Portland protests: DOJ dismisses 31 of 90 cases, including assault against federal officer, says report
Violent protests had rocked Portland last summer in the wake of the brutal death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis. Protesters clashed with federal agents and the violence spilled even into the new year, putting immense pressure on the law-enforcement agents both in terms of resources and emotional drain-out. Amid these concerns, it has been revealed that the US state department dismissed 31 of the 90 protest cases, including a mix of felony and misdemeanor charges.
KGW made an investigative report in which it reviewed federal court records to make the revelations. It said some of the most serious charges that were dropped included four defendants accused of assaulting a federal officer, constituting a felony. More than half of the charges that were dropped were “dismissed with prejudice”, the report said, adding that several former federal prosecutors called them extremely rare. A case, which has been dismissed with prejudice, cannot be brought back to the court.
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The report also said that the dismissal of the charges was in contrast to the promise the justice department made last summer that the trouble-makers would “face prison time”. Billy Williams, who was then the attorney for Oregon, warned that the instances of fires, vandalism and nightly graffiti would see consequences. In September last year, Williams said in a press release: “Make no mistake: those who commit violence in the name of protest, will be investigated, arrested, prosecuted, and face prison time.”
Williams, who spoke with KGW recently, said the cases were dismissed in instances where the prosecutors were not convinced that they could prove a case beyond a logical doubt. Williams, who served till last month after taking over in 2015, said, “Each case was analyzed for the evidence that we had at the time. Careful decisions were made on whether or not someone should be charged based on the evidence.” According to him, decisions are made on a case-by-case basis. He said, “Everything is case-specific when you go about these cases being processed through the system.”
In October last year, an online tracking dashboard reported that while the police in Portland referred 1,000 protest-related cases to the Multnomah District Attorney’s Office since late May, the prosecutors declined to file charges on several of them. KGW reported that while federal prosecutors rarely handle protest cases, they stepped in after Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt passed on most of the protest cases saying he was reversing resources for the most serious of the crimes. Then attorney general William Barr, who had a serious difference with former President Donald Trump and stepped down last December, then reportedly asked the federal prosecutors to aggressively go after protesters who were considered violent.
By the end of summer, several people would be held on various federal charges by agents who guarded the federal courthouse in Portland. The justice and homeland security departments revealed names and ages of those arrested. Besides, pictures of the defendants’ belongings — from helmets, gas masks to goggles — were also included in the court documents.
'Pandemic delayed trials'
“Most of the defendants whose protest cases are still pending have seen their trials delayed, largely because of the pandemic. Those defendants face a mix of felony and misdemeanor charges. Three defendants cut plea deals resulting in probation and home detention. Two of the plea agreements required a relatively short prison sentence of 30 days. Several people closely involved with the protest cases, who asked not to be identified, said they expect many more federal charges to be dismissed soon,” the KGW report said.
It also quoted Laura Appleman, a law professor at Oregon’s Willamette University, as saying, “The US Attorney’s office has to go through and very carefully ask, ‘Is it worth using our limited time and energy to prosecute each and every of these federal misdemeanors?’”
The most vigorous of the legal battles, which has been laid out by public defenders in lengthy court filings, saw the involvement of almost a dozen Portland protesters charged with “civil disorder”. According to the defense attorneys, the law enacted during the civil rights era is unconstitutional.
Of the dismissed federal protest cases, at least 11 were dropped on or after Joe Biden took oath as the president, KGW added. It is not clear what lies ahead for the cases with a new president in the White House and a new attorney set to take up in Oregon. At the moment, opinions are divided over the dismissal of the cases. While some feel the accountability factor has been hurt with the move, others are of the opinion that feds should have never filed protest cases at all.