City of Sacramento finds Occupy defendants guilty without trial

City of Sacramento finds Occupy defendants guilty without trial

by Dan Bacher

In the latest episode in the wave of police repression by the City of Sacramento against the Occupy Movement, Occupy Sacramento lawyers say that the City is using a "grudge vendetta" to find defendants guilty without trial, violating due process rights that are guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.

Lawyers for Occupy defendants – who had criminal charges dismissed in December – on January 5 made public a new, unconstitutional scheme by the City of Sacramento to penalize the same defendants without a trial and due process rights. This has NEVER been done before, according to the dozens of Occupy lawyers who specialize in criminal, civil and constitutional law.

The City is using "administrative penalties" to "convict" the same defendants whose misdemeanor criminal charges were dismissed "in the interest of justice" by the City the day before criminal trials were set to begin in December. Now the City is finding them guilty without a trial, according to Cres Vellucci, Occupy Sacramento spokesman.

The pro bono lawyers for Occupy said that it is not only "double jeopardy" under the U.S. and California Constitutions, but the City's actions to find Occupy defendants guilty by "tribunal" deny them their 5th Amendment Due Process rights.

Jeff Kravitz, a Sacramento civil rights lawyer, said the City is engaging in a "grudge vendetta."

"The City is wasting taxpayer money in a grudge vendetta against veterans, single mothers, homeowners and struggling middle class families who are guilty of nothing but expressing their concerns about our nation," said Kravitz, who represents an Iraq veteran. "First, the City violates the First Amendment rights of these people, and now the City violates their Fifth Amendment rights of due process."

"There have been 110 arrests since October 6 at Cesar Chavez Park for a misdemeanor violation of a curfew ordinance – free speech ends at 11 p.m. weekdays and 12 midnight, according to city code," said Vellucci. "The City has failed to convict any of those arrested. About 27 cases remain in the courts."

There is no doubt that Mayor Kevin Johnson, the Sacramento City Council, the City Manager and the Sacramento Police Department only represent Wall Street and the 1 percent, not the 99 percent. Their illegal campaign of repression against Occupy Sacramento demonstrates that they regard the First Amendment, Bill of Rights and U.S. Constitution with complete and utter contempt.

Rather than allowing the protesters to exercise their First Amendment Rights, the City has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of hours on arresting and harassing protesters in a time of slashed budgets for programs and services.

"Dozens of officers have spent 6,577 hours on the Occupy protests, which represents a total payroll impact of about $408,000, said police spokesman Sgt. Andrew Pettit. Included in that figure is $52,200 in overtime paid to police officers," according to the Sacramento Bee (http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/30/4152189/public-eye-dealing-with-occupy.htmlP.

Sacramento Police, like the UC Davis police and other law enforcement agencies throughout the nation, have waged a campaign against the Occupy movement in what appears to be a coordinated strategy of repression in conjunction with Department of Homeland Security and other federal law enforcement agencies. The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence, according to Naomi Wolfe in her groundbreaking investigative piece in the U.K. Guardian on November 25, 2011 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/25/shocking-truth-about-crackdown-occupy).

"So, when you connect the dots, properly understood, what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence," said Wolfe. "It is a battle in which members of Congress, with the collusion of the American president, sent violent, organised suppression against the people they are supposed to represent. Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams. Even though they are, as yet, unaware of what the implications of their movement are, those threatened by the stirrings of their dreams of reform are not."

The ultimate irony is that while the City of Sacramento and the "leadership" of other cities across the country continue to wage their war against the Occupy movement, the Wall Street criminals continue to profit off their bailouts by the Obama and Bush regimes after having violated a plethora of state and federal laws.

In this unjust oligarchy, defenders of the Constitution are arrested and brutalized for standing up for the law while the real criminals not only go free, but are rewarded for their criminal behavior. The police agencies are effectively serving as the private security forces for the Wall Street banksters who should be locked up in federal prison.

Considering the wave of repression by city, state and federal law enforcement agencies and the 1 percent's stooges in the courts, it's urgent that people show solidarity with the Occupy Movement and attend an upcoming major protest. Occupy Sacramento will be Marching from Cesar Chavez Park, 9th and I Streets, to the Federal Courthouse, 501 I Street, on Friday, January 20 at 10:30 am as part of an "Occupy the Courts" National Day of Action.

For more information about Occupy Sacramento, contact: Cres Vellucci, 916-996-9170, news0058 [at] comcast.net, http://www.occupysac.org.