I had totally lost track of the Round Rock student protester prosecutions, mostly I think because their trials were supposed to have started in July – see here, here, and here for background. Via Eye on Williamson, I see that the first such trial went to the jury on Friday, and they returned a not guilty verdict.
The jury of three men and three women found 15-year-old Irvin DeLuna not guilty of the Class C misdemeanor violation after deliberating about an hour and 20 minutes.
[…]
Throughout the two-day trial, city prosecutor Susan Camp-Lee had argued that DeLuna, in joining other students in the march, disrupted the regular classroom routines at both Round Rock and Stony Point High schools, which were in “lockdown” during the protests.
“There’s a lot of places to go and protest in Round Rock and they chose Stony Point High School,” she said in her closing argument. “Of all the places they could go, they went to a school, so I think you can infer what their intent was: to disrupt.”
But defense attorney Travis Williamson, who voluntarily represented DeLuna at the request of the Texas Civil Rights Project, told jurors that any lockdowns or classroom disruptions were unintended. The students were exercising their right to peacefully voice their concerns about an issue they were passionate about, he said.
“That’s the only way a student can be heard” he said in his closing argument. “It’s a protected activity. They can’t vote. The only thing they can do is protest.”
DeLuna said after the trial that he knew the school might punish the students for missing class, but did not realize he would face criminal charges. In light of what happened, he said he probably wouldn’t protest again during the school day.
“I was trying to make it peaceful, but it was too much of a problem,” DeLuna said.
Juror Jon Silver, 41, of Round Rock said after the trial that the jury thought prosecutors did not prove that DeLuna intended to disrupt classes. The Texas Education Code says that someone can be charged with disruption of classes for intentionally disturbing classes or other school activities while on school property or public property within 500 feet of a school.
“All the testimony said was that all the kids said they were going to Stony Point,” he said. “Nobody said why.”
Forty-eight cases are still pending against students who participated in the protests.
Anyone want to bet that those cases wind up getting dismissed, much as was the case with the Sugar Land Kiddie Roundup and Sgt. Ken Wenzel of K-Mart Kiddie Roundup fame? I figure that if the DA had gotten a conviction, they’d be deluged with requests to cop a plea. Now that they failed to do so, unless they want to risk 48 more such verdicts, they’ll probably want to cut their losses. We’ll see.