Slavenhokken op Proef in Noord-Carolina
Als zijn eerste defensiegetuige, nodigde McSurely Mirza uit, die begon om een uitvoerige omschrijving van het slavenhokprobleem en de campagne te geven om universiteiten ertoe te brengen om op DSP (rond 45 hebben dit gedaan) te ondertekenen. When the prosecution objected, Judge Devine refused to rule the background testimony irrelevant but said that no more than five minutes could be devoted to it. In doing so, the judge made it clear she was taking it for granted that the students were justified in arguing that supplier factories were abusive and that the UNC administration was complicit. The administration, though not a party to the case and not represented at the trial, was in effect being found guilty of enabling worker exploitation.
McSurely’s other objective was to have the charges against the five students dismissed. He sought to do this in several ways: he argued that the exact charge of “failure to disperse” was inappropriate in the circumstances; he elicited testimony from the students that they had never heard a final warning that they would be subject to arrest if they did not leave the chancellor’s office; he had Linda Gomaa, the first to be arrested, testify that she was taken into custody before any kind of warning was given; and he argued that Mirza’s behavior did not constitute resisting arrest.
McSurely also presented a necessity defense, arguing that even if the students technically broke the law, they should be found not guilty because their actions were in pursuit of a higher good. This was buttressed, for example, by the testimony of defendant Tim Stallmann that the university had previously improved the working conditions of the campus housekeeping staff after students staged protests and engaged in civil disobedience.
Judge Devine did not accept any of those arguments. She concluded that the defendants knew they were crossing a line when they moved the sit-in to the the chancellor’s office; that the police adequately warned the students they would be arrested if they didn’t leave the premises; and that Mirza’s behavior constituted resisting arrest. She also rejected the necessity defense, agreeing with the prosecutor that there was insufficient “nexus” between the actions of the students and the ending of worker exploitation.
The judge, however, made it clear she had enormous respect for the five students, each of whom had been called by McSurely to testify about their commitment to social and economic justice. Sarah Hirsch, for example, described her work with Witness for Peace, and Thomas mentioned that he had just completed a ten-week program with a non-profit called Bike and Build, during which he and others cycled across the country and worked on Habit for Humanity-type housing projects along the way.
After the prosecutor indicated the state was not seeking harsh penalties, Judge Devine in effect imposed no sentences at all. Instead, she entered a “prayer for judgment continued,” a procedure—unique to North and South Carolina, it seems—in which there is a finding of guilt but no formal conviction is entered on the defendant’s record.
All parties got what they wanted. The prosecutor got a finding of guilt, the police were vindicated in their actions, and the students got an opportunity to highlight the sweatshop issue in court and ended up with the mildest possible adverse ruling. The only real loser was the UNC administration, whose intransigence on the DSP issue emerged from the trial looking even more unreasonable.
Have Your Say: Sweatshops on Trial in North Carolina
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