[UPDATED with 11 Becoming 10?] “Irvine 11” Case Heads for Trial


UPDATE, JULY 21, 3:25 P.M.: The Irvine 11 may soon become the Irvine 10.

If Hakim Nasreddine Kebir completes 40 hours of community service at the Someone Cares Soup Kitchen in Costa
Mesa by Sept. 23, the 20-year-old will be removed from the controversial case pending in Orange County Superior Court, the prosecution and Kebir's defense attorney agreed today.
]

The Daily Pilot has the scoop.

Kebir was among 11 Muslim students from the UCs of Irvine and Riverside facing
misdemeanor conspiracy and disruption of a public meeting charges related to the repeated interruption of a February 2010 speech
at UCI by Israel's Ambassador to
the U.S. Michael Oren.

Trial is still on schedule to begin August 15 in Judge Peter Wilson's courtroom.


UPDATE, JULY 1, 1:16 P.M.: Lawyers for the so-called “Irvine 11” scored significant victories Thursday in motions before Orange County Superior Court Judge Peter Wilson in Santa Ana.

Wilson ordered the Orange County District Attorney's office (OCDA) to remove lead investigator Paul Kelly, Assistant DA Mike Lubinski and Senior Assistant DA's William
Feccia
and Rebecca Olivieri off the misdemeanor criminal case against 11 Muslims students from UC Irvine and UC Riverside accused of disrupting a February 2010 speech at UCI by Israel's Ambassador to
the U.S. Michael Oren.

Of course, the defense wanted the entire OCDA kicked off the case.

The cause for what the defense did get, as reported by the Daily Report: prosecutors obtained and built part of the OCDA case around 20,000 pages of privileged documents between the students and their lawyers.

Within that batch is an email between defense attorney Reem Salahi and her student client that the OCDA used to bring new charges against the student, the judge found.

Wilson found such tactics did not warrant full removal of the OCDA, but the judge did order prosecutors to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that any evidence presented at trial is not privileged or illegally obtained.

Meanwhile, it sounds like a certain corner of the Civic Center office needs a refresher course: Wilson said Kelly seemed unaware of the protocols that must be
followed when coming across privileged attorney-client
communications, the Pilot reports.

More fun in Wilson's court is scheduled at 9 a.m. July 21. The trial is to begin in August.


UPDATE, JUNE 21, 11:51 A.M.: An Orange County judge last week denied a defense motion claiming 11 college students cannot be prosecuted criminally for disrupting an Israeli ambassador's speech at UC Irvine.

Attorneys for the so-called “Irvine 11,” who are enrolled at UCI and UC Riverside, argued that charges could not be brought against the students because the February 2010 address by Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the U.S., was political.

But Superior Court Judge Peter Wilson ruled political meetings are covered by the section of the California Penal Code the Orange County District Attorney's office (OCDA) cited in its misdemeanor criminal counts against the Muslim students.

More motions are to be heard June 30, and the trial is expected to begin Aug. 15. The students have pleaded not guilty.


UPDATE, MAY 31, 1:18 P.M.: The lead prosecutor in the “Irvine 11” misdemeanor criminal conspiracy case is Dan Wagner, who earlier this year was named head of the Orange County District Attorney's Homicide Unit.

He'll now match legal wits with another veteran homicide prosecutor as Lane Liroff has joined the defense team for the 11 UC Irvine and UC Riverside students facing jail time for disrupting Israel Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren's UCI speech last year.


Liroff, who is working on the Irvine case pro bono, ran unsuccessfully for a judge's seat before retiring last year from the Santa Clara County District Attorney's office.

He had a rocky exit as political foes within the DA's office tried without success to prevent the Board of Supervisors from honoring Liroff with a plaque for his 30 years of service to Santa Clara County, reports the San Jose Mercury News.

He'll get to exchange winks with Wagner on Aug. 15, when the Irvine 11 trial is scheduled to begin.



UPDATE, MAY 26, 4:32 P.M.: Orange County Superior Court Judge Peter J. Wilson
refused today to make public grand jury transcripts that serve as the
basis for the ongoing criminal prosecution of the “Irvine 11.”

Lawyers representing the 11 UC Irvine and UC Riverside students facing jail time for disrupting Israel Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren's
UCI speech last year had moved to unseal the documents. But Wilson
ruled doing so would expose the prosecution's argument in the
misdemeanor case.

The Orange County Peace Coalition led a demonstration outside the Santa Ana courthouse. Visitors to the courtroom included Chuck Anderson of the ACLU's Orange County chapter and Jim Gilchrist of the Minuteman Project.

Wonder if they carpooled?

UPDATE, MAY 25, 4:31 P.M.: Another hearing, another excuse to gag yourself.

The “Irvine 11,” the nickname for the student protesters facing jail time for disrupting Israel Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren's UC Irvine speech last year, have a 9 a.m. date before an Orange County Superior Court judge Thursday.

About a hour before that, members and supporters of the Orange County Peace Coalition plan to show up in front of the Santa Ana courthouse. You can't miss 'em: they'll be the ones with mouths gagged.


“Justice wears a blindfold and
holds a scale to symbolize that race, religious creed and political
affiliation shall not influence or color the judicial process,” reads an email from the coalition's Sharon Tipton.

 “UCI administrators have failed to grant students their constitutional
rights to free speech,” the statement continues. “Freedom of speech, protest and assembly are a
fiction when the cost of exercising these fundamental rights is
expulsion and the derailing of an education leading to a career as a
productive member of society.”

It's a mystery how the ire has shifted from the Orange County District
Attorney's office, which is pursuing misdemeanor criminal charges against  the eight UCI
students and three from UC Riverside, to UCI, which has already
punished the campus Muslim Student Union over the Oren interruptions and opposed to the
current prosecution.

Ah well, the Orange County Peace Coalition invites anyone reading this to join them tomorrow
morning “in defense of the rights of free speech and protest and the
ideal that all universities must remain a bastion of the free exchange
of ideas.”

They expect to be at the courthouse, 700 W. Civic Center Dr., Santa Ana, until 10 a.m.


ORIGINAL POST, MAY 16, 10:08 A.M.: The misdemeanor case against the university students known as the “Irvine 11” hinges on when it's appropriate to speak, whether one's constitutional rights to free speech can trump another's and whether conspiring to do so is a crime.

Perhaps it's appropriate, then, that the judge in the case has just issued an order to essentially shut the fuck up.

Judge Peter J. Wilson in Santa Ana has granted a motion sought by
defense attorneys for the Muslim students–eight from UC Irvine, three
from UC Riverside–to stop prosecutors from making any more public
statements about the case.

The defense had accused police, lead prosecutor Dan Wagner and others in the Orange
County District Attorney's office (OCDA) of tainting the jury pool by labeling the student defendants as anti-Semitic, declaring them
guilty and other “ethically irresponsible” statements. The judge's ruling prevents the OCDA from talking with the media or others about the case.

The OCDA
has denied those defense assertions, most strongly any attempts to brand
this a religiously fueled prosecution. The defense also alleges OCDA
bias because the subject line of an email prosecutors sent to the
students' lawyers referred to it as the “UCI Muslim Case.”

The
OCDA has countered that there are two separate cases proceeding against
student demonstrators at UCI–for demonstrations that happened around the same time even–and the title merely sought to
differentiate between the one involving Muslim Student Union members
disrupting a Feb. 8, 2010, speech on campus by Israel's Ambassador to
the U.S. Michael Oren and another in the administration building
over different issues like racism and rising fees in the UC system.

The
students have pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor conspiracy to commit a
crime and misdemeanor disruption of a meeting. Each could get up to six
months in jail if convicted. Trial is scheduled to begin on Aug. 15.

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