Radical Lawyering Conference

"In lieu of capturing the responsible parties for the University City arson, the government is trying to silence someone who has given some breath to a movement they want to hurt," Coronado said outside the court.

Federal prosecutors would not comment on the ongoing case.

The government’s case will essentially hinge on Coronado’s intent when he made the speech. Undercover investigators were at the speech and recorded it, but according to court documents, the investigator’s recorder cut out before the question and answer section of the lecture began. Therefore, exactly what was said about the Michigan State arson, and how Coronado said it, is in dispute.

Under a strict reading of the statute Coronado has been charged under, prosecutors must prove that when Coronado described how he made the incendiary device he intended his audience to go out and use that information to commit crime, said Gerald Singleton, one of Coronado’s attorneys.

But Singleton said he will ask the judge to instruct the jury to take a more narrow approach to the statute in Coronado’s case.
That approach is based on a 1969 Supreme Court decision, Brandenburg v. Ohio.

In Brandenburg, the court ruled that the government could only punish inflammatory speech if it was "directed to inciting and likely to incite imminent lawless action." If the judge instructs the jury to follow this case, Singleton said, the jury would have to agree that Coronado intended to incite immediate lawless action from the group that gathered to hear him speak that night in Hillcrest.

Coronado said that group consisted mainly of middle-aged animal rights activists and young punk rockers -- hardly the sort of crowd to go out and immediately start burning things down, he said.

Singleton said the narrower interpretation of the statute makes sense considering the fact that the information his client passed on to the crowd can be found easily and quickly online. A Google search for "How to make a Molotov cocktail" garnered 6,880 results in 0.37 seconds, including a page from the online encyclopedia Wikipedia that includes diagrams showing the making of a Molotov cocktail.

Singleton will have some help in winning over the judge and jury in the shape of J. Tony Serra, a battle-hardened veteran of civil rights law who once defended members of the Black Panthers.

Serra will be examining some of the witnesses and will be making the closing statement in Coronado’s trial, Singleton said. The trial begins Sept. 10.

http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2007/09/04/news/01coronado090407.txt&itemid=200709040716520.528885