POSTPONED -- AETA4 Court Appearance

First AETA4 court appearance in two months. This will be a brief status hearing to set further motions, and possibly to set a trial date.

The AETA4 are four individuals charged with terrorism and facing ten years in federal prison for allegedly participating in home pickets and chalking the sidewalks in the neighborhoods of University of California animal experimenters.

The court has recently denied the defense motion to dismiss, which challenged the constitutionality of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act statute .

And in recent weeks, the court granted the government’s motion for handwriting exemplars of all four defendants. The government’s stated goal is to “further prepare for trial on the current charges as well as possibly bring additional charges.” Cited are two alleged incidents of found “scrapes” of paper possibly relating to animal torture. The government’s motion also states that there is “an ongoing investigation regarding related crimes committed through the use of the United States Postal Service that may have been committed by one or more of these defendants.” All of the defendants have now provided exemplars to the FBI, and we should know the outcome of the FBI’s "forensic handwriting analysis" in the near future.

Please come show your support and dress conservatively if entering the courtroom. We'll update this post if the date is delayed.