JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Malinda Patterson, the lawyer of two of the 3 people arrested for disrupting a city council meeting one year ago, spoke with Action News Jax ahead of their sentencing. She says she wants their ‘guilty’ verdicts thrown out.
She says plea negotiations would have required Conor Cauley to admit to a battery charge and other charges he’s accused of, which they feel did not take place.
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They also felt it would set a precedent for future people exercising their First Amendment rights.
She says her main goal tomorrow is to leave without Cauley becoming a convicted felon.
Juries found both Leah Grady and Conor Cauley guilty.
“Conor’s jury came back last Wednesday guilty for battery on a law enforcement officer and resisting or opposing an officer without violence,” Patterson said. He is facing up to five years in jail for the encounter with police that day.
“He brushes his arm off, says don’t touch me. That would be within the realm of what this defense. Is supposed to be. There was not a violent encounter,” Patterson said.
I asked her if Cauley had denied a plea deal anywhere in the process. She says there were negotiations.
“They would have required that he sign an admission, a confession in sense, even if it time, no conviction, he would have to have admitted. To doing what he was accused of doing. And he understood that,” Patterson explained.
Patterson says she’s since received 44 character letters attesting to Cauley’s life and work in the community.
Several people came before council members at Tuesday’s council meeting to share their disappointment in his arrest. They noted his presence in the community and advocacy for community concerns.
“He’s helped to feed the homeless, he’s done neighborhood trash pickup, he even escorts women from the clinics to their cars when there’s protesters outside,” Patterson said.
The judgment of acquittals, submitted for Grady in April and Cauley on May 27, is a part of what she’s asking from a judge.
She’s also hoping they will get ‘time served, and she’s asking for a new trial.
Last year, Action News Jax exclusively spoke with Sheriff T.K. Waters about the arrests that day.
“If you continue to signal that it’s going to be a slap on the wrist, you’re not going to do anything about it, all it does is make people want to continue to do those things and show that they’re going to be disruptive when they want to be disruptive,” Waters said.
The sentencing was originally set for today. Cauley and Grady’s sentencings have been pushed to Friday, May 29, at 2 p.m. at the Duval County courthouse.
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