let us see what love can do

Crawford protesters win appeal
Court rules tents did not violate law.
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/04/23/0423crawf...
By Chuck Lindell
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, April 23, 2009
An Austin psychologist and another protester should not have been arrested in 2006 for erecting tents near Crawford as part of Cindy Sheehan's anti-war protests, the state Court of Criminal Appeals ruled Wednesday.
Em Hardy of Austin and Hiram Myers of Oklahoma had challenged a McClennan County anti-tent ordinance by erecting small tents in a roadside ditch at "Camp Casey I," a triangle of land formed by three roads near then-President George W. Bush's ranch.
The ordinance, enacted in 2005 after residents complained about the effect of several thousand protesters, did not include any penalty provisions but stated that violators could be charged with trespassing. Instead, Hardy and Myers were arrested for obstructing a highway, found guilty and fined $150.
An appeals court tossed out their convictions, and the Court of Criminal Appeals agreed, ruling 5-4 that the law banning highway obstructions did not extend to tents pitched several feet away from the pavement.
"I am so pleased," said Hardy, who moved to Austin from Colorado about four years ago. "I thought it was a real important free-speech issue."
Hardy and Myers were among 12 protesters arrested for illegally pitching tents in November 2005, but plans to challenge the tent ordinance in court were thwarted when charges were not filed.
Protesters returned to the triangular patch of land in April 2006, alerting law enforcement officials of their intentions to erect more tents on Good Friday. Fourteen people were arrested after refusing a sheriff's department order to leave the tents, but only Hardy and Myers were charged with obstructing a highway, a misdemeanor.
At their trial, Hardy testified that protesters were motivated to challenge the ordinance because the image of a tent pitched at Camp Casey I had become an international symbol of the Iraq War protest movement.
Wednesday's ruling, though a victory for protesters, did not consider the constitutionality of McLennan County's tent ordinance, which has since been amended to allow for permit applications, said David Broiles, a Fort Worth lawyer who represented Hardy and Myers on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.
Instead, the state's highest criminal court focused on what it said was a misapplication of the highway obstruction ordinance.
"Any potential obstruction must be capable of rendering the highway impassable or to render passage unreasonably inconvenient or hazardous," read the majority opinion by Judge Cheryl Johnson.
Not only were the tents too far from the road to be a hazard, Johnson wrote, but the road had been closed to accommodate protesters and media, making obstruction "unlikely." In addition, a line of protesters in folding chairs sat closer to the road than the tents, but none of them was arrested.
"Nothing in the record indicates (Hardy and Myers), by sitting in a small tent erected in the bar ditch or by any other conduct, rendered passage more ... hazardous than by sitting in a chair in the same location," Johnson wrote.
Presiding Judge Sharon Keller, writing for the dissent, said evidence showed that the tents were indeed a hazard.
Three officers testified that they believed the tents were a potential hazard to traffic, including one who said the nearby road was too narrow to let two vehicles pass side by side, putting those in tents at risk, Keller wrote. In addition, videotapes showing how close the tents were to the pavement "provide further support for the convictions," she wrote.
clindell@statesman.com, 912-2569