8 May 23rd-May 29th, 2024 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | Legal Limbo Facing no charges — yet — ASU’s arrested protesters are caught in the system’s gears. BY TJ L’HEUREUX T he lobby of the University Lakes Justice Court in Chandler was packed May 14 with hundreds of people, many of them wearing kaffi- yehs, headscarves, hijabs and face masks. They were there to stand in solidarity with 71 pro-Palestine protesters who were due in court that day. Nearly three weeks earlier, on April 26 and 27, those 71 protesters were arrested by Arizona State University police. Cited with misdemeanor trespassing — as well as felony resisting arrest, in the case of one protester — all of them were scheduled to be arraigned May 14. Instead, all had their cases vacated by Judge Tyler Kissell. ASU police may have rounded them up, but the department so far has failed to provide the paperwork that the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office requires to bring charges. Charges can still be brought in the future, though, as law enforcement has a year to refer misde- meanor cases to prosecutors. But to some, the spectacle of 71 protesters showing up for essentially nothing raised questions about whether campus police had cause to arrest the protesters in the first place. Zayed Al-Sayyed, one of the lawyers representing the protesters, said the episode demon- strates a “grave deficiency with the Arizona rules of criminal procedure.” “Case numbers should have never been assigned,” Al-Sayyed said at a press confer- ence following the court proceedings. “Nobody should have had to come here.” Al-Sayyed is not the only attorney who has taken up the protesters’ cause. He’s one of about 10, he said, who have spent hundreds of hours working on their defense. “Every lawyer is a believer in the First Amendment, in the right to free speech, the right to assemble.” Al-Sayyed said. “We are here to ensure that people’s rights are not infringed upon when they want to protest.” At least half a dozen lawyers argued to the judge that the cases should be dismissed with prejudice, or permanently tossed. If police and the county attorney can’t determine individual charges now, argued attorney Nicholas Bustamante, “I don’t think they’re going to be able to meet it six months, nine months from now.” Kissell didn’t accept that argument. He dismissed the cases without prejudice, allowing prosecutors to file charges in the future. Punished anyway The cases may be dismissed, at least for now, but that doesn’t mean the protesters’ three-week entanglement with the legal system hasn’t left a mark. Several lawyers noted to the judge that many of the protesters — a mostly nonwhite group who were demonstrating disapproval of ASU’s financial ties to Israel and the American government’s response to its military campaign in Gaza — are now facing disproportionate consequences. One attorney, Susan Bassal, claimed that opening cases without charges was an “abuse of the rules of criminal procedure.” In court, attorneys said that until the cases were dismissed, some protesters could not return to their jobs, which require Department of Public Safety fingerprint cards. Others lost volunteer positions. The ASU students among them were suspended, kicked out of their dorms, blocked from taking finals and speaking to professors and not allowed to walk at graduation. All, Al-Sayyed said, for “peacefully expressing their opinion against a genocide in Palestine.” Twenty of the students have sued the Arizona Board of Regents, claiming the university infringed upon their free speech. The school has argued in response that the protesters broke clear and univer- sally applicable rules when they set up an overnight encampment on campus. A request for an injunction to lift the suspen- sions was denied by Maricopa Superior Court Judge John Tuchi. But critics of the university’s heavy- handed response have difficulty separating the protesters’ views — about a U.S.-aided military campaign that has killed 34,000 Gazan civilians, two-thirds of whom have been women and children — from how ASU treated them. “ASU is the vanguard of the neoliberal university,” said Kelly Baur, the assembly president of ASU’s graduate student government, at a gathering on May 2.”It is a hostile environment for many students who are afraid to express themselves for fear of repercussions, like these punitive measures taken against our students.” ASU police have yet to explain their actions during the protests, in court or elsewhere. They’ve not only failed to complete paperwork to justify the majority of their arrests, but they’ve also backped- aled from other incidents. ABC15 obtained video of what appeared to be campus police forcibly removing the hijabs of several Muslim women in an apparent civil rights violation. In a state- ment after the arrests, the school said it was reviewing the matter. ASU Police Chief Michael Thompson also was placed on paid leave after the media outlet filmed him out of uniform while he destroyed protestors’ tents with a knife. While the university investigates its top cop, it might consider changing Thompson’s university bio. “During his tenure,” it reads, “Chief Thompson has been responsible for bringing ASUPD forward in social justice issues.” Attorney Zayed Al-Sayyed said “case numbers should have never been assigned” to protesters arrested after ASU police failed to charge them before their arraignment on May 14. (Photo by TJ L’Heureux) | NEWS | | NEWS |
