A TILTED GUIDE TO BEING A DEFENDANT the tilted scales collective combustion books A Tilted Guide to Being a Defendant Copyright 2017 The Tilted Scales Collective tiltedscalescollective.org Published by Combustion Books combustionbooks.org ISBN: 978-1-938660-18-4 This work is protected by the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license. You are free to make copies or distribute it so long as you attribute the author, do not make derivative works, nor distribute it commercially. Version 1.1 For our imprisoned comrades in struggle who have joined the ancestors CONTENTS 3 Acknowledgments 7 About Tilted Scales Collective 9 Introduction 15 Chapter 1 On Being a Defendant Never Alone . 19 Power Concedes Nothing Without a Demand . 21 Know Your Rights—And Use Them! . 24 Going to Court for Your First Hearing . 29 Talking About Your Charges . 31 Talking to Loved Ones . 33 A Word on Media and Social Media . 35 Final Thoughts . 37 39 Chapter 2 Setting and Balancing Personal, Political, and Legal Goals Personal Goals . 45 Political Goals . 56 Legal Goals . 76 Balancing Your Goals . 80 Working with Others to Achieve Your Goals . 80 83 Chapter 3 Common Legal Situations Some General Advice . 84 Grand Juries . 86 Surveillance and Infiltration . 91 Conspiracy Charges . 97 Entrapment . 100 Terrorism Charges . 105 A Parting Reminder . 108 109 Chapter 4 Working with Your Lawyer Hurry Up and Wait . 110 Finding an Attorney . 112 Building a Healthy Relationship with Your Attorney . 128 135 Chapter 5 Working with Your Codefendants General Considerations for Working with Your Codefendants . 136 If All of You are in Custody . 142 If Some of You are in Custody and Others are Not . 143 If None of You are in Custody . 145 Non-Association Conditions . 147 When Codefendants Flip . 148 153 Chapter 6 Working with Your Defense Committee Common Roles a Defense Committee Plays . 155 Some Considerations for Working with Your Defense Committee . 165 Potential Liabilities of Having a Defense Committee . 169 173 Chapter 7 Working with the Media Some Basic Truths about the Media . 174 Engaging the Media as Radicals and Revolutionaries . 179 Strategic Media . 180 Media Strategy . 189 Social Media . 195 Special Considerations for Criminal Charges . 203 213 Chapter 8 Resolving Your Case A Conspiracy against Defendants . 214 Preparing to Resolve Your Case . 218 Going to Trial . 221 Negotiating a Plea Agreement . 236 Sentencing . 244 253 Chapter 9 Surviving in Prison General Advice . 254 Staying True to You . 264 Political Development in Prison . 266 Staying Connected . 267 Weathering Appeals . 271 Dealing with Loss . 275 Concluding Thoughts . 277 279 Conclusion 281 Appendix A The Criminal Legal Process 1 . Grand Jury/Preliminary Hearing . 281 2 . Arraignment . 282 3 . Bail Hearing(s) . 282 4 . Pre-trial Motion Hearings . 284 5 . Trial . 285 6 . Sentencing . 286 7 . Appeals . 288 Final Thoughts . 289 291 Appendix B Sample Joint Defense Agreement 299 Appendix C Sample Attorney Retainer Agreement 303 Endnotes ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Jenny Esquivel I would like to thank Kristian Williams for his merciless editing and his invaluable friendship; Combustion for always being down for the cause with the skills and abilities to make rad shit happen; all the current and former prisoners who participated in the making of this guide in one way or anoth- er, despite the potential to suffer serious retaliation for their contributions; the legal workers, support crew members, and lawyers who not only offered their invaluable experiences and insights to make this a better guide, but who also do amazing work every day to help free our imprisoned com- rades; Denver ABC for hosting the amazing conference from which this guide grew; Betsy Raasch-Gilman for her amazing contributions—drafting, editing, and constant moral sup- port! I would also like to thank Eric, because we did that shit together. I hope that our experiences and struggles will help those who find themselves reading these pages. And, of course, Jude, who has been a trusted confidant and comrade through many struggles—personal and political. His kick-ass 4 . Tilted Scales Collective organizing, support work, and writing are the foundation of the book you have in your hands. Jude Ortiz This book is the result of years of thinking/re-thinking, writing/re-writing, delays due to life, delays due to urgent prisoner support organizing, and continual support from friends and comrades who gently (and repeatedly) nudged us to finish the damn thing already. While two of us have our names on it, this is a book that could only come from a radical community spread across Turtle Island. I am proud to be a part of that struggle and to be connected to so many amazing people. I would especially like to thank the current prisoners who drastically shaped our thinking in this book, both by providing us with critical, honest feedback on our outline at the outset of this endeavor and by engaging in con- versations about our ideas over the years. We have chosen to keep these prisoners anonymous to decrease the chances of retaliation against them for their involvement, such as by giving the state yet another reason to deny them parole. Yet they know who they are, and we hope they will see their ideas and contributions reflected in this book. In addition to everyone who Jenny thanked, I would like to thank the Cleveland 4 defense committee, Daniel Regenscheit, Dennison Williams, Garrett Fitzgerald, Jihad Abdulmumit, John Viola, the late Ken Tilsen, Kevin Van Meter, Kris Hermes, Luce Guillén-Givins, Lynne Stewart, Maddy Pfeiffer, Maryam Khajavi, Megan Books, Molly Armour, Rachel White-Domain, Ralph Poynter, Red Bird Prison Abolition, Ryan Levitt, Sarah Shourd, Sharlyn Grace, Sterling Stutz, Tim Phillips, and Will R. Logan for their Acknowledgments . 5 contributions. And especially Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa, who provided us with detailed feedback before he joined the ancestors in March 2016. If I neglected to name anyone, please know that your contributions were invaluable and the oversight was unintentional. And, of course, many thanks go out to Combustion for helping us turn our ideas into a tangible resource for those engaged in struggle. Likewise, many thanks to Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness for the design work and timely feed- back on both the chapter excerpt released as a zine earlier this year and the completed manuscript. Finally, I would like to thank Jenny for her dedication, perseverance, and consistent willingness to push forward with this work despite some of the biggest life challenges and changes one could imagine in a few short years. You are a dear friend, amazing collective member, and wonderful partner in (thought)crime. ABOUT TILTED SCALES COLLECTIVE Tilted Scales Collective is a small collective of dedi- cated legal support organizers who have spent years support- ing and fighting for political prisoners, prisoners of war, and politicized prisoners in the occupied lands of Turtle Island (i.e., the so-called United States). The collective formed out of conversations at an Anarchist Black Cross conference about the need to stop allowing the state to use criminal charges to dismantle, destroy, and neutralize radical movements. From those conversations was borne the idea for this guide for de- fendants. A companion guide for lawyers who are represent- ing the kind of defendants we are talking about in this guide is forthcoming. As a collective, we seek to help radicals and revolutionaries figure out how to protect themselves and their comrades when faced with state repression, while strengthen- ing their movements and advancing the fight for liberation. INTRODUCTION If this book found its way into your hands, chances are you are in dire need of it right now. Maybe the person who acted like your best friend was working for the cops the whole time. Or those FBI agents who have been harassing you for months put you in handcuffs this time, and now you are facing terrorism charges. Or you woke up a couple of days ago with an assault weapon pointed at your head and some Darth Vader dude shouting at you not to move. Or you went to a demonstration and suddenly the district attorney wants to make a felon out of you. However it happened, rest assured that you are not the first one to be targeted by the state—and that help is here. Others have been in your situation before, and this guide is based on their experiences. While writing this book, we received feedback and insights from dozens of prisoners, for- mer prisoners, legal workers, and lawyers to make sure we were able to provide you with the best advice possible. Who is “we”? The Tilted Scales Collective is a loose group of an- archist legal workers who decided to write this guide based 10 . Tilted Scales Collective on years of supporting anarchists (or people targeted for al- legedly being anarchists) and others as they have dealt with serious criminal charges. We are not lawyers and nothing in this guide should be construed as legal advice. We wrote this guide for people who are seriously en- tangled in the criminal legal system, whether they are fac- ing federal felony accusations, conspiracy charges, terrorist enhancements, or potential years or decades in prison. Of necessity, we could not focus in-depth on state-level charges because they vary quite a bit from state to state. However, the basics of handling your case will largely be the same, regardless of which criminal legal system you find yourself confronting. We also did not write this guide to be spe- cific to everyone scooped up in mass arrests at protests or spontaneous rebellions, although we hope it will be useful in those situations, particularly for those facing serious fel- ony charges.