"Beat the Heat" now online.
UNDERDOG - Criminal/Drunk Driving Defense in Maryland, Virginia, DC:
Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.)
In 2000, I met Katya Komisaruk, when I joined other National Lawyers Guild members in defending World Bank/IMF protestors. Katya took an interesting path from being imprisoned after a 1987 Plowshares action hammering on a computer mainframe and other property at an airforce base, to graduating from law school, and then defending activists (I assume activists of a "progressive" bent).
A few years ago, Katya wrote the very useful Beat the Heat manual on dealing with police. Thanks to a link from WindyPundit, I found the Just Cause Law Collective’s website, which has links to much — if not all — of the same information available in Beat the Heat. The Just Cause Law Collective’s online manual is an excellent supplement to the Busted video that I prominently display here. Also, check out material about dealing with the police at the Midnight Special Law Collective’s website.
To switch gears from the above Beat the Heat topic, here is some more information about Katya and Plowshares actions:
For Katya’s Plowshares action, she originally was prosecuted for sabotage and destruction of government property. Over a decade later, I joined the legal team defending Plowshares activists who hammered on warplanes in late 1999. Both sets of activists were originally charged with sabotage but later only prosecuted for property destruction; in my case, the judge granted my motion to dismiss the sabotage count, which is a move that may not have won after my shared victory in a landmark Maryland double jeopardy case three years later. In Katya’s case, the prosecutor dismissed the sabotage count after her lawyers filed a motion concerning proof of that count.
Here are some more details about Katya’s Plowshares action:
- Here is the case summary from the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute Archives:
"U.S. v.…