LOS ANGELES, Calif. — A jury has acquitted two of three men charged in connection with anti-genocide protests two years ago at the University of California, Irvine, campus, while deadlocking on a verdict for the third.
Adel Shaker Hijazi and Jacob Andrew Hernandez “were acquitted of misdemeanor refusal to disperse, while jurors deadlocked on acquitting Malik Alrefai.” According to Melody Haddad of the Alternate Defender’s Office, who represents Hijazi, the three defense attorneys representing the men “collaborated, and created a joint defense” of free speech.
In the November 2024 trial, the jury decided to take the case accused person by accused person, ultimately deciding to acquit Hijazi because they “did not believe the prosecutor proved [Hijazi] stayed beyond the dispersal order,” and acquitted Hernandez because they found there was “no clear and present danger of violence occurring immediately” and could not decide if “there was any criminal activity that prompted the dispersal order.”
While the jury deadlocked on Alrefai, Haddad and other attorneys, including Madeline Hart of the Orange County Public Defender’s Office, representing Hernandez, agree that all three should be found “not guilty” due to being present at a “lawful, peaceful protest.”
According to My News LA, Deputy District Attorney Matthew Bradbury attempted to claim that the three accused were arrested “when law enforcement shut down protests,” citing the barricaded lecture halls, which changed their view on the matter.
He added that “the right to free speech was ‘disconnected’ when police saw bungee cords used to hold the doors to the lecture hall closed,” stating that the event was “no longer a peaceful, passive protest of rights.”
Haddad countered Bradbury’s claim, stating in her opening statement that the “only violence on the day in question came from law enforcement,” and that the accused were “not a threat to public safety” and were “acting within their First Amendment rights.” She believed that law enforcement rushed to make a decision based on assumptions.
Adding on to Haddad, James Henshaw of the Alternate Defender’s Office, also representing Alrefai, stated that “in this country, law enforcement doesn’t get to decide how long someone can express their First Amendment rights.”
Deputy Public Defender Madeline Hart, representing Hernandez, also supported Haddad’s statement by showing jurors a video of Hernandez “being arrested as he was struck with a baton and zip-tied,” emphasizing that “the only ‘weapon’ he had was a camera.”
MSA West Senior Programs Manager Hasna El-Nounou stressed his disagreement with the OCDA’s decision to “prosecute Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students,” stating that “it magnifies a deeply horrific trend and reality of expendability for student activists” and is “silencing a people in pain, and intimidating and punishing those who dare to stand up against inhumane war crimes and genocide,” rather than upholding the law.
Dr. Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, a UCI professor charged by the OCDA, supported the “courageous protestors” because she was unable to “stand by and watch…society’s precious resources for education be stolen and misspent on militarism and genocide.”
She and CAIR-LA Civil Rights Managing Attorney Dina Chehata, Esq., gave similar respective statements, saying that “the [UCI] administration responded to [the protests] with terrifying violence” and that “UCI and the OCDA have a history of silencing pro-Palestinian voices.”
The prosecution of this case raised questions on the “right to peacefully assemble” and the Orange County District Attorney’s decision to file “criminal charges against 10 of the anti-genocide protestors” connected “with the demonstration.”
The Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) welcomed the acquittals, stating that the verdict reflects the jury’s conclusion that the protest activity was protected under the First Amendment.
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