Jailing an Attorney for Six Months for Providing Support to Homeless Sleepers

This is a court hearing to determine if Ed Frey should be immediately returned to jail or allowed to appeal further.

Supporters are encouraged to attend. Letters to the Sentinel, Good Times, SC Patch, San Jose Mercury News, etc. are welcome as well.

Attorney Ed Frey (pronounced "Fry") faces a six month jail term tomorrow as his appeal of the 647e conviction was refused by the District Court of Appeals.

PC 647e is the catch-all "anti-lodging" law used to frighten and shut down peaceful protests at public buildings such as the Occupy movement here and elsewhere.

Frey was an early victim of this law for initiating, sustaining, and defending PeaceCamp2010 summer before last.

Convicted in the court of John "Grim Gavel" Gallagher last year, he was held in contempt for wearing informal clothing in solidarity with his client, "Ground Zero" Gary Johnson,'' That issue was subsequently resolved through an explanation and apology.

Johnson was also convicted of "falling asleep" (with a protest sign) outside the County Building to protest the laws against homeless people sleeping at night. Johnson will appear before Gallagher on August 24 at 8:30 AM to face the same sentence.

Gallagher is accused of manipulative and contradictory rulings that prejudiced the defense in last year's trial (refusing to define the term "lodging" which both were accused of doing for being asleep at a protest during the trial and then suddenly defining it as "including sleeping" when it went to the jury).

The jury also had no knowledge that the two men faced 6 months in jail and 400 hours of community service for a peaceful protest.

After serving several weeks in jail for the sentence, both men were temporarily released on appeal. Attorney Peter Leeming advised the grudge-burdened judge that the $50,000 bail he'd set was considerably higher than that suggested by the bail schedule: under $200.

A story on an early stage of the appeal: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/06/05/18714834.php

Frey hopes to gather enough prestigious legal "friend-of-the-court" support to persuade Gallagher to hold off on re-jailing him until he can file a habeas corpus brief with the California Supreme Court. He discusses this on air at http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/brb120722.mp3 (about 4 hours and 45 minutes into the audio file).

Previous legal papers in the case can be found at Frey's website: http://www.fullspectrumdemocracy.org

Activist Becky Johnson (herself facing 7 years in prison for being present at an Occupy Santa Cruz peaceful protest) has written about this latest hearing: http://www.beckyjohnsononewomantalking.blogspot.com/2012/07/six-months-in-jail-for-sleeping-is-this.html

The history of the historic PeaceCamp2010 protest can be found at http://www.peacecamp2010.blogspot.com/ .

Gary Johnson, Frey's co-defendant and client, who faces 2 1/2 years in jail, has a blog athttp://peacecamp2010insider.blog spot.com/ .

Ed Frey has acted as counsel for Occupy Santa Cruz and provided legal aid and comfort.

The recent history of OSC--which has faced the same 647e charges as Frey is documented in a recent set of videos by documentarian and community activist Brent Adams (who also faces 7 years in prison as one of the Santa Cruz Eleven): http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/07/17/18717690.php

Linda Lemaster, who faces a jury trial in October for 647e charges at the same protest as Ed Frey and Gary Johnson has written about the issue. Her latest story is at http://hearthbylinda.blogspot.com/2012/07/lemaster-lodging-trial-date-set-october.html