LITMIR.BIZ

      2. Did the defendants violate the Anti-Riot Act by using interstate commerce with the intent to incite a riot and by committing at least one overt act to promote a riot?

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      The jury found five defendants guilty of the charge. The U.S. court of appeals reversed that decision because of errors by the trial judge but found that some of the evidence might be sufficient for conviction if the government chose to retry the five persons in individual trials.

      The indictment charged David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Bobby Seale with individual violations of the Anti-Riot Act. The indictment specified evidence of intent prior to interstate travel and evidence of overt acts by which each of the six defendants incited a riot during the convention week in Chicago. Seale’s case was separated from the others by Judge Hoffman, and the remaining five defendants charged with intent to incite a riot were found guilty by the jury.

      The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed the convictions, but concluded that the evidence presented for each defendant might reasonably be interpreted by a jury as proof of guilt. In their detailed review of the evidence against each defendant, the three judges who heard the appeal found that the evidence of overt acts of inciting a riot was clearer than the evidence of an earlier intent to incite a riot. One of the judges did not find any reasonable evidence of earlier intent in the case of Dellinger. The court of appeals judges did not conclude that any of the defendants was guilty, only that a jury might determine guilt or innocence based on the evidence presented at the original trial.

      The court of appeals left for the government the option to retry any or all of the defendants, but the court commented on several issues that were likely to arise in a new trial. The court of appeals dismissed the defendants’ claim that the testimony of undercover policemen violated their constitutional rights, and it denied that defendants had a right to address the jury. In a decision that may have convinced the government not to retry, the court of appeals, citing a recent Supreme Court decision, said that in any further proceedings, the defendants had a right to review logs of the government’s electronic surveillance of them and a right to a hearing to determine if evidence obtained through that surveillance violated the defendants’ constitutional rights.

      On January 4, 1973, Attorney General Richard Kleindienst announced that the government would not retry any of the defendants on the charge of intent to incite a riot.