Trial of Peace Activist Arrested
When Police Shut Down a Press Conference
On 2nd Anniversary of Iraq Invasion

Opening arguments 9:45 AM today (10/25/06)
555 W. Harrison Street, Room 303

CHICAGO – In a case which could be precursor to a constitutional challenge of the City's disorderly conduct ordinance, peace activist Andy Thayer will go on trial today in Judge Mark Ballard's courtroom, 555 W. Harrison Street, Room 303, Chicago. Since the start of the Iraq war, activists have charged that the City has increasingly used the ordinance to disrupt and shut down constitutionally protected 1st amendment activities such as anti-war protests and "counter-recruiting" activities against military recruiters.

Marking the high stakes in the case for the Daley administration, Deputy Corporation Counsel Yvonne LeGrone, one of handful of such deputies just below Chief Corporation Counsel Myra Georges, is leading the team for the prosecution. Thayer, who is also charged with resisting arrest, is being defended by National Lawyers Guild attorneys Jeff Frank and Charlie Nissim-Sabat. Among those scheduled to testify are:

* Alderman Joe Moore of the 48th Ward, who was threatened by police with arrest if he attended the press conference;

* Rev. Paul Jakes, Jr., police accountability and peace activist, and a prominent minister on the city's West Side;

* Sheri Mecklenburg, Chief Counsel to the Chicago Police Department, who assisted in the arrest; and,

* Deputy Commander Ralph Chiczewski of the Chicago Police Department, the arresting officer.

Activists contend that the city's disorderly conduct ordinance gives police arbitrary authority to disperse people, abrogating their 1st amendment rights to speech and assembly, and should be found to be unconstitutional for many of the same reasons that the gang loitering ordinance was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court a few years ago. Countering this, LaGrone argued in pre-trial arguments today that "if the jury is going to hear evidence about free speech and 1st amendment issues, it will be confused," and unsuccessfully attempted to exclude that evidence.

Thayer's March 19, 2005 arrest arose out of a press conference called to denounce the City of Chicago for its refusal to grant a permit for an anti-war march on Michigan Avenue, the scene of the city's false arrest of 800+ protesters at the start of the U.S. war on Iraq two years earlier. Since that mass arrest in 2003 –- the largest in the city's history –- Michigan Avenue has become a symbol of the erosion of civil liberties in the city. The 2003 arrests are currently the subject of a class action lawsuit against the police filed by the National Lawyers Guild. The Chicago Coalition Against War and Racism, of which Thayer is a part, was the organizer of the 2003 protest.

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