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08/21/2002 "One for Our Side"

GO TO THIS HEROIC WOMAN'S WEB SITE.

This woman, an earth first activist and organizer, survived a bomb planted in her car in the 90's.
Now she has won a landmark verdict in a lawsuit against the Feds. Read the trial brief click here

Jury's message to feds in $4.4 million verdict for Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney
(revised 6/19/02)

On June 11, a federal jury returned a stunning verdict in favor of Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney in their landmark civil rights lawsuit against four FBI agents and three Oakland Police officers.

The jury clearly found that six of the seven FBI and OPD defendants framed Judi and Darryl in an effort to crush Earth First! and chill participation in Redwood Summer. That was evident in the fact that 80% of the $4.4 million total damage award was for violation of their First Amendment rights to speak out and organize politically in defense of the forests.

"The jury exonerated us," said Darryl Cherney. "They found the FBI to be the ones in violation of the law. The American public needs to understand that the FBI can't be trusted. Ten jurors got a good, hard look at the FBI and they didn't like what they saw."

"It's really beyond our wildest dreams," said Darlene Comingore, Judi Bari's friend and executor of her estate who stood in for her as co-plaintiff in this suit. "We hope the FBI and Oakland and all the police forces out there that think they can violate people's rights and get away with it are listening because the people of the state of California and Oakland today said, 'No, you can't. You can't get away with it.' "

Lead attorney Dennis Cunningham said the message he hopes the verdict sends is that: "Ashcroft is doing precisely the wrong thing to abandon the (Levi) guidelines and let the FBI go after dissent with a free hand. It's clear that their intention is not about fighting terrorism, it's about suppressing dissent. That's what the FBI has always been about. Hopefully it will make Congress think twice about giving them a free hand."

Martha Bari's statement for the Bari family (read by Martha Bari on Pacifica's Democracy Now! on June 12, 02)

My family is grateful to the jury and wants to thank them for their courageous decision. They have affirmed our faith in the justice system. We're only sorry that my sister Judi is no longer alive and able to share this sweet moment.

Before and after my sister's bombing in 1990, law enforcement that we normally turn to for protection was not there for her. When the call went out over a Fort Bragg radio station to kill Judi Bari, no one stepped in to diffuse the situation. When she received even more death threats, the local police cold-heartedly dismissed her pleas for help. And after she was viciously bombed, the system failed her again.

When her family and friends came to her side at the Oakland hospital, they found her critically hurt and in horrific, obscene pain. Yet Judi was also in a state of panic. Not only could she receive no police protection from the anonymous bomber who was still at-large, but the Oakland Police wanted to pull her from her room and place her in handcuffs in the hospital's prison ward for supposedly bombing herself. She suffered further indignities when she heard herself characterized as an eco-terrorist bomber by the news media, and when her house was publicly searched by the FBI as she lay helplessly in her hospital bed. Thereafter, she lived in constant pain and anxiety, and spent the rest of her life trying to clear her name.

The ripple effect of a violent crime is enormous. When the authorities are against you rather than on your side, all the problems are magnified. Judi suffered, her two young children suffered, her family suffered, and her wider community of friends and supporters suffered. Now that the Oakland Police and the FBI have been brought to justice, they owe it to my family to explain what cause they had to hold my sister's civil rights in such contempt.

Judi's political message was adamantly nonviolent. Yet, for 12 long years she has been wrongly connected with terrorism. After Sept. 11th and the threatening of many of our rights in the name of homeland security, I'm afraid that this scenario will occur more often. My family has seen up close how much harm can result when rights are ignored. In Judi's case, the authorities stepped outside the law, and yesterday they were found guilty of false arrest, defamation of character, and illegal search and seizure. The verdict reminds us that protection against terrorism should never outweigh the protection of our own civil rights. Otherwise, like my sister Judi Bari, we will be made to suffer the consequences.

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