> Village Voice
> June 14 - 20, 2000
>
> PETTY TO THE MAX
> BY C. CARR
> Feds Throw the book at Mumia Protesters
> http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0024/carr.shtml)
>
> They were found guilty of petty offenses, charges way too minor to warrant
> a jury trial. And now, as punishment for the equivalent of a parking
> ticket, a couple of leading activists in the fight to save Mumia Abu-Jamal
> face a supervised probation so restrictive they won't be able to do their
> political work. They think that that was the whole point.
>
> C. Clark Kissinger and Frances Goldin were among 95 demonstrators arrested
> at the Liberty Bell pavilion in Philadelphia last July 3, the 17th
> anniversary of Abu-Jamal's sentencing. He faces execution in Pennsylvania
> for the murder of a police officer, and his supporters have long maintained
> that he did not get a fair trial. During the July 3 action, protesters
> blocked several doors to the Liberty Bell, and park rangers closed the
> pavilion for three hours. Some climbed onto the roof to hang banners. Some
> sat outside against the bumper of a police van.
>
> Kissinger and Goldin say they did none of those things. They were out on
> the plaza with the third member of their affinity group, Mark Taylor, head
> of Academics for Mumia Abu-Jamal. "We sat down in an area where a truck was
> coming, filled with already arrested prisoners," recalls Goldin, "and
> before we could move, we were whisked away by the park rangers. And cuffed.
> They never said 'Move.' They never said anything."
>
> Charged with "failure to obey a lawful order," Goldin, Kissinger, and six
> other activists decided to plead not guilty, and that's where their
> troubles began. They are now convinced their real crime was to ask for a
> trial.
>
> During the course of their three days in court, the park ranger who
> arrested Goldin could not identify her, and none of the videotapes entered
> into evidence showed the two defendants blocking anything or even sitting
> down. While the activists were not exactly surprised when the judge found
> them guilty anyway, fining them $250, they find the supervised probation
> draconian and sinister.
>
> "This was a fait accompli, that they were going to get probation," says
> Jordan Yeager, Goldin's attorney. "In fact, the representative from the
> probation department was there in the courtroom waiting to handle the
> processing. That was before the case had been closed, before all the
> evidence on whether they were guilty or not guilty had been received."
>
> Under the terms of the probation, they cannot travel outside their home
> federal court district (the five boroughs), cannot associate with convicted
> felons (Abu-Jamal), have to surrender their passports, must turn in forms
> every month listing all sources of income and how it was spent (for
> themselves and everyone in their households), all organizations to which
> they belong, and everyone they've been in contact with who has a criminal
> record. They are also subject to surprise visits from their probation
> officers. Goldin's dropped in a couple of weeks ago at 7:30 in the morning
> "to make sure I don't have an opium factory on my premises."
>
> Goldin, who turns 76 next week, is Abu-Jamal's literary agent, has his
> power of attorney, and handles all his finances. (She also represents the
> Voice's Wayne Barrett.) Kissinger, 59, is a full-time organizer who has
> traveled the country to rally support for Abu-Jamal. Both visit him
> repeatedly on death row.
>
> Ron Kuby, the longtime civil rights lawyer who is representing Kissinger,
> calls their punishment "unprecedented. These are the most restrictive
> conditions I've ever seen in a case that didn't involve a felony. Clearly
> the restrictions are designed to impede lawful, constitutionally protected
> political activity."
>
> Andrew Erba, a Philadelphia lawyer who has filed appeals on behalf of
> several of the defendants, says that he has never before seen probation
> attached to a civil-disobedience arrest. Indeed, the movement foot soldiers
> who climbed the pavilion and blocked its doors simply entered their guilty
> pleas by mail and paid a $250 fine.
>
> "I think the federal government is sending out a message," says Erba. "Mix
> civil disobedience, Mumia, the potential protest in July [at the Republican
> convention], and I think you come out with the message 'Don't demonstrate
> on federal property.' "
>
> However, Richard Goldberg, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the
> cases, says it isn't so. "What I argued to the judge in court was that
> these people, when they came up for sentencing, denied their guilt even
> though they had been convicted," says Goldberg. "They indicated that they
> would do the same in the future, and because they did not indicate any
> intent to stop illegal conduct, the decision was made to request probation,
> and the judge imposed it. So the argument for probation was based on the
> positions taken by these defendants. Not as a result of some alleged
> policy."
>
> Goldberg says the terms of the probation are not harsh, but "standard."
>
> Last week, Kissinger was scheduled to turn in his required forms at the
> U.S. probation office in Brooklyn, but he had decided to "draw the line."
>
> Shortly after his sentencing, federal agents served two subpoenas on
> Kissinger's wife, Judy, ordering her to turn over all her financial records
> for the past 10 years_everything from cashed checks to credit-card
> statements. A grand jury is investigating a former employer of hers for
> Medicaid fraud, but Judy Kissinger is a medical technician who worked in
> the lab and doesn't even know what people were charged for tests. All of
> her financial records are also his. Clark Kissinger thinks this could be
> part of a whole new level of harassment aimed at Abu-Jamal's supporters
> just as the movement is picking up steam.
>
> So, in an informal rally on June 6, out on the street, Kissinger announced
> that he had paid his fine and surrendered his passport, but he was not
> going to turn in all the forms they wanted. Nor would he stop his
> association with Abu-Jamal.
>
> Twenty-five supporters, including Goldin, followed him into the elevators
> and up to the fifth floor, waving Mumia placards and chanting, "Brick by
> brick, wall by wall, we're going to free Mumia Abu-Jamal!"
>
> It may have been the first protest staged in the federal probation office.
> Workers behind the glass reception window looked alarmed, and one man
> popped into the waiting room long enough to announce: "Folks, you are
> currently trespassing here. If you do not leave, 911 will be called and you
> will be arrested."
>
> The group responded with another chant: "Mumia is fearless. So are we. We
> won't stop until he's free."
>
> Police began drifting in, and things looked tense for a few minutes. But
> Kissinger went in to his appointment and nothing happened. Back outside, he
> announced that the officials upstairs were greatly annoyed but had not
> demanded his forms. They told him to come back July 11, and that "if I
> bring people again, they will report me because I disobeyed the order of a
> probation officer. So I want you to know that you're all invited to come
> back."
>
> ------++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -------
> "In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies,
> but the silence of our friends." -- Martin Luther King Jr.