Orange County court reverses conviction of alleged anarchist

AP ^ | 12/30/4

[SmithL]

SANTA ANA -- A state appeals court has reversed the conviction of a Long Beach man who authorities said was an anarchist who planned to use gas bombs to disrupt an Aryan Nation celebration of Adolf Hitler's birthday nearly three years ago.

A three-member panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal found that an Orange County trial court should have allowed Matthew Gordon Lamont to challenge the search of the car in which he was a passenger during the arrest.

In the ruling issued Tuesday, the panel found that a passenger -- not just the driver -- has the right to claim Fourth Amendment protection against illegal search and seizure during a traffic stop.

The lawyer for the California Attorney General who represented the state, Roberta Davis, declined to comment Thursday, saying she was still evaluating the decision.

Attorney Edward A. Hoffman, who represented Lamont, said the attorney general's office is likely to appeal to the state Supreme Court, because of conflicting rulings on this legal question and a high degree of interest in the issue.

After the trial court ruled that Lamont could not challenge the evidence found in the search, he pleaded no contest in April 2003 to charges that included possessing a destructive device. He was sentenced to three years in prison and has since been released, Hoffman said.

Lamont was an environmental activists who participated tree-sitting protests against logging in Santa Cruz County in 2001. The following year, police in Long Beach had him under surveillance as an alleged member of the Southern Kalifornia Anarchist Alliance.

[SmithL]

There is nobody to like here.

[konaice]

the panel found that a passenger -- not just the driver -- has the right to claim Fourth Amendment protection against illegal search and seizure during a traffic stop.

I doubt this will stand up. Simply riding in a car does not give you ownership there of.

[flashbunny]

It's like the iran and iraq war: The kind you wish that both sides would lose.

[rdcorso]

It's too bad that he didn't get the bomb to the Klan's location without being stopped.It would have been nice if he tripped while trying to avoid a colony of ants and got turned into a flaming idiot along with his intended victims.

[Woodworker]

Neither the KKK, the Aryan Nation, nor the Southern Kalifornia Anarchist Alliance have the grim perseverance of the Muslim suicide (i.e., homicide) bomber, more's the pity!

[weegee]

"A state appeals court has reversed the conviction of a Long Beach man who authorities said was an anarchist..."

Actually the appeals court has reversed the conviction of a man who a JUDGE and possibly JURY said was an anarchist. "Authorities" just accused him.

[SmithL]

I like the way you think.

[1_Inch_Group]

LOL

Anarchy vs. Klan
Cage Matches!