With two new attorneys needing to review over 85,000 pages of documents and hundreds of hours of recordings, the U.S. v. Harrison Jack case was continued until March 15, 2010, 11:00 a.m. for another statuts conference. Any renewed motion to dismiss is not expected to be filed before then. NY Times Photo of 10/5/09 Sac Fed Courthouse Rally
The new indictment omitted Vang Pao, legendary leader of a CIA-sponsored guerrilla army of Hmong and Iu Mien soldiers that fought Southeast Asian communists for 14 years, as the above-the-title defendant.
Energized by Vang's dismissal, several hundred demonstrators staged a three-hour rally Monday in front of Sacramento's federal courthouse, chanting, "What do we want? Case dismissed! When do we want it? Now!"
Some of the loudest voices belonged to 60 Burbank High School students who skipped morning classes to support what they said is long-overdue recognition of the Hmong who gave their lives fighting alongside American forces during the Vietnam War.
"We've been waiting for a hecka lot of years and we have to take a stand," said Sia Her, 15.
In the courtroom, San Francisco attorney James Brosnahan, representing Youa True Vang, and federal Defender Daniel Broderick, representing retired Army Lt. Col. Harrison Jack, got their digs in at the prosecution over Vang's dismissal.
Brosnahan pointed out that the evidence against Vang consisted mainly of sworn statements by an undercover agent describing the only recorded meeting Vang attended at which the coup was discussed. Transcripts of that meeting do not reflect discussion the agent attributed to Vang in the affidavits.
The special agent, working for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was posing as a black market arms dealer anxious to support the Laos insurgency by selling his wares. Much of the case against the 12 remaining defendants also hinges on the agent's reports.
Vang's dismissal is "an undercutting of this agent, whose assertions against Vang Pao were not on tape," Brosnahan said.
Broderick told Damrell the defense now has transcripts of translated telephone conversations that were wiretapped in June 2007, two days before the initial charges in a criminal complaint. The transcripts show that Vang Pao had emphatically told Hmong leaders the coup was "a no go. This ain't gonna happen," Broderick said.
