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Mistrial Declared for St. Paddy's Day 7
August 24, 2007 6:29 PM
After deliberating for about two-and-a-half hours a jury in Colorado Springs municipal court said they had differences that weren't going to be resolved. City Judge Robert Warren then declared a mistrial. It's now up to the city whether to re-file charges and bring the case again. Scott Patlin, the lead prosecutor for the city at the trial says he expects the city will re-file. The mistrial came after a day and a half of testimony and arguments in the city's case against seven people it says intentionally obstructed the St. Patrick's day parade last March.
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The city says peace activists deliberately stopped the parade in order to further their political, anti-war message. The defendants said they did want to convey a pro-peace message during the parade, but that they had no intent to stop the event in order to do so. Just the opposite, they said, - they wanted to march in the parade. The obstruction happened, their lawyer argued, when parade organizers and police unexpectedly tried to remove them from the parade that they said they'd been approved to enter after paying a fee, completing an application and having their entry reviewed by parade officials. The defendants faced one charge each, misdemeanor obstruction of a public right of way, punishable by a fine of up to $500 and/or 90 days in jail. Perhaps the most dramatic moment of the trial came about two hours after closing arguments, when the jury of four women and two men asked for additional instructions from the judge. They were unclear about whether they had to find the defendants guilty of both intending to obstruct the parade and actually causing an obstruction. With the jury out of the room, the judge ruled that the defendants could be found guilty if the jury concluded they had intent to obstruct, whether or not obstruction actually occurred. Defense Attorney Greg Walta objected strenuously, but Judge Warren overruled him. The jury were then given the instructions, and after they left the room to resume deliberations, Mr. Walta turned to his clients and said, "I don't see how we can win with those instructions." He said the judge had just negated the elements of the case and almost the entire statute they were being charged under. Judge Warren disagreed. About 30 minutes later the jury returned and their foreman said he didn't think they'd be able to resolve their differences if given more time to deliberate. Judge Warren then declared a mistrail The city called more than 15 witnesses over two days. The defense decided to put only one defendant on the stand, Elizabeth Finneron. Photos of Miss Finneron, an elderly woman, were widely published, showing a large abrasion she sustained from being dragged off the street by police. Miss Finneron testified that, due to two artificial knees and hips and other medical conditions, she couldn't have deliberately sat in the street to obstruct the parade as the city said she did. She did not dispute that she asked several police officers to arrest her after others in her group had been arrested. Finneron says she wanted to have her day in court. Prosecutor Scott Patlin charged that she, and the others arrested all wanted to be taken into custody because that would help them further a controversial social message of the type that parade organizers specifically forbade from their event. Patlin asserted and Judge Warren agreed that the supreme court has ruled definitively that parade organizers have the right to control what messages are expressed in their events, and can remove parade participants at any time if they choose to do so. After the trial, defendant Frank Cardaro said he feels like the mistrial was a victory because a jury in such a pro-war, pro-military town didn't hang them. Prosecuting attorney Scott Patlin said he sees it as a case of a group of people who were unable to come to a decision. Again, Patlin says he expects the city to re-file charges againss the seven. Defense attorney Greg Walta says the city has to decide if it wants the bad publicity of the incident to continue.
Posted by Eric Whitney on August 24, 2007 6:29 PM | Permalink
