrant applications for the houses that were raided and the convergence space, signed the complaint against the 8, and provided “backup” for the informants while they were undercover. He was incredibly evasive and combative in his responses to questions by the defense. There were some real kickers in his testimony. If you haven’t yet read the description used in the search warrants of the Welcoming Committee’s “We’re Getting Ready” trailer, check it out here: http://twincities.indymedia.org/files/affadavit0903-sm.pdf. For that matter, if you haven’t seen the video yet, check that out here: http://rnc08report.org/archive/403.shtml.

Samec was questioned about his failure to fully explain the video, particularly its satirical nature, in the warrants and complaint. When asked why he mentioned the Molotov cocktail but didn’t include the fact that it landed in a barbecue grill, he said “because I didn’t include it.” The defense showed the video in its entirety in open court, clearly illustrating how misleading his description was. When asked whether gas masks, such as those seized in one of the raids, are intended to be used as weapons, he said “I don’t know.” When pressed, he said “weirder things have been used as weapons.”

Samec was much more cooperative when being questioned by the prosecution. He brought up a workshop at the Convergence Space on “less lethal weapons,” suggesting that the WC was teaching people how to use such weapons, despite the fact that this workshop was clearly about staying safe and dealing with the weaponry used by the riot police at demonstrations. [For the handy companion booklet to the workshop, click here: http://zinelibrary.info/pepperspray-cs-other-less-lethal-weapons.]

The next witness called was Dale Sommerhause, who is a commander at the RCSD in the Special Investigations Unit, and who was heavily involved in the investigations surrounding the RNC. He performed surveillance, monitored “open source information” such as websites as well as e-mails, and managed and wrote reports for the informant Chris Dugger. While he brought up e-mails and conversations by the defendants in which they mention property damage or violence, it became clear that Sommerhause had no specific information about any of the defendants entering into agreements with anyone to harm persons or commit damage to property.

Sommerhause tried to refer to the “bigger picture,” saying that attending meetings and having general or philosophical discussions about property damage as a tactic was enough to support the charges. He claimed that everything that happened at the convergence space was run or approved by the Welcoming Committee, because it was their rented space; however, he later admitted that the documents seized at the convergence space raid that are being used to prosecute the RNC 8 are not actually known to have come from them, and that he could see how one of the many other people using the space could have put them there. He also claimed that the Welcoming Committee’s consensus decision-making process meant that group decisions were the decisions of all members; when questioned about this, he admitted that he didn’t know enough about consensus process to say what a block was or if it meant that a group could move forward with a decision in the face of one.

In cross examination, the prosecutor argued that the reason Sommerhause had no access to incriminating evidence or statements is that the Welcoming Committee members were aware of and practiced security culture. Sommerhause defined security culture as not talking about illegal activities and plans with people you don’t know. Despite his assertion that RNC WC members never violated this security culture, it came out in redirect that in fact the Welcoming Committee openly discussed a variety of illegal civil disobedience activities such as barricades and lockdowns.

The final witness called was Richard Clark. He is also a commander at the RCSD. He was involved in the arrests of Monica Bicking, Garrett Fitzgerald, Eryn Trimmer, Max Specktor and Rob Czernik. He testified that he had no knowledge of any of them resisting arrest, or any weapons found on them when they were arrested.

The hearings will continue tomorrow (May 5th), as well as May 13th and 14th. The hearing block on May 6th has been canceled. Tomorrow the defense will likely call to the stand the undercover informants who were working with the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department. After the Florence hearing, they will be discussing other motions, including:

* Motion to suppress evidence from convergence space and house raids
* Motions for bail reductions
* Motion for discovery regarding IndyTACT (the group who claimed sector 2 and was later discovered to have been fabricated by the Bloomington, MN police department)
* Motion to dismiss (on behalf of Luce Guillen-Givins) due to selective prosecution

Thanks to everyone for all of the support! We will publish updates on the rest of the hearings, and continue to post detailed notes after each day, so keep your eyes on RNC8.org.

yours,

RNC 8 Defense Committee and friends