MLM Counties News. Notices. Need-to-know Information.
The 27 Occupy St. Louis protesters arrested during the early morning hours of Nov. 12 will have a chance to defend themselves in jury trials.
On Monday, St. Louis Municipal Court Judge Gordon D. Schweitzer Jr. certified the protesters’ cases to the St. Louis Circuit Court.
“The jury is the ultimate check and balance on this outrageous abuse of power,” St. Louis attorney Joseph P. Welch said after the municipal court proceedings. “I think the city is going to be hard-pressed to find 12 people to say a crime was committed here.”
Attorneys Welch, Cynthia West and Maggie Ellinger-Locke represent most of the 27 protesters, although the judge also sent to the circuit court the cases of those unrepresented by counsel regardless of whether the defendants showed up in court Monday.
Schweitzer didn’t issue any warrants for those who failed to appear, West said. She said the requests for jury trials were initially denied by Municipal Judge Margaret Walsh, who resigned from the municipal court in February after allegations of misconduct emerged. Schweitzer replaced Walsh in late March and was named administrative judge in early April.
Occupy St. Louis defendants and supporters squeezed into the six benches on the left side of Schweitzer’s courtroom, while only a smattering of people were in the benches on the right side of the room. The defendants, their supporters and their lawyers all wore stick-on labels with a logo of barbed wire surrounding a lit candle and the word “Solidarity.”
At one point in the proceeding, following a muffled exchange between the judge and the lawyers, West turned to face the protesters and led them in a brief burst of applause.
Desiree Hutton was one of the protesters arrested Nov. 12. For her, the push for a jury trial is about exercising her First Amendment rights. “I don’t see anywhere in [the Constitution] where we have to pay money to do that,” she said.
The Westboro Baptist Church enters a community and gets “the best First Amendment rights money can buy,” she said. “I don’t think I should have to come up with money to speak freely.”
Hutton also rejects the idea of time, place and manner restrictions, which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in its 1984 Clark v. Community for Creative Nonviolence decision.
Catherine Lipinski and Janet Cuenca weren’t arrested, but they attended Monday’s proceeding to support those who were.
“I think the most important thing is … that we have a legal right to occupy public parks,” Lipinski said. “The city of St. Louis decided the city ordinance was more important than the First Amendment.”
As Cuenca sees it, state and local governments use restrictive laws to control certain segments of the population — in this case, the homeless. It is “a matter of keeping unwanted elements of society from gaining any foothold of rights,” she said.
The protesters arrested on Nov. 12 are: Nichole Vickrey, Thomas Berry, David Emerson, Mark Florida, Alex Mangogna, Bradley Veltre, Lakota Mangogna, Paul Poposky, Jennifer Puckel, Thomas Bradford, William Smith, Ryan Blackwell, Ashley Bryan, Shannon Lottes, Alexander Patino, Wesley Mays, John Yetter, Angela Dower, Patrick Durian, Marcus Kuhlman, Carne Luna, Michael Moore, Clayton Shannon, Brian Stacck, Luella Berg, Desiree Hutton and Dianne Lee.
