DURHAM, N.C.—Accompanied by supporters from the community, three of the “Durham Five” defendants stood before a judge at the county courthouse here on Sept. 22 to hear their fate. Then came the answer they had been hoping for: Case dismissed.
The decision by a judge not to grant prosecutors a continuation in their case resulted in the state dropping its charges against all the defendants.
In April, members of the Student Panthers were arrested for protesting inadequate housing conditions at North Carolina Central University. They were beset by campus police, arrested, and given a court date. Even if the charges have been dropped against three of them, the problems with housing remain: unaffordable rents, overcrowding, mold, and more.
“Housing has always been an issue in Durham,” Durham Mayoral Candidate Rafiq Zaidi told People’s World in an interview. He talked at length about the housing issues facing Durham residents, such as constantly being priced out of their homes.
“If it’s not the rent going up, it’s them [the university] not addressing the conditions we live in,” Bam, a member of Student Panthers who preferred not to give his last name, said in an interview. “The city is dragging it out for the sake of dragging it out.”
Bam spoke of how the legal proceedings hung over the heads of the defendants for five months. They faced many consequences in the meantime: one was fired from his job, one was suspended from the university, onewas banned from campus, and another was evicted from her student housing.
Finally, they found themselves in a courtroom waiting for their case to come before the judge. When the lead prosecutor motioned to continue the case—i.e. to delay it, giving them more time to assemble supposedly incriminating evidence—the defendants’ lawyers firmly rejected the motion.
They expertly pointed to the full compliance of the defendants while their case moved at a snail’s pace, not even knowing when they’d be expected to appear in court. Lawyers added that one of the three could not attend because of the last minute nature of the hearing; they were not able to secure leave from work.
This same defendant had been kicked out of their dorms by the university a week after moving in. With the clear situation of the case made before the judge, and after a slight squabble between the prosecution and the judge as to who was the one dismissing the case, charges against all three defendants were dropped.
Dominique Erney, an attorney with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, said in a statement to the press that the ruling “means our clients can finally move forward with their lives and focus on their studies.”
Janki Kaneria, also counsel with SCSJ, said the case “serves as a prime example of how to mishandle a student protest: a heavy-handed response using police, aggressive arrests, and pushing criminal prosecutions despite clear offers to engage in constructive conversations and restorative justice.”
“It was cathartic,” one defendant told People’s World while standing outside the courthouse following the dismissals. “It’s one thing off my mind.” What stuck with them and every student, the defendants said, was clear: Central University wanted to make an example of them—both with the arrests and the suspensions. The goal was to chill speech about sub-par student housing. Their effort ended up having the opposite effect.
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