For Immediate Release
May 11, 2006
World Can’t Wait–Drive Out the Bush Regime
www.worldcantwait.org
Press contact: Cleveland,
216-633-6200 cleveland@worldcantwait.org
JUDGE ORDERS WORLD CAN’T WAIT ACTIVIST TO JAIL PSYCH UNIT
If you think Bush is Guilty of War Crimes, you are
Delusional.
May 10: Judge Timothy McGinty incarcerated an activist with
World Can’t Wait(Drive Out the Regime in the psych unit of the Cuyahoga County
Jail in downtown Cleveland, where she now sits for an indefinite period of
time.
On April 28, after a 5-day trial, Carol Fisher was found
guilty of 2 counts of assault on police officers for posting a sign on a
telephone pole announcing World Can’t Wait’s protests against Bush’s State of
the Union address. She faces a possible 3 years in prison and a mandatory psych
exam.
In a hastily called hearing on May 10, Judge McGinty made a
highly unusual decision to force Carol to undergo a state psychological exam as
part of her pre-sentencing investigation. From the start of Carol’s case, the
judge has said that she must have mental problems for resisting an unlawful and
brutal encounter with Cleveland
Heights police.
Terry Gilbert, one of Carol’s attorneys said, “This is
Gulag stuff–saying that people who are dissidents are crazy.” He said
that in his 33 years of practicing law, he has never seen anything like this.
The small courtroom on the 21st floor of the Justice Center was ringed with 5 armed court
bailiffs. McGinty started off the hearing by making Carol stand up and
had one of her attorneys read her t-shirt, which said: “Wanted for Illegally Crossing Borders:
The Bush Regime. If you are going to
insist that crossing borders illegally is a crime which cannot be tolerated, how
about George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice (and yes,
Colin Powell) and the rest of that gang, with their highly illegal, and
violent, ‘crossing of the border’-into Iraq, among other places?!”
McGinty then said this was further proof she is delusional.
He also kept saying Carol “wants” to go to jail because she is not
willing to comply with a vindictive court ordered test to “prove” her
sanity. When Carol tried to explain why she wouldn’t take this test, the
judge’s only response was, “I do not negotiate with felons.”
Before being shipped off to jail, Carol said, “I’d be
crazy to go along with this shit! That which you will not resist and
mobilize to stop, you will learn–or be forced–to accept.”
On the phone this morning from the psych unit, Carol Fisher said
that McGinty has taken away her eyeglasses and put her on “suicide watch.’
If she refuses the psych exam, she will be forcibly sent to North Coast Mental
Institute for a 20 day evaluation.
Legal challenges are continuing, including seeking a writ of
habeas corpus.