Freeway Blogger Trial

Jonas Phillips was arrested on August 15, 2007 for holding a sign on a sidewalk in Asheville, NC. The sign said “Impeach Bush & Cheney”. His story is here.

Finally today, his case came to trail at the Buncombe County Courthouse. The District Attorney had offered to dismiss the charges for the court costs ($120) last year, but Jonas Phillips declined. It has been continued at least once since then. I was unable to attend his prior court dates, but today I took a vacation day so I could be an eyewitness to this MOCKERY OF DEMOCRACY.

The lawyer for Jonas started by asking for the charges to be dismissed. This was denied, after a long time that the judge spent reading some papers. District Attorney Pressley said that Jonas was obstructing the sidewalk and obstructing the view on I-240, and she also claimed that about 10 to 15 other people had been charged with this offense over the years. Jonas’s attorney said that Jonas was being prosecuted for political speech.

The DA and the police officers who were involved in the case seemed to get off topic quite often. Jonas was charged with obstructing the sidewalk, and they talked about how he was distracting drivers and running across the road. They also claimed that Jonas was doing all this for attention, and that he was “shaking” his sign over the freeway, which I thought was a fabrication, since Jonas would want people to read his sign and shaking it would make it hard to read. Both officers admitted that they had to do some research to figure out what to charge Jonas with.

Jonas stated that he wanted “eyes” to see his point of view and to counter the mainstream media. He testified that one pedestrian did pass him while he was doing the freeway blogging, and while one officer was sitting in his patrol car at the time (with his blue lights on and the roadway blocked), he did not see the pedestrian. There was never any evidence that people could not pass on the five foot wide sidewalk while Jonas was out there.

Jonas’ attorney kept making motions to dismiss, and they were denied. We were thinking that we would be going on to an appeal process, up until the minute Judge Hill started talking. The judge said that he was not satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Jonas had blocked the sidewalk or obstructed traffic, and Jonas was found NOT GUILTY.

There were about 30 local activists in the courtroom, and we cheered. Jonas spent $750 on lawyer fees over the last seven months that this trial dragged on.

I know there are people on Daily Kos and other bloggers who helped Jonas out – let me say THANK YOU from the Asheville activist community for all your support. Next time I see the local DA, I am going to ask them why they are arresting people who are holding signs and why they think that is a good use of my tax dollars.

This will be cross posted on Daily Kos blog and Blue NC blog. Picture is of Jonas after the trial.