by nyc imc

(No verified email address) 03 Sep 2004

A State Supreme Court judge today ordered the city to release hundreds of people who had spent as many as 48 hours or more in jail and found the city in contempt of court after it failed to comply. Most of the people had been swept up in mass arrests on Tuesday, August 31, the day of nonviolent direct action to confront the Republican National Convention. Many claimed they were bystanders not connected to any protest.

The drama of the detentions unfolded in and around 100 Centre St., and heightened when the National Lawyers Guild filed a writ of habeus corpus late Wednesday evening demanding that the detainees be brought before a judge and formally charged. The more than 1100 people arrested on Tuesday had already been held at that point for more than 24 hours without being arraigned, informed of their rights, given access to an attorney, provided medical attention, or given access to adequate food, water, or sleeping facilities.

All the detainees had passed through the ad hoc detention center at pier 57 [ photos: inside | outside ] where they had to sleep on a floor slick with motor oil and other toxic residue. Numerous detainees complained of infections, rashes, and chemical burns. By Wednesday night, the detainees had become fed up with their treatment and began to refuse food.

The National Lawyers Guild and the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys engaged in legal battles with the city's Corporation Counsel late into the night, at one point packing the courtroom with supporters from outside in a failed attempt to have the judge resolve the case immediately. The judge did order the City to grant the attorneys access to their clients, but the City defied the order.

The detainees continued to resumed at 10:00 am at a hearing in which the judge denied the city's appeal of the writ and ordered the city to release all of the detainees. The city defied that order as it had the earlier one. By 5:00 pm, the judge's patience wore thin and he ordered the immediate release of all of the detainees. When the city defied that order, he found it in contempt and levied a fine of $1000 per person held past 24 hours.

The detainees finally came out of the courthouse into the welcoming arms of a jail support rally [1 | 2 | 3 | 1 ], where Bush was delivering his address.

Discussion of handling the legal aftermath has already begun.

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