[Street] [FAWG] Urgent Question Regarding Court Appearance

rita sebastian rita at brandeis.edu
Wed Nov 23 13:45:05 EST 2011


The attorneys work for the GA and are accountable to it, so everyone
participates in the high-level direction of the case. The selection about
who submits affadavits is part of the legal strategy - which is where the
attorneys have expertise. From a legal standpoint, the only way to prevent
eviction is to argue that the encampment is protected under the First
Amendment.  This is a difficult constitutional argument. Everyone agrees
that free speech is protected - that we can march, carry signs, etc.
 However, the City does not agree that the tents and encampment are
necessary to exercising speech. Our attorneys are maintaining that the
tents can be construed as "symbolic speech", which is protected under some
circumstances. They have a difficult challenge to prove this - the Supreme
Court has never upheld such an extension of this argument.  The attorneys
select what goes in the affadavits according to how it bolsters the
constitutional argument they are making, not according to how well the
people represent the Occupation Movement. Most of the affadavits are coming
from people outside the movement, like teachers who brought students to the
camp, because the Supreme Court case history on symbolic speech places a
high importance on how the speech is perceived.

The particular court action in progress is a pre-emptive  action - it is
designed to prevent what happened to Occupy Wall Street and other places.
We would not have gotten a hearing if the attorneys did not outline the
constitutional challenge.  Otherwise, the only trials would be after
-the-fact for the people arrested during the eviction.  If that occurs, we
may have more legal options - you might use the criminal trials as a way to
express the message to the public or even try to turn it into theater as
happened with the Chicago 7 trial.  However, a pre-emptive court action
like this doesn't have as many options: everything has to deal with the
constitutional law issue.

Thanks,
*Rita*

On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 12:41 PM, Theresa <theresa at occupyboston.org> wrote:

> I am sending this to all work groups I am part of because I have a serious
> concern that Occupy Boston is giving up too much control over our voice to
> these attorneys  in this legal process we are involved in.
>
>
> IF we are allowed 5 testimonies, who decides which 5 affadavits are
> submitted in court???
>
> The reason I ask is that I fear that our Occupation is going to be
> misrepresented in court because there are better "names" that are willing
> to write a letter than those who have actually in any way participated in
> Occupy Boston.  Is anyone looking at this or are we just trusting that
> legal wouldn't pick big names to represent Occupy Boston?  I suggest there
> be some kind of consensus on which affidavits are used in court. It is very
> tempting for a lawyer to go with "big names" or "established" people
> because it lends credibility or looks good on their end...but we need to
> look out for our best interest at Occupy Boston, not what looks good for
> the lawyer in court.
>
> We are the 99% and we have enough intellect and ability to represent
> ourselves through voices of those participating.
>
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-- 
Rita Monestersky- Sebastian
Brandeis, MA SID' 2009

"If you cannot change yourself, how can you change the world?"
Gandhi
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