[Freethe SF8] Update from SF 8 hearing of Aug. 22

[SF-8 case]

Preliminary Hearing postponed

The short report: the Preliminary Hearing for the case of the San  
Francisco 8, originally scheduled for early September, has been  
continued (put off). No new date has been set. Details follow.

Update from SF 8 hearing of Aug. 22

Meeting in Judge Moscone's chambers, the prosecution conceded that the  
defense would indeed need more time to sort through the new discovery  
documents that they had given them. The state did not oppose the  
motion for continuance that the defendants had recently filed.

About three weeks ago the state prosecutors gave the defense several  
DVD discs filled with tens of thousands of pages of new and un- 
catalogued discovery with substantial missing papers and material  
gaps. This "document dump" was accompanied by an enormous and unusable  
potential witness list (with no contact information for anyone and  
including names of people who are deceased) and a refusal by the  
prosecution to provide any exhibits list whatsoever. This after the  
state had several times said that they had turned over everything they  
had.

A five minute hearing – no new date

After the meeting in chambers, Judge Moscone granted the continuance  
and kept September 8 reserved to once again meet with the lawyers and  
defendants in chambers to set future dates.

Herman and Jalil out of shackles

It was great to see both Herman Bell and Jalil Muntaqim out of the  
shackles that they had been forced to wear in previous hearings. Both  
are continuing to pursue a temporary return to New York for their  
parole hearings, but that issue was not addressed in this brief hearing.

Last May, Judge Moscone agreed with the consent of the state  
prosecutor and the SF County Sheriff to return them both to NY State  
for parole hearings – their legal right after more than 35 years of  
imprisonment. But a month later the judge rescinded his order due to  
pressure from the CA Attorney General’s office, and held the transfer  
in abeyance until new language was adopted to conform with the  
concerns of the Attorney General. The Attorney General’s office has  
drafted an amended Executive Agreement which would allow the brothers  
to return to New York, although the Attorney General has refused to  
disclose the text of the amended agreement to the brothers or their  
attorneys. According to the Attorney General’s office the amended  
Executive Agreements have been sent to California’s Governor Arnold  
Schwarzenegger and New York’s Governor Paterson to be signed.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/cdhrsupport_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20080823/4d633396/attachment.html