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Dozens of supporters attended the second arraignment Monday morning for the 11 Stanford University students who are being charged with felony vandalism and conspiracy to commit a crime after they barricaded themselves inside the president’s office building last year to protest the war in Gaza.
A preliminary hearing, which would have given defense attorneys an opportunity to question the evidence in the case, was set for Nov. 3, but the District Attorney’s office secured an indictment from a grand jury on Sept. 29, a move that left the defense shocked.
“It is shameful,” defense attorney Emily Rose Johns said in a statement. “They should not be afraid to have their evidence tested. They should not be afraid to demonstrate in front of the public that they have probable cause for any of these charges.”
Attorneys for the students believe the felony charges that could result in jail time are “extreme” and are an attempt to make an example out of the defendants, Johns said.
“This is the first [vandalism] case in 22 years that they refuse to have a public preliminary hearing on,” she said.
Deputy District Attorney Rob Baker, who is leading the case, said they skipped the preliminary hearing to ensure a speedy trial.
The original complaint against the students was filed in April and the case has been slow to progress following hours-long court hearings and multiple delays.
“There are significant logistical hurdles to present a preliminary hearing involving 11 defendants,” he wrote. “If the court could not commence the preliminary hearing within 60 days due to the unavailability of the defense attorneys, the case would have to be dismissed.”
The protesters, one of whom is now testifying against the group, allegedly entered the president’s office building on the morning of June 5, 2024 by breaking a window and opening doors to let the remaining group members inside, according to police investigation records. The group spilled fake blood made from corn syrup and ransacked office drawers – damage the university believes amounted to $300,000 in repairs.
It was a demonstration that came after protesters say they were met with minimal engagement regarding Stanford’s divestment from companies that provide military support to Israel, according to court documents.
“Every day, a country of innocent people is destroyed more and more without a shred of mercy,” German Gonzalez, one of the Stanford 11, said in a statement. “The dignity of our fellow humans, the Palestinians, has been so stripped to the point that the lives of an entire country of people who are currently experiencing genocide are only covered in the news when people are arrested for peacefully protesting.”
The students showed their commitment to their cause on Oct. 6 as they gathered with approximately 50 people to protest the war in Gaza following their arraignment Monday morning.
The group, holding Palestinian flags outside of the courthouse, chanted phrases like “Stanford, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest.”
“I was not scared the day I was suspended. I’m not scared today, the day I’m being charged. So if you are listening to me, if you’re listening to me right now, or if you’re reading these words, I ask you to continue your steadfast support for Palestine,” Gonzalez said.
Despite their ongoing motivation, the subject may be unusable in court after the District Attorney’s office filed “in limine” motions, which seek to exclude certain evidence from trial, Johns said. In this case, the District Attorney’s office wants to limit the students’ political motivations.
“They filed in limine motions, pre-trial motions to try to have a judge prevent anybody on the defense team, any witness, from talking about what is really going on here, talking about Palestine, talking about the genocide,” Johns said.
Baker said Johns’ statement was “wrong,” and that the District Attorney’s office is not filing a motion to prohibit speech.
“The PEOPLE have no objection to limited testimony from the defendants, should they testify, as to their motive for committing conspiracy and vandalism. . . Using this trial as vehicle to express political views unrelated to the facts and jury instructions will confuse the jury, and result in an undue consumption of time,” he wrote in a message to this publication.
Defense attorneys and Stanford faculty, dozens of whom signed a petition against the charges, believe the contentious case is an attempt to chill political speech.
“The decision to seek felony charges against young people for acts of civil disobedience — undertaken in opposition to what human rights groups, U.N. experts, and genocide scholars have all now concluded is a genocide — reflects a broader political effort to stamp out protest,” according to the petition.
The District Attorney’s office is not interested in reducing charges to misdemeanors given that the students are “well educated.”
Charges shouldn’t be reduced because the protesters “are privileged enough to have a Stanford education,” wrote Baker and District Attorney Jeff Rosen in a court document.
“We feel confident that the evidence is strong and that we can prove our case to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt,” Baker wrote in a statement to this publication.
The trial date for Gonzalez, Cameron Michael Pennington, Kaiden Wang, Amy Jing Zhai, Eliana Lindsay Fuchs, Gretchen Rose Giumarin, Hunter Taylor-Black, Isabella Terrazas, Maya Burke, Taylor McCann and Zoe Georgia Edelman is scheduled for Nov. 17.
