Just days before the May 12 retrial was to begin in Eureka in the "Pepper Spray by Q-tip" case, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to postpone the trial in order to hear an emergency appeal from the plaintiff-activists.
The appeal, called a "Petition for Writ of Mandamus," seeks a return of the trial location from Eureka to San Francisco, where the first trial and all previous proceedings have taken place.
The appeal explains that Eureka is a hotbed of hostility to forest defense activists and their cause. The case was originally filed in San Francisco to avoid this bias, and the retrial
deserves an international forum out from behind the "Redwood Curtain."
"This case should no more be tried in Eureka than a civil rights trial in 1965 should be moved to Selma, Alabama," said activist Spring Lundberg.
The appeal also requests that the trial judge be recused for his bias and a new, unbiased judge be assigned. Not only did the judge move the trial to Eureka without the request of either plaintiffs or defendants in the case, he then did not give the activists an opportunity to respond to the surprise move. The appeal also confronts the judge's effort to revive the issue of granting "qualified immunity" to the law enforcement defendants, despite the fact that the plaintiffs won on this issue twice in the appeals courts.
The same legal team that won a stunning jury verdict last year for Earth First! activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney against the FBI and Oakland Police last year are representing the activists.
"We hope for a quick and favorable decision in a few weeks time. And then it's onward to trial and, we believe, ultimately, vindication and justice," said Spring.
To read the appeal brief and for much more information go to: www.nopepperspray.org.
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TOC for Forest & River News, Summer 2003