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Legal Documents in Judi Bari vs. FBI & OPD
(revised 9/7/2010)
 Motion
to Preserve Bomb Evidence, August-September 2010
In a brazen move, the FBI, which never honestly investigated
the evidence in the Judi Bari bombing, has given notice that they intend to
destroy the remaining evidence in the still unsolved attempted murder.
Surviving plaintiff Darryl Cherney files an objection to the destruction of
evidence and moves the court to order the FBI to preserve the evidence and
either turn the it over to him for DNA testing and other forensic analysis, or
to deliver it to a certified 3rd party for testing. The FBI objects, saying it
wants to destroy the evidence. The motion is set for hearing Sept. 8, 2010, in
Federal Court in San Francisco before Magistrate Judge James Larsen. The
motion and supporting documents are linked below. (PDF files)
Motion to Preserve
Bomb Evidence from Destruction by FBI
Declaration
of Dennis Cunningham
Declaration
of Darryl Cherney
Declaration
of James Wheaton
FBI Opposition
to Motion (argument against our motion)
Reply to
FBI Opposition (argument rebutting FBI Opposition)
(content below last revised 6/13/05)
Judi Bari vs. the FBI: Snatching Victory from the Jaws of Deceit
(posted 4/13/03)
This item is not, strictly speaking, a legal document.
However, legal teamers Ben Rosenfeld and Dennis Cunningham wrote
a new article about the case for the Fall 2002 issue of NLG Practitioner,
the legal journal of the National Lawyers Guild. It
begins with a brief case overview, then, in the authors' words: "use(s)
the case as a lens to explore a number of key challenges in civil rights
litigation which we wrestled with, in order to aid fellow activists and
attorneys in winning more 'people’s victories.' While we offer it as a law
review article, we have not cluttered it with legal citations, in hopes that
it will be accessible to attorneys and non-attorneys alike."
Click here to read the article.
Post-Trial
Motions
The hearing of the post-trial motions took place Friday
Nov. 1 before U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken
The Oakland and FBI defendants have filed motions seeking to
overturn the unanimous jury verdicts against them, and also seeking to set
aside or reduce the $4.4 million damage award. The Oakland defendants seek a
new trial.
Attorneys for plaintiffs Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney filed a
post-trial motion seeking a new trial to include the six FBI higher-ups who
were let out of the case by the court before the trial began. This group
includes COINTELPRO master Richard W. Held, who was the chief of the San
Francisco FBI office at the time of the bombing and attempted frame-up.
A hearing on whether defendants must pay plaintiffs' attorneys' fees
is set for April 18, 2003. Assuming
all post-trial motions for new trial are denied, the appeals process will
begin, and the case will move to the jurisdiction of the Federal 9th Circuit
Court of Appeal in San Francisco.
Several of the post-trial "pleading" documents are now available
from this website in Adobe Acrobat format for online reading or for download
and offline reading: (Click on titles to view in Acrobat Reader)
Please read the two defense motions in conjunction with the Plaintiff's
Opposition (rebuttal) to them, which correctly sets out the facts ignored by
defendants, and debunks their hollow arguments.
(Click on the titles below to view the documents in Acrobat
Reader)
Jury
Instructions and Final,
Filled-In Verdict Form (revised 6/12/02)
The judge's official legal instructions to the jury and the
form which the jury completed to report their verdict are available
in Acrobat PDF format. The verdict form reveals every detail of the jury's
verdict.
Note: Because these are graphic images of the pages
rather than text, the files are fairly large, about 300 K each, but they have
been optimized for rapid Web view, so if you have an up-to-date version of Acrobat
Reader the first page will display very quickly, and you won't have to
wait for the whole document to download before you can begin reading it..
 Offer
of Proof re FBI Misconduct (filed 5/14/02)
Plaintiffs proffer the testimony of two experts on the policy and practice of COINTELPRO – the purpose of
which was to maintain the existing social and political order by the use of
techniques carrying a serious risk of physical, emotional, and economic
damage. The techniques also
include callous disregard of clearly established law, the prevention and
disruption of the exercise of First Amendment rights by the use of propaganda,
bogus mailings and pamphlets, the use of informants, fictitious organizations,
the use of hostile third parties to raise controversial issues against
targeted groups, and the dissemination of derogatory information and the
interference with and abuse of the judicial process. Plaintiffs' proof also includes evidence of the FBI's practice of using
state authorities to conduct raids, make arrests, and prosecute cases based on
spurious charges. The use of all
such FBI practices are present in the instant case. The offer shows a 65-year history of such policy and practices,
continuing to the present day.
The brief includes statements about the Bari case by historian Prof. Howard Zinn and
by Flint Taylor Esq., an attorney with deep knowledge of the FBI's
methods for "neutralizing" political targets.
Click here to read the full 45 page
document in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. (307KB PDF file)
Dennis Cunningham's opening statement to the jury sets out
what the case is about, what the evidence will show and what plaintiffs would
like the jury to do about it. (posted 4/28/02)
Who's Who in Bari vs. FBI
-
Not technically a legal document, but lists the names and brief descriptions
of the plaintiffs, defendants, attorneys and prospective witnesses, giving
correct spellings and brief descriptions of their role and the expected order
and week of appearances of witnesses. A handy cheat sheet for reporters,
courtesy of the Bari vs. FBI Media Outreach Team. Revised as trial progresses.
Plaintiffs' Trial
Brief
Summary of plaintiffs' legal case against the
FBI and Oakland Police defendants.
"The Court is well familiar with
plaintiffs’ legal and factual allegations herein, most fully spelled out in
Plaintiffs’ Motion re Qualified Immunity, filed March 18, 1997. To summarize
them, plaintiffs charge that their (false) arrest and the attendant searches
(including the second search of Judi’s house a month after the bombing) were
deliberately carried out without probable cause, through the instigation of
the FBI and with the knowing and willing cooperation of the Oakland Police
Department, for the purpose of politically discrediting and
"neutralizing" plaintiffs’ organizing work on behalf of Redwood
Summer, Earth First!, and the environment generally. Plaintiffs charge that
the grounds for arrest, alleged at the time and subsequently, were
deliberately falsified by defendants and others acting in concert with them,
to ensure that maximum sensational publicity harmful to the plaintiffs’
lawful movement and cause, and their constitutionally protected activities in
furtherance thereof, would arise from the false charges against them. They
charge that defendants conspired unlawfully among themselves to achieve these
illicit objectives."
(Click here to view the
complete document.) Filed Jan. 22, 2002. Adobe
Acrobat format. (posted 2/6/02)
Offer
of Proof regarding Expert Testimony of Anthony Bouza
Plaintiffs expect to call former
police chief Anthony Bouza to give, in expert testimony, opinions about the
(lack of ) reasonableness, truthfulness and good faith — as a matter of
sound and upright police practice, consistent with normal training — of the
proven actions and purported conclusions and decisions of the defendant
investigators herein, in deciding to arrest plaintiffs for knowing possession
of the bomb, and presenting their purported grounds in the search warrant
affidavit.... (Click here to view the complete
document.) Filed Jan. 20, 2002. Adobe Acrobat format. (posted
2/6/02)
Offer
of Proof regarding Raid on Seeds of Peace
Plaintiffs maintain that the raid on
the Seeds of Peace house ordered by defendant Sims was part and parcel of the
plot to discredit them and Earth First!, and disrupt the Redwood Summer
program, by means of a sensational false arrest and bombing/terrorism scandal.
Given that there was no honest justification for the arrest of plaintiffs, or
for the purported belief they were knowingly in possession of the bomb in
their car rather than victims of it, the raid also had no justification, in
point of fact. (Click here to view the complete
document.) Filed Jan. 21, 2002. Adobe Acrobat format. (posted
2/6/02)
Eighth
Amended Complaint
The complaint is the foundation document of
any lawsuit. It states who is suing whom and for what, summarizing what the case
is about. (posted 8/23/01)
Plaintiffs'
Motion In Limine One and supporting declarations.
In this document
plaintiffs (Judi's estate and Darryl) try to define the scope of the impending
trial by blocking or limiting lines of testimony and witnesses put on by the
defendants, the FBI and Oakland Police. The document also includes plaintiffs'
arguments against motions in limine made by the defendants. (posted
8/23/01)
"Motion
for Justice"
Lead Attorney Dennis
Cunningham filed a motion July 2, 2001 to bring Richard W. Held back as a
defendant in the case, to require FBI disclosure of the an alleged informant
tip, and to full disclosure of other evidence still kept secret by the FBI. The
motion is supplemented by two expert witness statements (see below). Judge
Wilken denied this motion (and all other motions from both sides) at a July 29,
2001 hearing. (posted 7/19/01)
Statement by
noted historian Prof. Howard Zinn on the FBI's
long history of political repression (posted 7/19/01)
Statement by
former FBI Special Agent John C. Ryan on routine
fraud by FBI agents in handling supposed informant information.
(posted 7/19/01)
Court rules require
first asking the court's permission to file a full formal motion for reconsideration
of the court's 1997 decision allowing Held and two other FBI supervisors
out of the suit.
Click here for the full
text of the preliminary motion filed July 14, 2000.
(posted 8/10/00)
The Successful Motion Against
Qualified Immunity
Granted by trial court and upheld on appeal
Court of Appeals Opinion
Rejects Oakland's Appeal of Ruling on Immunity
Motion and Reinstates Conspiracy Charge against Oakland
In their appeal of the lower court's ruling against them in Plaintiffs'
Motion re Qualified Immunity, the OPD argued that the FBI gave them false
information that the bomb had been visible on the back seat floorboard
and thus the activists must have known they were carrying it. The
appellate court ruled Oakland had no right to rely on false statements
of the FBI, stating, "[The OPD] had been at the scene and had personally
observed the location of the hole caused by the explosion ... underneath
the driver's seat."
The appellate court also
granted plaintiffs' cross-appeal of the lower court's dismissal of the
conspiracy charge against Oakland Police. The court ruled that Bari and
Cherney, "have presented sufficient circumstantial evidence that [the Oakland
police] intended to inhibit their First Amendment activities, and that
they entered a conspiracy to further this goal." This included providing
inaccurate information to the media, monitoring Earth First! prior to the
bombing, and acting "in close cooperation with [FBI] ‘conspirators'" to
contribute misinformation during the process of obtaining search warrants
of Bari and Cherney's homes.
Read
the full text of the Sept. 24, 1999,
appeal ruling in Bari v. Sims on the Federal Court website www.ce9.uscourts.gov
(opinions). (updated 9/13/00) (Note: If you find
the opinion no longer available on the court website please notify webmaster at judibari.org
so we can post the opinion directly on this website.)
Judge Approves Anti-Immunity
Motion! A key victory!
In a key court victory for Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney, federal
Judge Claudia Wilken ruled in October 1997 that six FBI agents and three Oakland police
officers cannot avoid trial by claim of qualified immunity. Four FBI agent
defendants, including COINTELPRO ringleader Richard W. Held, and two of
the Oakland police defendants were dismissed for lack of evidence. The
Oakland defendants unsuccessfully appealed this ruling, delaying the case
for two years, but leaving Oakland in worse position than if they had not
appealed. This ruling keeps the case alive and moves it closer to
a jury trial. (revised 2/5/2000)
Short press release
announcing the decision
Full
text of 66 page decision.
Motion Against
Qualified Immunity
Full text of the powerful motion
summarizing the evidence that the FBI and Oakland Police are guilty of:
"illegal attack on political rights, false arrest, illegal search, denial
of equal protection, and conspiracy, in violation of clearly established
rights."
This motion was filed March 18, 1997, and there was a hearing on the motion in federal district
court in Oakland on August 1, 1997. The judge approved this motion,
cutting off one of the FBI's main delaying tactics and moving the case
toward trial.(posted 7/14/97)
Attorney Dennis Cunningham's
statement
announcing filing of this motion,
with over 400 pages of overwhelming evidence of FBI wrongdoing.
A
clear and strong statement of FBI crimes against Judi and Darryl.
Dedication Page
of brief for Motion re Qualified Immunity, with great
photo of Judi Bari giving raised fist salute in front of Oakland
Federal Building
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