The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/13/u...gia-indicted-clash-black-partygoers.html?_r=0
Good result. Somewhat sketchy law overall
In an unusual legal maneuver, the district attorney in this suburb of Atlanta said Monday that he had won indictments against 15 supporters of the Confederate battle flag, accusing them of violating the states anti-street-gang statute during a confrontation with black partygoers in July.
Prosecutors say that members of the group, which calls itself Respect the Flag, threatened a group of blacks attending an outdoor birthday party on July 25. A cellphone video of part of the episode shows several white men driving away from the party in a convoy of pickup trucks with the Confederate battle flag and other banners, including American flags, fluttering from the truck beds.
Several criminal lawyers and legal scholars said Monday that they could not recall other instances in which a state anti-gang statute had been used to prosecute a Confederate heritage group in the Deep South. The first version of Georgias anti-gang law was passed in 1992 at the behest of Atlantas police chief at the time, Eldrin Bell.
The states General Assembly, in the laws statement of intent, noted that citizens retained their rights to freedom of expression and association. But it also declared that Georgia was in a state of crisis which has been caused by violent criminal street gangs whose members threaten, terrorize and commit a multitude of crimes against the peaceful citizens of their neighborhoods.
The anti-gang law defines a criminal street gang as any organization, association or group of three or more persons associated in fact, whether formal or informal, that engages in or conspires to commit a defined set of serious criminal acts. The law gives prosecutors numerous ways to define the existence of a gang, including sharing signs, symbols, tattoos, graffiti or common activities.
Critics challenged the law on First Amendment grounds, but it was upheld by the Georgia Supreme Court in 2009. Ronald L. Carlson, a law professor at the University of Georgia, said that Georgias law was generally in line with other state anti-gang statutes around the country.
But Mr. Carlson also said that he expected lawyers for the defendants to file pretrial motions to dismiss the counts and argue that the identification of their clients as gang members was a stretch.
LeeAnne Lynch, a public defender in DeKalb County, Ga., who was among the lawyers who unsuccessfully challenged the laws constitutionality, said Monday that she continued to believe that the law was overly broad. She said small groups of people could be defined as a gang just because they were wearing certain types of clothes or have a group motto that they share.
Ms. Lynch said that the law had been used to prosecute members of rap groups who have some affiliation with criminal gangs, but are not gang members themselves. Prosecutors, she said, often use the statute to load up charges on defendants to pressure them to agree to a plea deal.
Good result. Somewhat sketchy law overall