busting the bank

From the Capitol Hill Seattle blog:

A jury returned a verdict of not guilty Thursday afternoon in the trespassing case against five Occupy Seattle protesters who chained themselves together inside a Capitol Hill Chase bank in November.

Danielle Simmons, Sarah Svobodny, Liam Wright, Michael Stevens, and Hudson Williams-Eynon were found not guilty by the three-man, three-woman jury after a three-day trial. Attorneys Braden Pence and David Douglas Hancock successfully argued that the "Chase 5" had carefully planned their effort and believed that they were on property that should be considered public during what Pence called in his opening statement the group's "intentional actions" of protest.

I have no idea why the jury let off these protesters, since they were obviously guilty of what they were charged with and prepared to go to jail for it. All I can think of is that the jurors really don't like the big banks.

And who can blame them? No banker or bank has yet been charged for the scams they ran leading up to the big meltdown of 12/07, so I guess the jury in this case decided a quid pro quo was appropriate.

And it is appropriate, because if the law isn't for everybody, then it's for nobody.