Courting a little justice

Refusing to fall for the now-standard ploy of holding protesters, in this case at the RNC, on any excuse until after the action is over,

[New York] State Supreme Court Justice John Cataldo ordered 470 protesters freed, including some who had been awaiting arraignment for almost three days.

"These people have already been the victims of a process," the judge told the city's top lawyer. "I can no longer accept your statement that you are trying to comply." ...

The judge's order came less than six hours before Bush was to accept his party's nomination for a second term in a speech at Madison Square Garden. Police are expecting potential protests coinciding with the speech.

The city had been offering the lame excuse that the number of arrests - over 1,700 - had caused delays and backups. Somehow, after all the preparations for preventing and controlling demonstrations, after all the breathless predictions of mass disruptions, after all the dark references to "anarchists" in a way that equated anarchism will hedonistic destruction, the idea that the city was unprepared to deal with processing those arrested is rather hard to buy. And apparently, the judge didn't buy it. Good.