|
Edited on Wed Aug-02-06 09:04 AM by Traveling_Home
Press Release For immediate release: Aug. 1, 2006 Prepared by the Colorado Legal Eagles http://www.coloradolegaleagles.orgContact: Don Wirtshafter Email: don@hempery.com Rainbows Score Legal Victories -- Attendees of the Rainbow Family Annual Gathering scored
legal victories on Friday, July 28 when the US District Court agreed to
drop charges against Ohio attorney Don Wirtshafter and 124 other
defendants who had been charged with "use or occupancy of a National
Forest without a permit when one is required" when they attended the
Gathering earlier in July in the Routt National Forest near Steamboat
Springs, Colorado,
The USFS regulations require that any group of over 75 people file a
permit to be in the National Forest. Rainbow Gathering participants
disagree that these regulations apply to their assemblies. They
maintain that the Rainbow Family is not an organized group capable of
delegating authority to anyone to sign a permit. Instead, Rainbow
volunteers and the Forest Service resource officers agreed in advance
to Operating Plans for the gathering. However, after the gathering
began, the Law Enforcement and Investigations branch of the Forest
Service insisted that a formal permit be obtained. At that point,
several individuals offered to file permit applications without
signature, since they could not represent a group that has no leaders
or structure, but this offer was denied.
The USFS decided to try to stop the gathering by giving citations for
using the forest without a permit. They used "some of the harshest
law enforcement methods ever witnessed against peaceful citizens
exercising their right to assemble," said Wirtshafter. Over 75 armed
federal and local law enforcement officers manned roadblocks and
stopped cars heading into the gathering. Over 500 people received
citations, and many illegal searches, detainments, and incidents of
police brutality were reported. Despite the threat of arrest, at least
20,000 people attended the Gathering.
The Forest Service set up a temporary federal courthouse at a volunteer
fire station near Steamboat Springs to process the cases. "Conditions
at the makeshift courtroom were appalling," said Wirtshafter.
"Defendants were forced to wait in the sweltering heat with no water,
restrooms, shade, food, or telephones for up to 13 hours for their
cases to be called."
Initially, access to the makeshift federal courtroom was closed, even
to attorneys. A lawsuit filed by attorneys in Denver forced the
federal magistrate to open the courtroom, but the public was still
largely unable to witness the trials. There were no public defenders
available for indigent defendants. The court denied requests for
continuances and the opportunity to subpoena witnesses.
After seeing the conditions of the temporary courthouse, Ohio attorney
Don Wirtshafter petitioned the court to be admitted to the federal bar
of Colorado so he could represent some of the defendants who wished to
contest the citations. "It was the worst abuse of defendants I had ever
seen, far worse than I ever imagined the justice system could provide
in America," Wirtshafter said.
To cause maximum disruption, law enforcement officers targeted the
Gathering's medical, water system, and communication volunteers with
tickets. A gathering ambulance driver was stopped on the road miles
from the gathering and given a use and occupancy ticket. An EMT
qualified volunteer was arrested for interfering with the duties of a
police officer for trying to help individuals involved in a traffic
accident. A nurse-practitioner had her tent raided in the middle of
the night. The contents of her medical bag became the subject of a
controlled substance charge. It took a week to convince the
prosecutors there were no controlled substances and that she truly was
licensed to have the medicines that she possessed.
Wirtshafter discovered he was a target when driving a client back to
the Gathering after a trial at the makeshift courtroom. He had just
finished his first grilling cross-examination of Tim Lynn, Incident
Commander for the management team that the USFS moved in to "control"
the gathering. At the roadblock after the cross-examination,
Wirtshafter was given the only ticket that day.
In Federal court on Friday, Wirtshafter expressed his outrage at law
enforcement targeting officers of the court. The Assistant US Attorney
agreed and dismissed the outstanding charges against Wirtshafter.
Charges were also dropped against another 124 defendants who had
received citations, but had failed to appear in court. The Assistant
US Attorney agreed to accept $15 fines for each and a local
philanthropist paid for them.
"It's yet another example of how unfairly defendants were treated in
the temporary court. It was more like Guantanamo than anything
resembling what we expect from the American justice system,"
Wirtshafter said. "The fact that the US Attorney did not want to
prosecute any of these cases shows how frivolous the charges were to
begin with. It's clear that Incident Command's intention was simply to
harass and intimidate legitimate forest users and chill the momentum of
the growing rainbow family."
Of the over 500 citations issued, most were adjudicated at the
makeshift courtroom in Steamboat with most defendants agreeing to pay a
$40 collateral forfeiture fee in exchange for dropping the charges.
However, there are 4 defendants that have filed notices to appeal their
convictions in the makeshift courtroom.
On August 11, Rob Savoye, a Nederland computer consultant who
voluntarily provides communications and medical facilities at the
Gatherings, will be one of the last defendants to appear in US District
Court. Savoye is being treated differently. He was not offered the
$40 collateral forfeiture fee that the other defendants were offered.
The USFS believes Savoye is the "secret leader" of the Rainbow Family
because he hosts a Rainbow website (http://www.welcomehome.org).
Savoye will be represented by Phil Dubois, a Colorado Springs attorney
who gained notoriety in his successful defense of Phil Zimmerman, who
was prosecuted by the federal government for violating U.S. export
restrictions on cryptographic software for posting PGP, a free email
encryption program, on the Internet.
For more information on the Rainbow Gatherings, see
http://www.welcomehome.org/
For Reports from the 2006 Gathering, see:
http://www.coloradolegaleagles.org/
###
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
