What Charges Can be Filed Against Protesters Who Block a Highway

[Monroe Doctrine]

On 3-3-2015 in order to protest tuition fee hikes, and nationwide police brutality, six students of the University of California, Santa Cruz chained themselves to each other, and cement filled garbage cans, and spanned the Highway 17 at the entrance into Santa Cruz. This point is where Highway 17 merges with Highway 1, and continues as Highway 1 Southbound. By an elaborate system of arms connected to arms within pipes that passed through cement filled metal garbage cans the six students were able to form a wall that spanned the highway and preventing through traffic for about four or five hours. Santa Cruz is a coastal town with essentially no way to bypass Highways 1 and 17, both of which were effectively shut down. As a result of their actions hundreds, if not thousands of people were stuck in traffic. The city's emergency response services were severely inhibited, people lost time and money. People seeking hospital treatment suffered needless delays, though, no one appears to have died as a direct result of the the two blocked highways. Santa Cruz is a town of roughly 64,000 people. I am not sure if that includes the 20,000 or so UC students. There is a strong feeling amongst at least the non-student population of Santa Cruz that the six students should be expelled. At present they are on an interim 14-day suspension. The six were arrested after they were finally untangled, without incident. Four of the six are out on $5,000 bail bonds. Two remain in custody, not having posted bail. The charges filed were: Suspicion of creating a public nuisance, failure to obey an officer, attempting to prevent an officer from performing a duty and conspiring to execute a plan of conspiracy. The first three charges are misdemeanors and the last, a felony.

My question is do any other laws apply. Perhaps laws on terrorism apply? Who would file the charges that would apply? The county, state, or federal government? What seems like a responsible legal position to take? No one died, so let's just forgive these overzealous youth?

I chose debate the issues, but I will be forced to play the role of spectator, as I have no legal training. Our local paper the Santa Cruz Sentinel has a good article describing what happened. Nobody I have heard will say what the actual legal implications are. Since I am not sure if I am encouraged to provide a link to the actual article, let me give you the names of the six students and I will hope that a search for a Santa Cruz Sentinel article, and other material will be make it not too inconvenient to get an overview of what happened. I thank you all in advance if you can shed some light on this situation for me. I frankly, do not know a specific forum on this site that can address the issue, since I don't know what laws apply here, other than I do know the charges that the students were booked on. My assumption is that more charges could be filed, possibly by the state of federal government. And of course, there is always the possibility of civil charges, for lost time, and wages, and pain and suffering. I consider those type of charges to be only marginally likely, since it does take time and money to pursue that route, and the defendants will probably not be easy to collect from!

The "Highway 17 Six" as they are now called are:
Ethan Jacob Pezzolo, 19, of Santa Cruz; Janine Victoria Caceres, 21, of Los Angeles; Alexander Bryant Pearce, 19, of San Francisco; and Sophia Jeanne DiMatteo, 19, of Sherman Oaks, Lori Leigh Nixon, a 28-year-old from Santa Cruz, and Sasha Lee Petterson, a 19-year-old from Oakland.

Please debate the issues, and please shed some legal light on this for me!

-Monroe Doctrine

[LawResearcherMissy]

Perhaps laws on terrorism apply?

Protesting is not terrorism, no matter how many people are inconvenienced by the protest.

[jk]

Protesting is not terrorism, no matter how many people are inconvenienced by the protest.

absolutely agreed. I am so tired of so many people jumping on the terrorism bandwagon. Its the "in" word at the moment and is used for issues that have nothing to do with terrorism.

[adjusterjack]

My guess is that prosecution is likely to remain local. I can think of three more offenses: Disturbing the Peace, Impeding Traffic, Littering.

There could be more than criminal charges. They could be subject to civil lawsuits for monetary damages incurred by the city and the individuals who were the victims of the Highway 17 Six.

Judgments are good for 10 years in CA. As these young adults get older, their wages can be garnished, bank accounts levied, their credit rating trashed. They will have difficulty getting financing for homes and cars. The criminal and civil record could certainly have a bad effect on their employability.

Civil Disobedience has been an American tradition since the time of the 13 original colonies. Unfortunately, people who practice it often suffer serious consequences.

I don't know what kind of debate you want. Doesn't really matter. They'll either get punished or they won't and their 15 minutes of fame is likely to fade into history in a very short time.

[tonynewman]

that's not really true anymore guys,,, Ill refer to the patriot act once again

from the ACLU site

Section 802 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Pub. L. No. 107-52) expanded the definition of terrorism to cover ""domestic,"" as opposed to international, terrorism. A person engages in domestic terrorism if they do an act ""dangerous to human life"" that is a violation of the criminal laws of a state or the United States, if the act appears to be intended to: (i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping. Additionally, the acts have to occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States and if they do not, may be regarded as international terrorism.


Section 802 does not create a new crime of domestic terrorism. However, it does expand the type of conduct that the government can investigate when it is investigating ""terrorism."" The USA PATRIOT Act expanded governmental powers to investigate terrorism, and some of these powers are applicable to domestic terrorism.

The definition of domestic terrorism is broad enough to encompass the activities of several prominent activist campaigns and organizations. Greenpeace, Operation Rescue, Vieques Island and WTO protesters and the Environmental Liberation Front have all recently engaged in activities that could subject them to being investigated as engaging in domestic terrorism.


read more https://www.aclu.org/national-securi...stic-terrorism

[jk]

what's not true? The gov or anybody else can use whatever words they want to use but as usual, calling a turd a diamond doesn't make it shine.

The Patriot Act is one of the biggest tragedies and acts of overt oppression by our government in my entire life. It is appalling to see the rights of the people of this country that have simply been thrown out the window.

[Monroe Doctrine]

Thanks for your responses. I admit that I'm a little surprised that the protesters are seen in such a positive light in view of the fact that their actions, cutting off the city from the rest of the state was very reckless and dangerous. I do understand the annoyance of "terrorist baiting". I don't like it myself! And yet I felt compelled to ask given the felony charge of "Conspiracy to execute a plan of conspiracy" - what a strange sounding charge. And also, sad though this may seem, one charge people are commonly arrested for is the charge of "Making terrorist threats." And also, I will be honest, so try not to lay into me, it did feel like terrorism. We were for all intents and purposes trapped. Students with bull horns walked down the main drag screaming "**** the police". I could hear them from where I live. All the main streets were backed up. This cost a lot of money to businesses. People were long delayed in ambulances, one with serious CO poisoning. On pet died on the way to the emergency vet hospital, but stuck in traffic. It did not feel like a peaceful demonstration. It did feel like terrorism, and my feeling is that if it go unpunished, that would be a crime.

It also seems reasonable to call it terrorism if:

"A person engages in domestic terrorism if they do an act ""dangerous to human life"" that is a violation of the criminal laws of a state or the United States, if the act appears to be intended to: (i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population;"

That said, nobody died. And I can't say that I want the students spending years in jail. But I can truly say if this happens again, the possibility of violence erupting, or looting is extremely likely given the level of anger of the cities residents!

From what I have been told the students 14-day interim suspension means that they will not be able to take final examinations and will fail for this quarter as a result. If that actually happens my blood lust will be satisfied.

You should know that the city of Santa Cruz has suffered more than its share of disrespect. The property crime rate is the highest in the entire state, and violent crime is near the top. Rents are among the highest in the state, as is unemployment and homelessness. Over 7,000 discarded used syringes have been found in public places, and in one year, Santa Cruz's Emeline Clinic has handed out 173,000 free syringes to drug addicts. (Yes, drug addicts, because you are not eligible for them if you need them for diabetes, or other conditions). The "compassion industry" is a major, perhaps dominant industry in Santa Cruz. "Non-profits" have proliferated, and are extremely well funded, with very highly paid administrators, in part, due to proximity the wealthy Santa Clara County contributors like Google. As result the homeless are drawn to the city like a magnet.

Excuse me, if I have given unnecessary background information. I thought you might understand the situation better if you understood that many residents here are struggling with high rents, and high crime rates, and thousands of indigent drug addicted homeless, at the same time many whiny privileged kids are pulling stunts that make us feel terrorized.

Like all of you, I suspect, I don't want to see the students jailed - and four of the six posted the five thousand and were out the same day - and I hope the other two are out by now. But this kind of activity in this community is really dangerous. And what I sort of hope for is some assurance that it won't happen again. And that's why I wanted to know if the risk of consequences was sufficiently high that it doesn't. And I wondered about the specter of "Terrorism".

I think, from what I've read, if they don't get charged locally, they won't get charged. That the chance they took was that had someone got seriously hurt or injured they would be facing much more serious charges. But since they didn't, they won't.

And that's probably how it should be. I just hope they really understand the risks. So thanks again. And, I hope you aren't too put off by the supplementary, believed-to-be-accurate information. I just wanted to put the situation in context, since I did feel the seriousness of this incident might be hard to understand. This was not a peaceful protest IMHO!

[jk]

Is didnt read anythjng about the incident i would consider reckless or dangerous

you say it wasn't a peaceful protest so what did the do thst was agressive towards others?


and if you consider what the did terrorism I suggest you never leave your parents home. There is nothing terroristic about their actions. The protest they undertook is no worse than many many protests throughout the '60's.

Terrorism is inducing fear of injury or death so as to cause a party to act or change their lifestyle due to the fear. What the kids did doesn't come close to it

[Taxing Matters]

My question is do any other laws apply. Perhaps laws on terrorism apply? Who would file the charges that would apply? The county, state, or federal government? What seems like a responsible legal position to take? No one died, so let's just forgive these overzealous youth?

This was not an act of terrorism and the Patriot Act would not apply to this. Nor is this, from what I can see, any violation of federal law. The state district attorney is the person to decide what state law violations to charge, which he or she has already done. The fact that they are all facing charges out of this means they aren’t getting off Scot free on this. The school may also take disciplinary action for any violation of its conduct code. The general public can express outrage at what the students did and call for blood with the DA and the school if they wish, but fortunately they don't get to decide the kids' fates. The acts of angry crowds tend to lend themselve to violent excesses; blood lust is vengeance, not justice. College kids do stupid stunts. These kids are going to learn that stupid stunts have consequences. Perhaps that will make them better and more level headed adults in the future. That’s the outcome I’d want.