Prosecutors Won't Pursue Cases of 227 in Disputed
Protest

Sabrina Tavernise, The New York Times

The Manhattan district attorney's office said
yesterday that it would not prosecute cases
against 227 protesters who were arrested in one
of the most disputed demonstrations of the
Republican National Convention, saying it would
be difficult to prove that the protesters had
deliberately defied orders.

The decision effectively throws out one of the
largest group arrests to occur on Aug. 31, the
second day of the convention, when nearly 1,200
people were arrested around the city.The demonstrators affected by yesterday's
decision were arrested near ground zero after
announcing their plan to march up Broadway to
Madison Square Garden. They did not have a
permit, but they held discussions with local
police commanders, who allowed the march after
protesters agreed to obey all traffic laws. But
they were arrested almost immediately when, the
police said, they violated the agreement by
blocking the sidewalk.

Civil liberties advocates hailed yesterday's
decision and said the dismissals proved the
arrests were illegal. "It's so important that
they did that," said Donna Lieberman, executive
director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
"When people are arrested for lawful activity, it
has a lasting chill. When the activity is
protest, then the harm is all the greater."

But Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly defended
the officers' actions, saying they had worked
hard to accommodate the protesters, even those
who did not have permits. The protesters broke
the law when they unfurled a banner while on the
sidewalk on Fulton Street, violating an agreement
to walk two abreast, he said in a statement.

The decision "does not cast any doubt about the
actions of the defendants, who were blocking
pedestrian traffic in violation of the law, but
reflects the difficulty of proving their intent
in doing so," Mr. Kelly said.

The decision comes amid a continuing dispute
between the city and civil libertarians over how
long protesters were held in custody during the
convention. Lawyers for the protesters have said
that one of the city's goals was to stop the
protesters from being heard during the
convention, an argument that city and police
officials have vociferously denied.

At a hearing yesterday for three of the
protesters in Manhattan Criminal Court, William
Beesch, an assistant district attorney, said his
office had decided not to pursue the cases after
reviewing the behavior of the officers and the
protesters in the tangle of events that day.

While acknowledging that the protesters had
"failed to heed the directives of the police,"
their vast numbers — there were several hundred
at the site — would make it difficult to prove
that every person arrested was deliberately
defying police orders, Mr. Beesch said.

"The police likely created the impression among
the participants that the march had official
sanction," he said, reading from a statement.

What is more, the protesters behaved well in
police custody, he said.

A Manhattan Criminal Court judge dismissed
charges in the three cases before her yesterday,
and Mr. Beesch said the district attorney's
office would move to dismiss all the other cases.

In all, about 1,100 people who were arrested
during the convention have been arraigned, out of
the 1,784 cases the district attorney's office
reviewed, said Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman
for the office.

One protester who appeared in court yesterday,
Richard Hardie, a 73-year-old furniture designer
from Northampton, Mass., said he was held for 49½
hours in a holding area on a Manhattan pier and
in the courthouse.

Mr. Hardie, who grew up and went to college in
New York City, said he was elated that his case
was dismissed.

"I feel great," Mr. Hardie said. "I didn't think
the city had a case. I was never told why I was
arrested. The city should realize, and the mayor
should realize, that they violated us."

But a criminal justice official for the city
defended the arrests, pointing out that before
yesterday, the district attorney's office had
decided not to bring charges in only three of the
nearly 1,800 arrests during the convention.

"The decision to dismiss the 227 says nothing
about the quality of the arrests," said the
official, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity, adding that District Attorney Robert
M. Morgenthau "felt he could not prove the intent
of the protesters beyond a reasonable doubt."

Yesterday's decision applied to 227 cases, but
more than 100 of those had already been adjourned
in contemplation of dismissal, a common outcome
of minor arrests.

A lawyer representing other protesters who were
arrested that week, Norman Siegel, said that
those who accepted the adjournment of their cases
would still be able to join a class action suit
or file a lawsuit saying they were held for too
long before arraignment.

Martin R. Stolar, president of the New York City
chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, who
represents about 80 of the 227 protesters, said
the protesters planned to bring a federal civil
rights lawsuit against the city by the end of the
month. For example, many of the protesters claim
that they were held for longer than the 24 hours
the law allows.

"Just saying, 'Oops, sorry,' is not enough,''
said G. Simon Harak, a coordinator for the War
Resisters League, the group that organized the
Fulton Street protest, and one of those arrested.
"There has to be some kind of redress for the
violation of our civil rights."