After viewing a videotape of the incident at the December 14 hearing, Municipal Court Judge William Austin Meehan dropped charges against six other defendants, including a 72-year-old grandmother. A juvenile defendant awaits separate court action.
Including the juvenile there are 5 people who still have charges pending.
I see all of this is Dec news and not Jan news..sorry for the error.
"After viewing a videotape of the incident at the December 14 hearing, Municipal Court Judge William Austin Meehan dropped charges against six other defendants, including a 72-year-old grandmother. A juvenile defendant awaits separate court action.
Including the juvenile there are 5 people who still have charges pending.
"
No longer. The first part of the article involves the dropping of charges for the four other adults. Charges were dropped on Dec. 14 for the other six.
The juvenile will be handled in juvenile court, where his charges will no doubt be dropped too.
Again:
FACT: Charges against 6 of the defendants were dropped on December 14.
FACT: Charges against the other 4 adults were dropped in another courtroom later.
FACT: The juvenile's charges will be dealt with in juvenile court, and will no doubt be dropped as well.
This incident is now over, as far as the legal system is concerned. They never should have been arrested in the first place, and now they are no longer charged.
You have to read the entire article, which first says that charges were dropped against four defendants. Later it says that charges against ANOTHER 6 defendants were dropped on 12/14. The juvenile is the only one left.
After reading the article from the 5th, I was wondering about the juvenile. Now apparently there are 4 others still with charges pending! What kind of reporting did that "Christian Post" do anyway? The way their article is written, one comes away thinking this is all over, basically.
Thanks for posting this! Not until every person involved is completely cleared, and the irresponsible DA's brought up for malicious prosecution, should this story die here on FR.
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/1/42005a.asp
I remember seeing this ..
'Philly 4' Case Hits Prime Time with O'Reilly
Attorney for Christians Calls Incident Clear Case of 'Anti-Christian Bigotry'
By Ed Thomas and Jody Brown
snip
The AFA attorney implied much is at stake in the case. "Forty-seven years in prison for preaching the gospel?" he asked. "This is a historic case. This is the natural evolution of the systematic removal of the symbols of Christianity from the public square."
According to Volz, the eleven Christians were arrested in October not for preaching the gospel, but for refusing to abide by the rules established by local law enforcement authorities. He stated he did not expect the maximum sentence to be handed down. "They might get six to twelve months probation," he said. "Nobody's going to jail for 47 years."
Fahling says his group is planning to ask for an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into the case.