Maria Allwine, speaking on behalf Shed Abdur Rahman, made a Motion for Judgment of Acquittal for all the accused.

She said the government failed to prove their guilt. In regard to events inside the Great Hall, no banner was ever unfurled, and no defendant was ever identified as holding a banner. She asserted that Witness Against Torture is a collection of individuals, not a membership organization, and that the defendants all came for their own individual reasons.

Allwine said, “The government has not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that defendants acted collectively.” She cited the Potts case, in which orange jump suits were considered devices of speech but not T-shirts. She also described the 1968 Cohen case in which a person was convicted of disturbing the peace for wearing a T-shirt with a slogan. The Supreme Court reversed the decision, ruling that there had to be another compelling reason besides potentially disturbing the peace for abridging First and Fourteenth Amendments rights.

The government rebutted by claiming that defendants were members of a group that had planned a coordinated event (held meetings, created an agenda) and were a movement (advocated for a cause), and therefore were guilty according to the statute. Ms Acevedo asserted that this was not random individuals but an assembly, “a group of people meeting for a common purpose and assembled for a message.” She said the message on the T-shirts worn was to bring notice to a specific movement. Moreover, she went on, “all those arrested were brought from the Great Hall. They had knelt and one by one they were taken, so even if officers couldn’t remember what they were doing there the evidence shows that’s where they came from.”

Allwine responded, saying that proving that individuals were placed in an elevator doesn’t prove their conduct. She pointed out that several people said they knelt to get away from police officers, trying to not draw attention of those who were creating the disorder to themselves under extraordinary circumstances.

Judge Gardner again reminded Ms. Allwine that the legal standard for a MJOA was the light most favorable to the government. He restated the text of the statute and said, “It seems like from everything I have heard, this is a movement -- at a minimum to do away with the conditions at Guantanamo, at a maximum to get rid of the prison. This was to bring attention about Guantanamo to the public (on the street) and inside the Supreme Court. There are limitations to the First Amendment. The only issue here is identification.” The motion was denied.