Ten University of California-Irvine Muslim students were found guilty of disturbing a public meeting and conspiracy in connection with a speech by Israeli ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, on campus in February, 2010.
“We’re delighted the jury saw this the same way we saw it,” said Assistant District Attorney Dan Wagner.
The prosecution said the defendants used a “heckler’s veto” to thwart the free speech rights of the speaker and others in the audience, while the defense countered what the protesters did was a lawful expression of their free speech.
Defense attorney Dan Stormer said he was honored to represent the students, but disappointed in the verdict.
The jurors left the courtroom without comment immediately after the verdict was announced.
Court will reconvene at 1:30 this afternoon for a possible sentencing.
After months of pretrial motion, the trial lasted eight days, including about two days spent on closing arguments by one prosecutor and six defense attorneys earlier this week.
Wagner told jurors the protesters actions amounted to censorship when they planned to disrupt Oren and tried to cover it up.
The right to free speech is not absolute, he said, and it does not include canceling out the speech of others.
One of the defense attorneys referred to the students as “heroes” who acted in the “tradition of the finest American political activists.” I would question that characterization of boorish louts who shout down opposing speech — especially the “hero” moniker. It is mindless advocacy to prevent others from expressing their views and shows very little confidence in the efficacy of one’s own beliefs.
Sentencing will be tomorrow.
Deja vu
Defense attorney Dan Stormer (aka ‘Der Stürmer’)….
‘The SA (also known as stormtroopers or brownshirts) were instructed to disrupt the meetings of political opponents.’
It makes my First Amendment nerve twitch a little, but I think the jury was right about this one. People need to re-learn about the “marketplace of ideas.”
I wonder how the defense attorneys would feel if, during their summation, someone in the court room shouted down their summary? Would the defense attorneys call them heroes for exercising their free speech? I would doubt it very seriously. Of course, their clients are pure and on the side of good, whereas anyone else is evil.
Sentenced to 56 hours public service, 3 years probation (reducible) but no jail time.
I’m sure the defendants are quite proud of the guilty verdicts. They’ve been blooded, they’ve proved their Islamist bona fides. They’ll probably have the sentencing orders framed and hung in their dorm rooms.
It’s amazing and sad how a infinitesimally small minority of students, prodded by the MSA, has turned UC Irvine — a fine school for engineering, maths and hard sciences — into Ramallah-on-Newport-Bay.
– shits. Should free up some some spaces for children of illegals.
what a racist right wing rag this is.
An alternative solution might be to have hecklers attend Muslim students’ meetings and do to the Muslim students what they did to the Israeli ambassador.
The Muslim Studens Association was one of the mainstream Muslim groups that was participating in a “grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western
civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated…” to be replaced by Shariah.
See the reports of the Holy Land Foundation case and the Team 2B Report on Shariah