With an iron hand and eight years of effort, Mayor Rudy Giuliani has gradually recalibrated New Yorkers' understanding of our own rights. When we plan demonstrations now, we weigh our right to protest against the likelihood of actually being allowed to do it. When we think of public space, we wonder if we meet the new definition of the "public" to whom space belongs; that we as queers, or poor people, or dissenters of any kind, may have to negotiate even for our right to be present.
These changes were hard won by Mayor Rudy and a team of strapping, belligerent cops who diligently instructed us on the new order of things. It helped if we were in handcuffs.
Year by year, Giuliani stockpiled weapons against dissenters. He appointed rubber-stamp judges to the criminal court, who sealed the fates of immigrants and people of color targeted for petty, non-violent offenses under the "Broken Windows" theory of policing. His policymakers wrote an order that anyone arrested at a protest must be held overnight in jail, rather than summonsed for a future court date and released. His police force escalated arrests of random protesters not engaged in illegal activities –– let the charges be thrown out later. And his prosecutors hunted down new statutes to use against protesters, from the once-obscure charge of "Obstructing Governmental Administration" to the antediluvian law against face masks. Giuliani determinedly raised the cost of speaking out.
These favorite weapons of Giuliani's regime have faced legal challenges by activists. Two of these battles have come to a head at the end of his reign.
A weapon lost, a weapon gained –– a federal court has struck down one hated practice, and Giuliani's criminal court has codified another.
St. Patrick's Day demonstrators, opposing the exclusion of Irish queers from the parade, were among the first to be subjected to the new anti-dissent tactics. In March 2000, 69 people attempted a protest march down Fifth Avenue. Arrested, berated, and threatened by Irish American cops, held in jail overnight, and slapped with escalated charges, they were eventually dragged into court on more than ten separate dates awaiting some kind of resolution of the case. Some had come from Ireland, and had to plead guilty to close their cases and go home. Many more plodded through court date after court date, stretching their employers' patience to the limit. When the case was over a year old with no progress, the remaining defendants were forced to plead guilty to a reduced charge so they could get on with their lives. All but one.
I brought my case to trial on December 5th, hoping finally to put an end to the practice of charging demonstrators with Obstructing Governmental Administration. OGA is a low-level felony, far too serious to be applied to demonstrators, which implies that the goal of the protester is not to march, not to speak out, but simply to prevent police from "doing their job." In keeping with Giuliani's vision, the charge spins activists as thugs.
Because of the seriousness of the charge, it entitles the accused to a jury trial –– no small thing in a court stacked with Giuliani appointees. But the weeks following September 11th (and maybe the years before it, too) were not a good time to rely on a jury of white, middle class New Yorkers to doubt the motives of the NYPD. I pleaded with the jury about the need and the right to speak out against bigotry, and about the importance of their role as arbiters of that right. They nodded. And after returning the "guilty" verdict, the forewoman stayed behind to tell me that they had all been so sympathetic; they believed I had done the right thing. Maybe it was beyond the jury's comprehension, but their verdict nearly guarantees that the City will go on charging protesters with OGA; and that the District Attorney will press those cases to trial rather than offer a reasonable plea bargain which preserves our ability to speak out.
Sentencing took place on December 20. The District Attorney asked the judge to order a sentence of ten days of community service. But the maximum sentence is a year in jail (for 2nd degree OGA, which was the charge in this case.) So the judge could have issued a sentence which would cost me my job and sweep the apartment I share with my girlfriend out from under our feet. Fortunately, Judge Matthew Cooper instead ruled that a criminal conviction was punishment enough for a good faith act of protest.
Giuliani's efforts to fence in dissenters will outlast him. Judges appointed during his administration will continue to hand down excessive verdicts. New Yorkers will have to unlearn our Giuliani-time habits before we can think and act freely again. And juries –– always whiter and wealthier than the population of the city since felons can't serve and people with strict, hourly-wage jobs tend to postpone jury duty –– will continue to think of free speech as a privilege long after activists remember it isn't.
On the other hand, a barrage of lawsuits recently forced the City to retire one of its most prized weapons against dissent. Detaining protesters in jail overnight, or "putting them through the system," proved so embarrassingly unconstitutional that the City refused even to defend the policy. The written order, long hidden from activist lawyers, has been rescinded for good. And a class-action lawsuit is in the works to compensate the many hundreds of arrestees who were summarily jailed without trial.
In spite of the risks, we're right to go on challenging repression; it's the only way to roll it back. Just as we risked a night in jail for the sake of our right to speak out, it's worthwhile to risk a conviction rather than allow the City to leverage our silence with excessive, punitive charges. Giuliani's fortress has to be dismantled on so many levels –– in the courts, in the psyche of police officers and juries, and in our own minds as well –– that every battle is valuable. Because progress is won by a series of both gains and losses. And because not fighting is far, far worse.
No comments:
Post a Comment