"Less Than a Ham Sandwich"
Federal prosecutors dismissed charges on Wednesday against three of five protesters arrested outside the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Broadview, Illinois, after a grand jury refused to indict a Chicago couple, Jocelyn Robledo and Ray Collins, on felony counts of assaulting a federal officer.
The couple was accused of assaulting and resisting federal agents on September 27, after they “refused to retreat” when agents tried to push back the perimeter around the ICE facility in Broadview. Robledo, 30, was accused of shoving agents, and Collins, 31, was accused of charging at agents and yelling at them to get away from his fiancée after he saw the scuffle. Federal prosecutors argued that Collins injured a federal agent’s thumb in the scuffle.
At a brief hearing yesterday morning, US District Court Judge Gabriel Fuentes granted a motion to dismiss the complaint against Ray Collins and Jocelyne Robledo, after prosecutors confirmed an inability to secure an indictment against the couple. According to a defense attorney, both Collins and Robledo were legally carrying guns, but did not brandish them in the scuffle. The grand jury was not even swayed by the protestors being armed.
Assistant US Attorney Brian Havey confirmed to the Court that on Tuesday, the grand jury had returned a “no-bill,” meaning they refused to file an actual bill of indictment “Right now as things stand, the only decision made by our office is to dismiss this complaint,” the prosecutor told the judge, adding: “the case will remain open [and] we have the time to decide where we want to go from here.”
Most grand juries return indictments for nearly all cases brought before them because the scales are heavily tipped in the prosecutor’s favor at this stage of litigation. Grand jurors are presented with arguments only from prosecutors, and their standard of proof for probable cause to indict is much lower than when proving a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, US Attorneys prosecuted 162,000 federal cases in 2010, which represents the most recent year for which we have data. Grand juries declined to return an indictment in 11 of those thousands of cases. However, cities that have been targeted for “crime crackdown” by Donald Trump are changing the variables in that statistic quickly.
In an interview following the proceedings, Richard Kling, the attorney for defendant Ray Collins, applauded the work of the grand jury’s decision and said they took a stand for the First Amendment right to protest. Kling also made a point to confirm that in their decision, the grand jury was rejecting the Trump administration’s deployment of “Gestapo-type troops” on the streets.
Kling, a veteran attorney who teaches at Chicago-Kent College of Law, said he had never before seen a grand jury in the district reject an indictment. “You know the old saying that a good prosecutor could have a grand jury indict a ham sandwich?” Kling said after the hearing. “Apparently, the evidence against my client was less than a ham sandwich.”
An inability for federal prosecutors to secure indictments following the arrest of ICE protestors is a stark new trend for the Trump administration, which is doing everything possible to legitimize the takeover of Democratic cities. Following the order from US Attorney Pam Bondi in a September 29 memo to bring charges against “any individual who assaults or forcibly impedes or intimidates” law enforcement officers protecting ICE facilities, prosecutors have seen a series of “no-bill” decisions from grand juries refusing to indict.
Grand juries also pushed back in Los Angeles this year when the temporary US attorney ordered his office to pursue indictments in protest-related cases despite the overwhelming lack of evidence. Washington, DC, grand juries have also refused to return indictments against multiple individuals charged with federal felony counts that resulted from the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard and mass arrests.
The White House claims over 2,000 people have been arrested since Trump’s federal sweeps, which started on Aug. 7 of this year. At least 52 people have been arrested on “surge-related” offenses and have been charged in district court, while prosecutors are opting to charge more of these cases in Superior Court.
“U.S. Attorney Pirro and her office, in charging over 1,700 cases, follow the evidence wherever it leads, constantly evaluating each case as it develops to rigorously follow the law and to bring swift justice — including a dismissal when it is in the interest of justice,” office spokesperson Tim Lauer said in a statement. But nothing seems to be panning out for Pirro in the Courts once these charges move forward.
That included the grand jury’s refusal to indict Sean C. Dunn, a former Justice Department paralegal, who was charged with felony assault after he threw a Subway sandwich at a federal agent on patrol in mid-August. Dunn’s charges were knocked down to a misdemeanor just weeks later after prosecutors were unable to secure a federal indictment. We all know the colloquial sentiment for how easy it is for prosecutors to get a grand jury indictment, but it’s now fair to say that the Trump administration has reversed the process by literally failing to indict a ham sandwich.
For more on the failure to achieve indictments for arrests resulting from the Trump sweeps and ICE protests, read:
Amee Vanderpool writes the SHERO Newsletter, is an attorney, published author, contributor to newspapers and magazines, and an analyst for BBC radio. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.
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