BOSTON, Feb. 8, 2013—Prosecutors today resolved the remaining 24 cases stemming from a protracted 2011 protest on the Rose Kennedy Greenway, including five that were previously scheduled to go to trial next week, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

Paperwork formally terminating prosecution in those cases was filed this morning in the Boston Municipal Court after the defendants – who had been offered similar dispositions shortly after their October 2011 and December 2011 arrests but insisted upon criminal trials, only to file motions to dismiss the charges – completed more than a year of abiding by certain restrictions imposed by the court during their arraignments at prosecutors’ request. The defendants had been charged with unlawful assembly, trespassing, or both.

Those conditions and that span of time are close to or exceed the period of pre-trial probation imposed upon many protesters whose cases have already been resolved. In terminating the cases today, prosecutors achieved the same desired outcome for these defendants as they had for about half of those whose cases were resolved in 2011 and 2012; the other half agreed with prosecutors’ requests to amend their criminal cases to civil proceedings.

In making their determination to resolve the defendants’ cases today, prosecutors considered the dispositions of about 120 similar cases arising out of the Greenway encampment, the interests of the administration of justice and judicial economy, the resources of their own offices, and the gravity of these cases relative to those involving firearm violations, violent crime, and other offenses also pending in the BMC.

–30–

All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.