Legal Updates:

Judge Throws Out Three Charges in the #UCLA5 Case, We Demand All Charges Dropped

| revcom.us

 

Closing arguments were made in the #UCLA5 case on Tuesday and jury deliberation begins Thursday. The #UCLA5 are members of Refuse Fascism and the Revolution Club who are facing up to TWO YEARS in jail for speaking out in two separate events at UCLA, including during a speech given by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.

1) Right before closing arguments, the Prosecution revealed new evidence including photos of bruises and scrapes on the two defendants that had been charged with resisting arrest and audio recordings that show the defendants were never read Miranda rights even after they requested the right to speak to an attorney! These prove that four UCPD cops lied on the stand, claiming there was no evidence of police brutality against the defendants. The judge was forced to dismiss three charges of resisting arrest against two of the defendants but refused to declare a mistrial, moving ahead with an illegitimate prosecution.

Why was this evidence suppressed until this late hour and by whom? What agencies were involved in hiding this? Was it the UCPD? Was it the UCLA Administration? Was it City Attorney and Democratic Party politician Mike Feuer? Or was it all of them? What other evidence has been suppressed? And what does this say about all the cases brought by the City Attorney against Refuse Fascism and the Revolution Club, in coordination with the LAPD? Who knew what and when about the larger investigation, how high up has this gone and is it ongoing?

2) Despite the repeated claims from the Prosecution that these are not political cases but about simple violations of the law, the Prosecutor repeatedly brought in the political mission of the Revolution Club in her cross examination of the Defendants and in her closing arguments. She asked completely irrelevant questions about people’s nicknames, their membership in the Revolution Club, the fact that the defendants are communists, the content of people’s social media—going so far as to show the jury tweets from the defendants where they talked about why they disrupted Mnuchin—trying to paint this as if it was anything besides free speech.

3) In the trial, three UCLA Administrators testified for the prosecution, justifying a new UCLA policy and “arrest protocols” for controversial events. Mick Deluca, the UCLA Assistant Vice Chancellor of Campus Life, testified that he initiated the arrests of the defendants within seconds of speaking to Mnuchin. The UCPD cops who made the arrest testified that they did not know what law had been broken, making the arrests on the say so of Deluca! But Deluca is not a cop and cops who make arrests are supposed to do it on the basis of “probable cause.” This would be like your neighbor telling a cop go arrest so and so and the cop does so on the basis of their say so, NOT THE LAW itself. The #UCLA5 case is a test case for this new UCLA policy, which they’re establishing to be the new norm on campus. This is unconstitutional and illegitimate.
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This trial is a major attack on campus free speech and the space for ANTI-fascist protest at a time of consolidating fascism. All the charges should be dropped immediately.

At this point, the trial is going ahead and the verdict is expected Thursday or Friday.

Sign this petition demanding these charges be dropped. Don’t let this repression remain a secret, spread the word about these cases. Donate for the political and legal defense.

 

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