A Cole County jury will be back in court this morning to debate and recommend a punishment after finding 22 religious leaders guilty of trespassing in the Missouri Senate's gallery on May 6, 2014.
After deliberating for more than three hours, the five-man, seven-woman jury found the leaders not guilty of obstructing a government operation.
Cole County Prosecutor Mark Richardson had charged the May 2014 demonstration had forced the Senate to stop its work for nearly an hour. A large group had begun chanting and singing hymns in the Senate's Upper Gallery following their participation in a rally in the Capitol Rotunda.
The trespassing charges were filed because the demonstrators refused to leave the Senate gallery after being told to leave by Capitol Police officers.
First-degree trespassing is a class B misdemeanor; state law limits the punishment to no more than six months in the county jail and no more than a $500 fine.
In his closing arguments, Richardson urged the jury to find guilt on both charges.
He noted the protest began as state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, was conducting a filibuster against a proposed law.
"As she's conducting her official business on the floor of the Senate, does our law protect her in her making her speech - without illegal interruptions from the gallery, without violations of the law?" Richardson asked.
"If it does, then the only people who can uphold that law is your verdicts that those who interrupted obstructed a government function, and when they're told or directed by someone in authority to leave, and they remained unlawfully, did they violate the law?"
During his closing argument, Richardson wondered how a not guilty verdict would affect future protests and attempts to block lawmakers from doing their jobs.
If the Capitol police don't have the authority to order people to leave the gallery, he added, "Do we just shut down the Senate the next time? Would you rather be able to sit in the Senate gallery and hear debate, versus sitting in the Senate gallery and being run out by protesters violating the law?"
However, state Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City - one of three lawyers defending the religious leaders - urged the jury to find all 22 defendants not guilty.
He said the only way the state could prove the trespassing charge was to show the leaders defied "a lawful order personally communicated to him or to her."
Barnes argued none of the present or former Capitol Police officers who testified could identify any specific demonstrator they had talked with, and the protesters left the gallery when the officers tapped them on the shoulder - a signal agreed to earlier.
However, Richardson said Capitol Police Chief Todd Hurt had been told the pastors wanted to be arrested, and the shoulder taps were the signal identifying those who wanted to be arrested.
Barnes said none of the religious leaders wanted to be arrested, and "most of them didn't even think they were arrested."
Rather than calling him the prosecutor, Barnes referred to Richardson as "a government lawyer" at least 20 times during his 25-minute closing argument.
He acknowledged most lawyers wouldn't ask for a jury trial on misdemeanor charges, but "this case is a very big deal. This is the kind of case that asks you what it means to be a citizen of the United States of America.
"This is the kind of case that asks you what kind of country, what kind of state, what kind of county do you wish to live in?"
State Rep. Brandon Ellington, D-Kansas City and chairman of the Missouri Legislative Black Caucus, said in a statement late Wednesday: "Under (the) verdict, daring to challenge the powerful on behalf of the powerless with nothing more than prayer and song is a crime.
"This was a purely political prosecution that never should have been brought, and its result must be overturned on appeal if freedom is to be more than just a concept and constitutional rights more than mere words on a page."
Neither Richardson nor defense attorneys Barnes, Randall Barnes and Rod Chapel would comment on the verdicts Wednesday because the case isn't over.
Previous coverage:
Medicaid 22 trial could end Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2016
'Medicaid 23' go on trial today, Aug. 16, 2016
'Rally for dignity' disrupts Senate; 23 arrested in Medicaid demonstration, May 7, 2014