Pat Dollard

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Newser:

Ten Muslim students broke the law by shouting down a speech by an Israeli diplomat at the University of California, Irvine in a carefully drafted and executed plan that flouted repeated calls to behave by campus officials, a prosecutor said Monday.

Defense attorneys countered that students acted within the law when they stood up, one by one, and read from pre-scripted statements and never intended to halt Ambassador Michael Oren from speaking about U.S.-Israel relations.

Attorneys delivered closing arguments in the case that has stoked a spirited debate about free speech not just in the courtroom but in the affluent suburban community south of Los Angeles.

Many of the facts of the case are not in dispute: The students carefully planned their February 2010 protest and were escorted out by security officials.

Jurors in the case will be asked to decide whether students broke the law or were exercising a right to demonstrate freely.

The students face misdemeanor charges of conspiring to disrupt a meeting and disrupting a meeting. If convicted, they could face sentences ranging from probation with community service and fines to a year in jail.

The case also raised questions about prosecutorial discretion, with some members of the public calling the trial a waste of taxpayers’ money. Other community members have said the defendants were being singled out because they are Muslim.

In his closing argument, prosecutor Dan Wagner told jurors the students acted as censors to block the free flow of ideas and infringed on the rights of 700 people who had gone to the campus that evening to hear Oren. He said emails among members of the Muslim Student Union showed students were aware they could be arrested before the protest.

“The right to free speech is not absolute,” Wagner said before a packed courtroom of more than 180 people in Orange County, with more observers waiting outside. “If hecklers’ vetoes were allowed, then nobody, nobody, none of us would have the right to free speech.”