Judi Bari Court Victory

Court upholds conspiracy charges against FBI agents and false arrest charges against Oakland Police

by Headwaters Media

In a key ruling in the Earth First! bombing case, US District Judge Claudia Wilken refused to grant immunity from prosecution to agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Oakland Police Department (OPD) for their mishandling of the 1990 car bombing of Earth First! organizers Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney. The civil rights lawsuit, filed in 1991, charges the FBI and OPD with false arrest, illegal search and seizure, and conspiracy to violate Bari and Cherney's first amendment right to organize for social change.

Judge Wilken's ruling could be the most significant victory yet for the activists, clearing the way to take this landmark civil rights case to a jury trial. Wilken's ruling states plaintiffs have made an adequate showing that the FBI and OPD deliberately misrepresented evidence regarding the location and makeup of the bomb in order to justify the false arrest of Bari and Cherney. Wilken also upheld the right to sue individual officers and agents for illegal searches and for conspiracy to "chill plaintiffs' advocacy on behalf of Earth First!" She ruled that FBI special agents Frank Doyle, John Reikes, Stockton Buck, John Conway, Walter Hemje, and Philip Sena and Oakland Police Lt. C. Michael Sims, Sgt. Robert Chenault, and Sgt. Michael Sitterud must stand trial for what Bari and Cherney assert were deliberate attempts to disrupt, discredit and intimidate Earth First!

The ruling states that the plaintiffs have reasonably shown that the OPD had no probable cause to arrest Judi Bari, who was placed in custody just three hours after the explosion. Further, Wilken upheld the illegal search charges and agreed that there is "substantial showing of deliberate falsehood or reckless disregard of the truth" on behalf of the police agents. She stated that if the OPD had not misrepresented facts in its search warrant, for example by falsely characterizing Bari and Cherney as violent terrorists, the magistrate would not have granted the warrant.

The strongest language in the ruling dealt with the assertion that the FBI engaged in a conspiracy to violate Bari and Cherney's first amendment rights. She upheld the charges, stating that the FBI supplied false or misleading information to the OPD which contributed to the false arrest and illegal searches. According to Wilken, "A jury could infer from this evidence that defendants... acted out of animus towards plaintiffs' advocacy."

Judge Wilken, however, dismissed FBI COINTELPRO specialist Richard W. Held from the case. Held was the Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco FBI office at the time of the bombing. Despite his history and expertise in political counterintelligence, including involvement in the well-known FBI COINTELPRO campaigns against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement, Held claims he was unaware of the misconduct of the agents under his supervision and of the FBI operation against Bari, Cherney and Earth First! The plaintiffs are appealing this part of the decision.

The ruling also allows the lawsuit to continue in the name of the estate of Judi Bari, in light of her death on March 2, 1997. The plaintiffs allege that the conspiracy against Bari and Cherney was part of a larger FBI COINTELPRO operation against them and Earth First! COINTELPRO is an FBI program designed (in the words of J. Edgar Hoover) to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit and otherwise neutralize" activists and groups advocating social change in the US. This program was ordered disbanded in the 1970s after the US Senate found the practice unconstitutional. The case of Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney shows clearly that COINTELPRO is alive and well in the '90s.

The full text of US District Judge Claudia Wilken's October 15 decision, dramatic police photos and the original motion by the plaintiffs are all available from the Redwood Summer Justice Project. For additional information and interviews contact Redwood Summer Justice Project, POB 14720, Santa Rosa, CA 95402; (707) 887-0262; http://www.monitor.net/~bari.