Court Update: April 19

Today is a lot! We have updates on the littering trial proceedings, our ACLU lawsuit, and the trial of local journalists.

LITTERING TRIAL UPDATES

Today in court proceedings for the Aston Park/sanctuary camp defendants who are currently facing trial on “felony littering” charges:

Jury selection did not actually resume today and will not resume tomorrow. Most of the day was spent with the voir dire testimony (preliminary questioning) of APD cop Sam DeGrave, who went one-by-one through 257 photos to describe what they were and why he obtained them. These photos had not previously been provided to the DA nor shared in the discovery received by the defense (discovery is where the state has to show the defense all of the information it has gathered and might use during trial).

This and other issues have prompted questions from the defense attorneys about the admissibility of much of the state’s purported evidence, including about whether DeGrave relied on information not included in discovery to form beliefs and identify individuals to be charged.

The court will continue with the voir dire of DeGrave tomorrow, as the state is still in the midst of their direct examination and the defense has not begun a cross examination. They will also be calling in cops from the criminal investigation division to answer questions on the handling of the state’s evidence, particularly of Signal messages (DeGrave repeatedly described the process for obtaining evidence from Signal as "novel," saying he had not previously heard of the messaging app, which had 40 million active users as of 2021).

There were also several motions made by the defense this morning including two motions relating to suppressing evidence, a motion to excuse a juror for cause (which would remove one of the peremptory challenges used by the defense yesterday), as well as a motion to dismiss the case entirely. Those motions may be ruled on tomorrow, and the timing for resuming jury selection will likely be discussed, too.

Supportive presence is still not needed at this time. 

CIVIL CASE UPDATES

Yesterday afternoon, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit against The City of Asheville, City Manager Debra Campbell, Chief of Police David Zack and Director of Parks and Recreation D. Tyrell McGirt on behalf of 14 defendants who were unconstitutionally banned from all City parks for 3 years. Here’s the ACLU's press release and an article in the Asheville Citizen Times.

There will be a whole lot more to come about this! What we will emphasize for now is that this lawsuit has two goals: changing Asheville’s policy that allows for arbitrary banning of people from public space, and getting our three year bans from all public parks lifted.

LOCAL JOURNALISTS ON TRIAL

Also happening in the Buncombe County Courthouse today was the trial of two Asheville Blade journalists who were arrested and charged with trespassing on December 25th, 2021 while doing their jobs as reporters. The judge found them guilty of the misdemeanor and the case was immediately appealed, meaning it will go before a jury. These arrests have been condemned by numerous press freedom organizations; see the Committee to Protect Journalists’ statement, the Reporters without Borders (RSF) statement, and National Press Club statement as examples.

Whewwww…it was a day. Thanks for reading, we love y’all.