28-05-2010, 08:18 PM
http://www.judibari.org/
Jury's message to feds in $4.4 million verdict for Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney
(revised 6/19/02)
Jury's message to feds in $4.4 million verdict for Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney
(revised 6/19/02)
On June 11, 2002, a federal jury returned a stunning verdict in favor of Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney in their landmark civil rights lawsuit against four FBI agents and three Oakland Police officers.
The jury unanimously found that six of the seven FBI and OPD defendants tried to frame Judi and Darryl in an effort to crush Earth First! and chill participation in Redwood Summer. That was evident in the fact that 80% of the $4.4 million total damage award was for violation of their First Amendment rights to speak out and organize politically in defense of the forests.
"The jury exonerated us," said Darryl Cherney. "They found the FBI to be the ones in violation of the law. The American public needs to understand that the FBI can't be trusted. Ten jurors got a good, hard look at the FBI and they didn't like what they saw."
"It's really beyond our wildest dreams," said Darlene Comingore, Judi Bari's friend and executor of her estate who stood in for her as co-plaintiff in this suit. "We hope the FBI and Oakland and all the police forces out there that think they can violate people's rights and get away with it are listening because the people of the state of California and Oakland today said, 'No, you can't. You can't get away with it.' "
Lead attorney Dennis Cunningham said the message he hopes the verdict sends is that: "Ashcroft is doing precisely the wrong thing to abandon the (Levi) guidelines and let the FBI go after dissent with a free hand. It's clear that their intention is not about fighting terrorism, it's about suppressing dissent. That's what the FBI has always been about. Hopefully it will make Congress think twice about giving them a free hand."
Please click here to continue reading this article, with more interpretation of the meaning and importance of the verdict by the media as well as by individual participants and observers, including one of the jurors.
The jury unanimously found that six of the seven FBI and OPD defendants tried to frame Judi and Darryl in an effort to crush Earth First! and chill participation in Redwood Summer. That was evident in the fact that 80% of the $4.4 million total damage award was for violation of their First Amendment rights to speak out and organize politically in defense of the forests.
"The jury exonerated us," said Darryl Cherney. "They found the FBI to be the ones in violation of the law. The American public needs to understand that the FBI can't be trusted. Ten jurors got a good, hard look at the FBI and they didn't like what they saw."
"It's really beyond our wildest dreams," said Darlene Comingore, Judi Bari's friend and executor of her estate who stood in for her as co-plaintiff in this suit. "We hope the FBI and Oakland and all the police forces out there that think they can violate people's rights and get away with it are listening because the people of the state of California and Oakland today said, 'No, you can't. You can't get away with it.' "
Lead attorney Dennis Cunningham said the message he hopes the verdict sends is that: "Ashcroft is doing precisely the wrong thing to abandon the (Levi) guidelines and let the FBI go after dissent with a free hand. It's clear that their intention is not about fighting terrorism, it's about suppressing dissent. That's what the FBI has always been about. Hopefully it will make Congress think twice about giving them a free hand."
Please click here to continue reading this article, with more interpretation of the meaning and importance of the verdict by the media as well as by individual participants and observers, including one of the jurors.
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.â€
Buckminster Fuller
Buckminster Fuller