By Kathleen Gilbert
RANCHO CUCAMONGA, California, May 12, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A group of peaceful pro-life protesters who were harassed and assaulted by campus police officers at a California college were found not guilty of several charges in court last week.
Survivors’ Campus Life Tour (CLT) team members, Jason and James Conrad, were being tried as a result of arrests that took place during a CLT outreach at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga in November 2007. They were charged with disturbing the peace and obstructing a police officer. In spite of video evidence, which Life Legal Defense Foundation (LLDF) lawyers say shows the youths as peaceful and compliant, the district attorney refused to drop their charges and the case was brought to trial.
One other member, Joey Cox, was originally charged with causing a campus disruption and unlawfully recording a confidential conversation. All charges against Cox were dismissed on the eve of trial after the court of appeal ruled that the police unlawfully arrested Cox and illegally seized his tape recorder.
According to pro-lifers’ testimony, corroborated by a video that captured the events, the team members were violently assaulted by the Chaffey College police force, unlawfully arrested and held in jail for three days.
(Read the full account of the arrests of Joey Cox, Jason Conrad, and James Conrad on page 5 of the Winter 2007 issue of Survivors Action News at: https://www.survivors.la/news/san24.pdf)
“Before the jury was even selected we knew we were in for an uphill battle,” Allison Aranda, staff attorney for Life Legal Defense Foundation (LLDF), who represented the pro-lifers, said.
During the trial Judge Mary Fuller prohibited mention of Cox’s unlawful arrest and threatened to exclude the video evidence. Aranda explained that at that point “our hands were tied and the realization that we would only be able to tell part of the story to the jury sunk in. We were disappointed, but not defeated.”
However, the judge ultimately allowed the video to be played without sound. The video reportedly showed the Conrads peacefully complying with the officer’s orders and revealed the disturbing actions of the police as they slammed James Conrad on a table and tried to cover the only window to the outside.
The jury deliberated for less than a day and rendered a “not guilty” verdict on all charges against the Conrads.
Executive Director of the Life Legal Defense Foundation, Dana Cody, commented on the verdict, stating, “The jurors are to be commended for following the law and denouncing the police misconduct.”
Cody said the law group would seek damages in a civil suit against the officers “for the violations of both the Conrads’ and Mr. Cox’s civil rights.”