Briana Waters Trial Update (March 4)

The jury is still deliberating on her case. There is no way to know when a verdict will be reached...

As of Tuesday night we are still awaiting a verdict from the jury, and also woke up Monday morning to the disturbing accounts in the media about an arson up in Snohomish county, that the corporate media have already decided was perpetrated by the ELF... Though the judge was asked Monday morning to interview the jurors individually to find out if they had seen anything on the news about it, he sided again with the prosecution and instead told them there had been a news story that morning that might influence their deliberations, and he issued a rather bland pronouncement to the jury to tell him if they thought they couldn't make a fair ruling in the case. When no one spoke up, he sent them back to keep deliberating. Without any idea for sure if any of the jurors had been tainted by the news that morning, but a fair assumption that at least some of them had, the defense was forced to motion for a mistrial again, which was denied. At the end of the day Judge Burgess granted a defense request and instructed the jury not to watch any TV, listen to the radio, or view any other news source, as it would be virtually impossible to prevent some of the news from "jumping out and catching them".

One thing that is certain to those close to the case is that the arson Monday has only damaged Briana's chances of getting a fair verdict. The corporate media have consistently pointed out how curious the timing of the arson is, with the "UW Ecoterror Trial" still going on, further linking Briana with a shadowy ELF underground in the minds of the public. Anyone should have been able to predict the negative impact of an action like this on Briana's trial, and that just makes this whole event even more frustrating.

There are many reasons to view this fire and it's motivations as suspicious, and there is not yet any evidence that it was actually based on environmental motivations. The vast majority of arsons in this country are caused for run-of-the-mill reasons, and fraud or financial reasons are some of the biggest. The media seem all too happy to jump to conclusions about the people who started those fires based on the most preliminary investigations. Also there have often actions by agent provocateurs during political trials throughout history.

Anyway, we will continue to keep everyone informed about events as they come up.

Thanks everyone for your support!