(Photo: Brass Gavel via Shutterstock)We've
seen some pretty bold anti-authoritarian actions across the country in
the last month. Police vehicles were vandalized in San Francisco,
Oakland, Illinois and Milwaukee. Anarchist redecorators visited
courthouses, police substations, sports car dealerships and more.
Banners dropped in New York, Atlanta, Vancouver, Seattle and elsewhere
echoed their graffitied sentiments: "Fuck Grand Juries"; "Solidarity
with Northwest Anarchists." Boldest of all, however (and the inspiration
underpinning this spate), has been the action from a small group of
anarchists in the Pacific Northwest: silence.
Two Portland-based activists, Leah-Lynn Plante and Dennison Williams,
publicly announced late last month that they had been subpoenaed to
appear in front of a federal grand jury in Seattle and that they would
refuse to cooperate. During a grand jury hearing on August 2, Plante did
just this - offering her name and birthdate only - and has been
summoned to return for another hearing on August 30, where she again
intends to say nothing. Meanwhile, it is believed a handful of other
activists are fighting to quash subpoenas served to them with the shared
intention of noncooperation.
Grand juries are among the blackest boxes in the federal judiciary
system. Given their highly secretive nature, few people within - or
outside - activist circles know what it means to be called to a grand
jury and what it takes to resist.
"Our passion for freedom is stronger than their state prisons,"
Williams announced in a statement on behalf of himself and Plante about
their intention to resist the grand jury, referencing the fact that by
merely staying silent, the two could face considerable jail time,
despite facing no criminal charges.
The Seattle grand jury subpoenas were served in late July, when the
FBI and a Joint Terrorist Task Force conducted a series of raids on
activist homes and squats in Portland, Olympia and Seattle with warrants
seeking out computers, phones, black clothing and "anarchist
literature." The FBI has stated only that the grand jury pertains to
"violent crime," but it is believed to relate to property damage in
Seattle during this year's May Day protests. The relatively small scale
of the property destruction - a handful of spraypainted cars, slashed
tires and smashed windows at a downtown Starbucks, Niketown, Wells Fargo
and American Apparel store - in comparison to the cost of the police
and FBI investigations points to the likelihood that the raids and grand
juries have been widely dubbed a witch hunt, understood by commentators
and activists alike as an attempt to intimidate, deter and undermine
anarchists in the Northwest and beyond.
Will Potter, author of "Green is the New Red," who has long covered
the state persecution of environmental activists and anarchists, noted
in a recent interview with The Dissenter, "I think what's most
indicative of what's going on though is that specific call for agents to
seize 'anarchist literature' as some kind of evidence of potential
illegal activity." He added that the convening of a grand jury is
"especially troubling because grand juries have been used historically
against social movements
as
tools of fishing expeditions, and they're used to seek out information
about people's politics and their political associations."
Ironically, however, the purported purpose of a federal grand jury is
to act as "a safeguard to the accused from the improper motivations of
government"-
to protect the accused from prosecutorial overreach.
A jury of between 16 and 23 civilians hears evidence from a given
investigation brought by a prosecutor (the US attorney) in the form of
documents, recordings and witnesses, and decides whether there are
grounds to move forward with an indictment. However, the grand jury
process has been long and regularly used as a form of political
repression. According to Heidi Boghosian, director of the National
Lawyers Guild (the NLG is a group with a long history of advising grand
jury resisters), "abuse of grand juries includes attempts to gather
intelligence or information otherwise not easily obtained by the FBI."
As such, the grand jury process has been used to probe and intimidate
activist groups of various stripes, from the Puerto Rican Independence
Movement last century, to black liberationists, environmentalists and
anarchists.
For the grand jury resisters themselves, the time during which a
grand jury sits (typically 18 months) is a harrowing one. As the NLG's
Boghosian explained: "If someone receives a grand jury subpoena and
decides not to cooperate, that person may be held in civil contempt.
There is a chance that the individual may be jailed or imprisoned for
the length of the grand jury in an effort to coerce the person to
cooperate."
"It's actually lawful for the prosecution to hold an individual in
order to coerce cooperation, but unlawful to hold the person as a form
of punishment," said Boghosian. "In addition to facing civil contempt,
in some instances a non-cooperator may face criminal contempt charges."
For example, in 2009, Utah-based animal rights activist Jordan
Halliday spent jail time for civil contempt and was sentenced to 10
months in prison for criminal contempt for his effusive noncooperation
with a grand jury. And many resisters who were not jailed nonetheless
recount traumatic experiences.
"I thought I was doomed. I had nightmares, night sweats, turned
heavily to drinking and drugs," said a 23-year-old anarchist who refused
to cooperate with a grand jury in 2009 in New York, which reportedly
convened in regard to the placement of an incendiary device in a
metropolitan area believed to be connected to anti-war activism. The
young man, who requested to remain anonymous, remembers feeling
"helpless," believing that at any point, he could be put in jail for his
political silence.
However, he equally recalls the comfort he felt in learning that
support committees - people he did not even know - were forming and
organizing solidarity actions for him. "People having each other's back -
it's one thing we do have," he said.
And indeed, statements and acts of solidarity with the Northwest
resisters have been numerous and widespread. "Part of the purpose of
grand juries seems to be to isolate people from a network of support,
the support that puts them in a stronger place to resist," said Kristian
Williams, a member of the
Committee Against Political Repression, which formed in support of the grand jury resisters.
"Solidarity actions and support also communicate to the state that
people are paying attention to how the situation is being handled.
Knowing that there is public opposition - not just a small group of
friends outside a courtroom, but people all around the country -
hopefully raises the political cost for the US attorney to continue this
repression," he added. Hundreds of people have already put in calls to
the US attorney to express opposition to the treatment of Northwest
anarchists, while over 350 organizations have signed on to a petition of
opposition put out by the Committee Against Political Repression.
Meanwhile, as mentioned above, banner drops, graffiti and other acts
have been dedicated to the grand jury resisters in the past month. A
national day of action has been called for August 30 to coincide with
Plante's second hearing.
For the New York-based resister, his act of political silence not
only affirmed certain ideas about solidarity, but served as striking
proof of personal resolve: "In a strange way, you show yourself
something important when you resist a grand jury. The things you say,
the things you believe, you find yourself actually acting upon them,
even though you know it could cost you a chunk of your life."
"It has a very powerful effect on yourself," he said.
It is a sentiment seemingly understood by the anarchists in the
Northwest as they begin their grand jury resistance ordeals. While
inviting solidarity and support in their public statement, Plante and
Dennison added, "You can show your solidarity by refusing to co-operate
with any police force and encouraging your friends and families to do
the same."
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