2011 Berkeley Protestors Denounce Judge's Order to Disqualify Lawyer

Protestors who participated in the Occupy Cal movement today defended their right to keep an attorney who participated in the protests representing them in a federal lawsuit against University of California at Berkeley stemming from a 2011 protest.

In a news conference held in Oakland in front of the Federal Building, the group decried an order issued by District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers on Tuesday calling for attorney Ronald Cruz’s disqualification in representing the group because he participated in the protest covered by the lawsuit.

Citing the “advocate-witness rule,” according to the American Bar Association, Rogers maintained that Cruz should not represent the group because, as a witness, he may be asked to give a statement, which could undermine the outcome of the case. In the order, Judge Rogers also invited the university and police defendants to submit briefs on whether to disqualify Cruz by May 22.

“We have a right to choose our attorneys, not the judge,” said Yvette Felarca, lead plaintiff and organizer with the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). “Anyone has a right to represent themselves in their own case and we have the right to choose an attorney that is one of us, an activist,” Felarca said.

According to the group, Cruz filed the lawsuit on their behalf against the school’s administrators and police more than three years ago after a Nov. 9, 2011 protest where dozens of police in riot gear pushed their way through a human chain made by the protestors, using their batons. Police also removed half a dozen tents that protestors erected on the lawn in front of Sproul Hall and arrested dozens of people.

The protestors had been demonstrating in opposition of tuition and fee increases at the school, as well as funding cuts to all levels of public education, according to Felarca. In the lawsuit, the 21 plaintiffs accuse the school’s administrators and police of police brutality, false arrests and violating first amendment rights.

“Within the context of Ferguson and Baltimore, this case can be a model on how to prosecute police using excessive force and also on how to prosecute administrators and hold them liable for using the police against their own students to enforce censorship,” Felarca said.

By Bay City News

Photo via Shutterstock

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