Update on Bursey

In reviewing the Wednesday blogtopia, I see that skippy the bush kangaroo—who none dare call the e.e. cummings of blogtopia (even if, as he often reminds us, he did coin the term blogtopia)—offers us an update on the Brett Bursey case.

In case you aren’t familiar with this particular egregious assault upon the fundamental rights of Americans under the Bill of Rights, here’s a quick reminder:

• Dubya went to Columbia SC for a speech on October 24, 2002.
• Amongst the crowd of Bush supporters assembed near the site of the speech at the local airport was longtime peace advocate Bursey.
• When Bursey held up his “No War for Oil” sign prior to the event, he was arrested by local authorities for trespassing.
• Those charges were soon dropped, but in the late spring of 2003, on the insistence of the Attorney General himself, South Carolina federal prosecutor Strom Thurmond Jr. indicted Bursey under an obscure statute having to do with entering a restricted area near the president.
• This prosecutorial adventure drew attention even in the halls of Congress, prompting Barney Frank and 10 other House members to write a letter of protest and consternation to Herr Ashcroft.
• The federal magistrate in South Carolina, in ordering a continuance to obtain further discovery, also denied Bursey a jury trial.

That’s where it stood until this week, when (as reported by such sources as South Carolina newpaper website TheState.com and Columbia’s NBC affiliate WIS-TV) federal magistrate Bristow Marchant ordered federal, state, and local agencies to submit to him “any documents about security arrangements for President Bush’s campaign trip to Columbia last October” so that the judge can determine whether Bursey’s lawyers have the right to study them to assist in the preparation of their defense.  The prosecution team has (of course) been waving off such requests by the Bursey lawyers, stating that there is nothing in any such documents that would help the defense. 

The judge, as drily noted in one of the reports cited above, “seemed skeptical that neither the Secret Service, the State Law Enforcement Division nor local police had any maps, photographs or memos that spelled out its plans to protect the president during the campaign swing to Columbia.” Furthermore, in allowing the government a week to produce the materials, he pointedly admonished prosecutor John Barton “Don’t pick and choose.  Bring it all.”

As skippy suggests, magistrate Marchant appears to display a healthy scepticism about the merits of the government’s case.  Modesty prevents me from stating more strongly than this report that I drew that very same conclusion nearly two and a half months ago when I compared Bursey’s treatment to that of a sign-waver in Burlington VT.  Way back on June 23, I said:

Magistrate Judge Bristow Marchant has denied Bursey a jury trial, though the reasoning behind that decision indicates to me that the judge sees rather little merit to the government’s case; as reported by the Associated Press,

In his order, Marchant said the right to a jury trial doesn’t include petty offenses such as the one Bursey is charged with. In the order, Marchant said granting a jury trial to Bursey would “establish an unnecessary and unwarranted precedent."

This is not to denigrate skippy’s reportorial or analytic skills in any way.  Heck, he has 10-bazillion times the readership that I do, and he’s done more to keep the Bursey case alive in blogtopia (a term coined by skippy) than any ten other bloggers. 

But you heard it here first.

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