[Ppnews] Facing Grand Jury Intimidation: Fear, Silence and Solidarity

[Political Prisoner News]

    Facing Grand Jury Intimidation: Fear, Silence and Solidarity

Thursday, 30 August 2012 10:28 By Natasha Lennard 
<http://truth-out.org/news/item/index.php?option=com_k2&view=itemlist&task=user&id=47223&Itemid=252>, 
Truthout <http://truth-out.org>
http://truth-out.org/news/item/11181-facing-grand-jury-intimidation-fear-silence-and-solidarity

We've seen some pretty bold anti-authoritarian actions across the 
country in the last month. Police vehicles were vandalized in San 
Francisco, Oakland, Illinois and Milwaukee. Anarchist redecorators 
visited courthouses, police substations, sports car dealerships and 
more. Banners dropped in New York, Atlanta, Vancouver, Seattle and 
elsewhere echoed their graffitied sentiments: "Fuck Grand Juries"; 
"Solidarity with Northwest Anarchists." Boldest of all, however (and the 
inspiration underpinning this spate), has been the action from a small 
group of anarchists in the Pacific Northwest: silence.

Two Portland-based activists, Leah-Lynn Plante and Dennison Williams, 
publicly announced late last month that they had been subpoenaed to 
appear in front of a federal grand jury in Seattle and that they would 
refuse to cooperate. During a grand jury hearing on August 2, Plante did 
just this - offering her name and birthdate only - and has been summoned 
to return for another hearing on August 30, where she again intends to 
say nothing. Meanwhile, it is believed a handful of other activists are 
fighting to quash subpoenas served to them with the shared intention of 
noncooperation.

Grand juries are among the blackest boxes in the federal judiciary 
system. Given their highly secretive nature, few people within - or 
outside - activist circles know what it means to be called to a grand 
jury and what it takes to resist.

"Our passion for freedom is stronger than their state prisons," Williams 
announced in a statement on behalf of himself and Plante about their 
intention to resist the grand jury, referencing the fact that by merely 
staying silent, the two could face considerable jail time, despite 
facing no criminal charges.

The Seattle grand jury subpoenas were served in late July, when the FBI 
and a Joint Terrorist Task Force conducted a series of raids on activist 
homes and squats in Portland, Olympia and Seattle with warrants seeking 
out computers, phones, black clothing and "anarchist literature." The 
FBI has stated only that the grand jury pertains to "violent crime," but 
it is believed to relate to property damage in Seattle during this 
year's May Day protests. The relatively small scale of the property 
destruction - a handful of spraypainted cars, slashed tires and smashed 
windows at a downtown Starbucks, Niketown, Wells Fargo and American 
Apparel store - in comparison to the cost of the police and FBI 
investigations points to the likelihood that the raids and grand juries 
have been widely dubbed a witch hunt, understood by commentators and 
activists alike as an attempt to intimidate, deter and undermine 
anarchists in the Northwest and beyond.

Will Potter, author of "Green is the New Red," who has long covered the 
state persecution of environmental activists and anarchists, noted in a 
recent interview with The Dissenter, "I think what's most indicative of 
what's going on though is that specific call for agents to seize 
'anarchist literature' as some kind of evidence of potential illegal 
activity." He added that the convening of a grand jury is "especially 
troubling because grand juries have been used historically against 
social movements as tools of fishing expeditions, and they're used to 
seek out information about people's politics and their political 
associations 
<http://truth-out.org/%20http:/dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/07/31/interview-greenisthenewred-coms-will-potter-on-fbi-raids-grand-juries-political-repression/>."

Ironically, however, the purported purpose of a federal grand jury is to 
act as "a safeguard to the accused from the improper motivations of 
government"- to protect the accused from prosecutorial overreach 
<http://peopleslawoffice.com/improper-use-of-federal-grand-jury-michael-deutsch-political-repression/>. 
A jury of between 16 and 23 civilians hears evidence from a given 
investigation brought by a prosecutor (the US attorney) in the form of 
documents, recordings and witnesses, and decides whether there are 
grounds to move forward with an indictment. However, the grand jury 
process has been long and regularly used as a form of political 
repression. According to Heidi Boghosian, director of the National 
Lawyers Guild (the NLG is a group with a long history of advising grand 
jury resisters), "abuse of grand juries includes attempts to gather 
intelligence or information otherwise not easily obtained by the FBI." 
As such, the grand jury process has been used to probe and intimidate 
activist groups of various stripes, from the Puerto Rican Independence 
Movement last century, to black liberationists, environmentalists and 
anarchists.

For the grand jury resisters themselves, the time during which a grand 
jury sits (typically 18 months) is a harrowing one. As the NLG's 
Boghosian explained: "If someone receives a grand jury subpoena and 
decides not to cooperate, that person may be held in civil contempt. 
There is a chance that the individual may be jailed or imprisoned for 
the length of the grand jury in an effort to coerce the person to 
cooperate."

"It's actually lawful for the prosecution to hold an individual in order 
to coerce cooperation, but unlawful to hold the person as a form of 
punishment," said Boghosian. "In addition to facing civil contempt, in 
some instances a non-cooperator may face criminal contempt charges."

For example, in 2009, Utah-based animal rights activist Jordan Halliday 
spent jail time for civil contempt and was sentenced to 10 months in 
prison for criminal contempt for his effusive noncooperation with a 
grand jury. And many resisters who were not jailed nonetheless recount 
traumatic experiences.

"I thought I was doomed. I had nightmares, night sweats, turned heavily 
to drinking and drugs," said a 23-year-old anarchist who refused to 
cooperate with a grand jury in 2009 in New York, which reportedly 
convened in regard to the placement of an incendiary device in a 
metropolitan area believed to be connected to anti-war activism. The 
young man, who requested to remain anonymous, remembers feeling 
"helpless," believing that at any point, he could be put in jail for his 
political silence.

However, he equally recalls the comfort he felt in learning that support 
committees - people he did not even know - were forming and organizing 
solidarity actions for him. "People having each other's back - it's one 
thing we do have," he said.

And indeed, statements and acts of solidarity with the Northwest 
resisters have been numerous and widespread. "Part of the purpose of 
grand juries seems to be to isolate people from a network of support, 
the support that puts them in a stronger place to resist," said Kristian 
Williams, a member of the Committee Against Political Repression 
<http://nopoliticalrepression.wordpress.com/>, which formed in support 
of the grand jury resisters.

"Solidarity actions and support also communicate to the state that 
people are paying attention to how the situation is being handled. 
Knowing that there is public opposition - not just a small group of 
friends outside a courtroom, but people all around the country - 
hopefully raises the political cost for the US attorney to continue this 
repression," he added. Hundreds of people have already put in calls to 
the US attorney to express opposition to the treatment of Northwest 
anarchists, while over 350 organizations have signed on to a petition of 
opposition put out by the Committee Against Political Repression. 
Meanwhile, as mentioned above, banner drops, graffiti and other acts 
have been dedicated to the grand jury resisters in the past month. A 
national day of action has been called for August 30 to coincide with 
Plante's second hearing.

For the New York-based resister, his act of political silence not only 
affirmed certain ideas about solidarity, but served as striking proof of 
personal resolve: "In a strange way, you show yourself something 
important when you resist a grand jury. The things you say, the things 
you believe, you find yourself actually acting upon them, even though 
you know it could cost you a chunk of your life."

"It has a very powerful effect on yourself," he said.

It is a sentiment seemingly understood by the anarchists in the 
Northwest as they begin their grand jury resistance ordeals. While 
inviting solidarity and support in their public statement, Plante and 
Dennison added, "You can show your solidarity by refusing to co-operate 
with any police force and encouraging your friends and families to do 
the same."

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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