United for Peace of Pierce County, WA - We nonviolently oppose the reliance on unilateral military actions rather than cooperative diplomacy.

On Fri., Feb. 29, 2008, after two days of deliberation, a jury acquitted Wally Cuddeford of resisting arrest at a Tacoma City Council meeting on Mar. 6, 2007, during the port militarization resistance (PMR) protests at the Port of Tacoma. -- The same jury convicted him, however, of obstructing a meeting, and Cuddeford was sentenced to a day in jail and a $300 fine (or 30 hours of community service). -- A few hours after the verdict, Cuddeford, who defended himself at the trial, posted an account of the proceedings on his blog.[1] -- The trial has received no media attention, as far as we know. -- Cuddeford has expressed interest in appealing Friday's verdict, and further lawsuits related to Tacoma police violence during the PMR protests are anticipated. -- For background on the case, see here. -- One month earlier, on Feb. 1, 2008, Cuddeford was found guilty of obstructing police at the Port of Tacoma and of resisting arrest and one charge of "misdemeanor assault" on a police officer (he was also found not guilty on another charge of assault against a different officer). -- Cuddeford, it will be recalled, was a nonviolent protester arrested and tased three times by Tacoma police on Mar. 5, 2007, as PMR protesters opposed the shipment through the Port of Tacoma of military matériel for an Iraq-bound Stryker brigade at Fort Lewis....

THE NEWEST MEMBER OF THE ANARCHIST LAWYERS GUILD OF OLYMPIA
By Wally Cuddeford

They deliberated for four plus hours, over the course of two days. They watched the whole video, exactly as I had hoped they would. I knew, if I couldn't get acquitted with them watching the whole thing, then there was no way I could get acquitted at all. Just before noon today, I got the call. They had a verdict. We assembled. The jury walked in. The two jurors who had been smiling and nodding the whole time were looking down. "Oh, crap," I thought. "He won't look me in the eyes. I'm fucked." Nothing would have pissed me off more than having people on the jury who agreed with me and wanted to see me acquitted but didn't have the guts to buck the letter of the law.

The judge got the verdict papers and read the first charge and verdict. Obstructing a public meeting. Guilty. Gut check. And then he read the second charge. Resisting arrest. NOT guilty! Sweeeeeeeeeet! The jury got up and went back to the back room. The one guy in particular who liked me looked at me and shrugged. I shrugged back.

Split verdict is fine with me. And it's split the way I would have it split. If I had been convicted of resisting arrest, there wouldn't be much I could do. But I got convicted of obstructing a meeting, based on a law that's totally unconstitutional in its wholesale reliance on the City Council's discretion (and hence abuse of discretion). The fact that it's not only a discretionary law, but also a matter of using said law to curtail right to petition government for redress of grievances makes it a constitutional issue. It could easily get overturned on the appellate or (state) supreme court level, and set a positive precedent -- that is, if I gave a shit about positive precedents. But I do happen to give a shit about getting an unfair conviction overturned, and if someone who does care about reforming the law wants to take this on, I'm willing to be party to it.

Prosecutor Lee recommended stiffer penalties this time. He recommended a $300 fine and a day of work detail, although I could choose to do jail or electronic home monitoring time instead. EHM was out of the question, for obvious reasons. And really, I didn't feel much like doing work for the city. So I chose jail. I think that'll be more personally enriching. I have to report to Tacoma City Jail 9:00 a.m. sharp on Thursday, March 6, and stay until they call me up to leave. (It just now occurs to me that that's the one-year anniversary of the City Council meeting.) Too bad I can't bring a book with me. $300 fine = 30 more hours of community service at Catholic Worker-approved venues. And, finally, some menial suspended sentence which runs concurrent to (and is less than) the one I already have.

A couple of the jurors hung around. Actually, a few more did, but we weren't notified until later that they were there, so some left. As it turns out, the jury was split down the middle on both counts. Three wanted to convict on both, three wanted to acquit on both. (Of the two that stayed, one was on one side and the other on the other.) The jury discussed and reviewed the tape and discussed some more, and eventually the three convinced the other three to convict on obstructing, and those three convinced the first three to acquit on resisting. (As far as they say, there was no deal made to just convict half-and-half to avoid a hung jury.) The jury was halfway to acquitting, despite my having violated the letter of the law (the common law of example, the subject of intent/knowledge, and the constitutionality [not]withstanding). What more could I do? I could, and did, argue my points as well as I could. The jury is the X-Factor. They declined to convict on my weaker case, and agreed to convict on what I thought would be my stronger one. I came close to winning solely on the basis of "Aw, that's a bunch of bullshit!"

The jurors told me I seemed like I hadn't prepared enough. But my lawyer friend says that's what every juror always thinks about every lawyer. In truth, nobody ever feels they prepared enough. They said the whole jury had questioned my decision to go pro se. Once again, my lawyer friend says to not even think twice of that; they've never been in my shoes. They don't know the kinds of preparations that have to go into something like this. (Or for that matter, the intensity of a five-day pro se crash course.) And the jurors admitted themselves, even though they questioned my decision, they couldn't have done half as well in my place.

One of the two jurors I talked with, the unfavorable one, told us why we were wrong to protest at the port. As if we haven't put much thought into it. I've heard it a million times, of course. Halfway through telling us we should be protesting Senator Murray and stuff, he stopped and thought about it, and tried to find a different way to phrase it. He was nice and respectful, though.

The ironic thing is, if I had known it would be a split verdict, I would have figured it would be split the other way. I wasn't guilty of resisting arrest at all, but that was the one I was really worried about.

Indeed I did, right here on this LJ. And I got acquittal. On the one charge anyway. I guaranteed to eat a bag of dog shit if I lost. Well, I didn't lose. I didn't win either, not really (although a full win may yet come of this case), but I didn't lose. Now, a lot of people had one question: Why'd I make the guarantee? Well, fun, of course, and cuz I'm just like that. But really, because I knew that otherwise this last week would have been a funeral march. "Oh, fuck. He got convicted of assault. Oh, fuck. He's dismissed his lawyer. Oh, fuck. He's representing himself. That's a free-fall. He's not bouncing back from that." "Nuh-uh! Not only can I win, I WILL win. I GUARANTEE you I'll win." It doesn't sound so much like a funeral march anymore, as long as you say it like you mean it. Now, the question arises, if I really had lost, would I have gone through with it? Would I have actually eaten a bag of dog shit? Well, that's what I said, wasn't it? But I guess now we'll never know. ;)

Now, in sports, they tend to not make such guarantees, because it riles up the other team. I thought of that. But I thought in this case it might do the opposite. You see, Lee, the prosecutor, doesn't have a soul. I mean it! He doesn't have a soul! First of all, how could you be a prosecutor and have a soul in the first place? But really, even afterward, when we were chatting with a couple of the jurors, he was arguing just like he was in court, about how I had testified this and so-and-so had testified that and therefore that, misstating testimony even after the trial was over and we were free. If he had a soul, if he felt passionately about what he's doing with his life, I could worry about riling him up for a win. But that wasn't going to happen. In fact, if he actually read this LJ (as the Tacoma PD has been confirmed to have done during the port protests), and had seen that, it might have put him off, gave him the idea I knew something he didn't. (Which I did, but all of which was not allowed in court.)

I know I did well. That shit is not easy! Even just the closing arguments are hard. It's hard to sit there while the prosecution drags you through the mud and talks about how you're absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt guilty, and then get up there and go "HELL NO!" I worked myself intensely for seven straight days, and was just about as prepared as I could ever have been. I know what I'm capable of. I know how to improve my strategies if I ever have to do this again. But more importantly, I'm fully confident in my ability to try, and win, my own case from here on. And in my line of work, that's a good power to have. :D

Once I was done there, I went over to the Federal Courthouse, where the trial of Brianna Waters was going on. The jury has been sent to deliberate on her case, which they'll continue to do over the weekend. I met Brianna briefly, and wished her my support. She's facing 35 years minimum. Wish her luck, y'all!