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From: Bart (129.171.32.13)
Protest rap sheet a cause for concern BY BARBARA ROSS Protesters arrested at the upcoming Republican National Convention could face harsher penalties than in the past, the Daily News has learned. That's because of a little-noticed court ruling that allowed the Manhattan district attorney's office to introduce previously sealed records of prior arrests for civil disobedience. This year, state Supreme Court Justice John Cataldo agreed to a prosecutor's request that prior arrest records of four protesters could be unsealed and considered by another judge in sentencing them on new charges. With the legal system bracing for a predicted 1,000 arrests a day and groups promising protests outside as well as inside police barricades, defense lawyers are concerned protesters may not understand the new hazard. Typically, cases against demonstrators are granted ACDs, or "adjournment in contemplation of dismissal," as long as the offender stays out of trouble. "Anyone who's had an ACD should think twice" about getting arrested again, said Christopher Dunn, associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. ACDs have been used routinely for years to dispose of charges against nonviolent demonstrators. If the defendants don't get arrested again in six months, they skip jail, their cases are dismissed and their arrest records sealed. Last spring, Cataldo unsealed the arrest records of four protesters, who in March 2003, formed a human chain across Fifth Ave. to protest Israel's Palestinian policies. Traffic was disrupted for hours. A dozen demonstrators arrested at the same protest got community service but prosecutors wanted the other four to get some jail time because they have disrupted traffic in the past at the Holland Tunnel and the New York Stock Exchange. Cataldo's decision to unseal their records is now before the Appellate Division but the issue will not be decided until later this year. Bruce Bentley of the National Lawyers Guild said that in the past, when people asked us "if it could ever be used against them in the future, we used to say, 'no.'" Now, he said, defense lawyers will have to explain the potential risk that could come with accepting an ACD. Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said "we want people to feel free to demonstrate" but "if people have as a goal to disrupt traffic and impinge on the rights of others, and have done it before," their records "will have to be taken into consideration."
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