Caltrans Case Against Tree Sitter Dismissed

10th June Long-stand­ing tres­pass charges against Mark Her­bert, aka “Fal­con,” who perched in an old oak tree in April, 2013, above the hill west of High­way 101 that Cal­trans is now exca­vat­ing for soil to con­struct the much-protest­ed Willits Bypass, where he observed and report­ed on devel­op­ments, were dis­missed entire­ly on May 29th by Judge Ann Moor­man in Uki­ah Supe­ri­or Court. Fal­con was charged with tres­pass 602K, “enter­ing any lands, whether unen­closed or enclosed by fence, 1) for the pur­pose of injur­ing any prop­er­ty or prop­er­ty rights or with the inten­tion of inter­fer­ing with a law­ful busi­ness…”

The Dis­trict Attor­ney told the court that no one had sub­poe­naed the CHP offi­cer from the Spe­cial Weapons and Tac­tics unit who super­vised the arrest of Her­bert, the wit­ness who was sup­posed to tes­ti­fy. Unlike oth­er tree sit­ters, includ­ing War­bler, the young woman whose orig­i­nal tree sit sparked the Bypass protests, Her­bert was not extract­ed by force, but agreed to come down when request­ed to do so.

Herbert’s attor­ney, Ed Den­son, said “Judge Moor­man indi­cat­ed the case was almost a year old and she dis­missed it. The CHP inves­ti­ga­tion was very per­func­to­ry and it should have been clear to the inves­ti­gat­ing offi­cer that Her­bert had com­mit­ted no crime. The evi­dence shows that no inten­tion on Herbert’s part to inter­fere with any law­ful busi­ness or occu­pa­tion. “

Den­son elab­o­rat­ed: “Herbert’s case dif­fered from that of all the oth­er tree sit­ters, but the CHP failed to note that. Their report said his tree was north of 101, but the videos clear­ly show it was on a hill well south of 101 out of the con­struc­tion area. No one from Cal­trans or the CHP had even come to his site to ask him to come down until the day he was arrest­ed by a team of 24 offi­cers. He then vol­un­tar­i­ly descend­ed from the tree. It was clear that his pur­pose in doing the tree sit was to be a wit­ness to the events occur­ring across the high­way dur­ing the CHP block­ade of the media pre­vent­ing report­ing on the extrac­tion of the sit­ters. Her­bert was a spokesper­son for the effort to save the val­ley while the oth­ers were pre­vent­ed from con­tact with the pub­lic. Had the CHP thought things through, the tax­pay­ers could have saved thou­sands of dol­lars.”

The D.A. had almost a year to pre­pare and still was not ready to pros­e­cute the case. A ral­ly to sup­port Her­bert and fel­low activist Will Par­rish was held on the cour­t­house steps at noon. Par­rish, who writes for the Ander­son Val­ley Adver­tis­er, stopped work on the Cal­trans Bypass for more than eleven days last June and July by occu­py­ing a wick drain tow­er on the north end of the project, lead­ing final­ly to his arrest and the arrests of sev­er­al oth­er activists try­ing to sup­ply him with food and water denied him by CHP offi­cers on site.

Parrish’s hear­ing on resti­tu­tion demand­ed by Cal­trans in the amount of $150,000 has been post­poned to July 17. Assis­tant Dis­trict Attor­ney Sequiera said the case has become con­fus­ing and he is insist­ing now that Cal­trans sup­ply their own lawyer to appear in court on the case, which will also be over a year old by the time of the hear­ing.