Seven activists facing felony charges for blocking traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge in a pro-Palestine protest in 2024 got a win in court on Tuesday: Judge Teresa Caffese held that the word “genocide” could be used in the trial, despite District Attorney Brooke Jenkins’ attempt to bar the word from the courtroom.
This pretrial motion mirrors one in a similar 2025 trial, in which five pro-Palestine protesters at Stanford University were also charged with conspiracy. The judge presiding over that case similarly permitted the use of the word genocide.
Caffese, who is overseeing the Golden Gate Bridge trial, also held Tuesday that keffiyeh scarves, which are often worn to signal solidarity with Palestinians, could be worn in the courtroom. The DA sought to prohibit articles of clothing intended to influence jurors, which Caffese granted; The keffiyeh, however, will not be considered such an article.
The judge also gave another small win to the defendants Wednesday, saying in a tentative ruling that likes on social media posts could not be admitted into evidence.
“A like can mean many things,” Caffese said, while maintaining that social media activity may be admitted into evidence later in the trial if relevant.
The defendants welcomed the judge’s rulings.
“Suppressing the word ‘genocide’ would set an extremely dangerous precedent,” said Manan Kocher, who serves as a spokesperson for the bridge protesters. Kocher was one of the 26 protesters arrested that day and charged by Jenkins. Kocher’s charges were diverted, and seven defendants with felony cases remain.
In an email after publication, the DA’s office emphasized that it “did not drop charges against Kocher.” Rather, “The court offered Kocher diversion and, upon successful completion of the terms the court laid out, the court dismissed Kocher’s case.”
“The DA is trying to keep any indication of what is happening in Gaza, what is happening in Palestine, out of this case,” Kocher said.
District Attorney Jenkins has brought the book down on the defendants: Six are facing up to 14 years in prison, and one a maximum of 15 years, for felony conspiracy charges and a litany of misdemeanors, including “false imprisonment.”
The Golden Gate Bridge earlier had also sought $163,000 in restitution from the group, a demand that was subsequently dropped.
Other pro-Palestine protesters have faced similarly harsh measures: 35-year-old Casey Goonan, a doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley, was sentenced to 20 years behind bars in 2025 for a string of arsons targeting a police car and government buildings.
Much of the hearing Wednesday was spent deliberating over the DA’s motion to exclude all nine of the defendants’ expert witnesses from the trial, which has not started yet, but will once a jury is selected later this month.
Among the defense’s expert witnesses: A genocide scholar, a journalist who has reported from Gaza, a surgeon who worked in Gaza, and two employees of the U.S. Department of State.
Assistant District Attorney Angela Roze argued that most of the expert witnesses were not relevant to the case, and that testimony from the doctor would be “would be extremely inflammatory to the jury.”
The defense team — seven lawyers, each representing one of the seven defendants — disagreed.
Defense attorney Shaffy Moeel said State Department testimony would be “crucial” in providing a “behind-the-scenes view” that the American government was committing crimes in the Middle East, which influenced the protesters to take action that day.
Public defender Anthony Gedeon later said that those witnesses were being called in an attempt to prove that the United States violated its own law, not international law — a key element of the defense.
Defense attorney John Viola invited the court to think of the war in Gaza as a fire, and U.S. aid to Israel as fuel. Blocking the Golden Gate Bridge that day, he said, was part of an economic blockade with the intent of “stopping the flow of arms and aid and assistance to Israel in perpetrating these war crimes.”
But despite the defense’s attempts to widen the scope of discussion, Judge Caffese made clear she would seek to stick to the alleged crimes themselves.
She did not rule on the motion to exclude the witnesses, and instead said witnesses could be called upon if relevant, but made it clear it was highly unlikely all nine would be admitted. She advised the defense to whittle the list down, saying that they might be allowed just one.
“This is not the forum for a discussion or trial about foreign policy,” Caffese said.
Jenkins would do well in the thought police though she seems to have problems thinking about things any larger than her personal career.
Trying to stop the word genocide is ridiculous and makes Jenkins look terrible.
Let the defense try to say that blocking a bridge for an hour would somehow stop the flow of arms. That is even more insane and the jurors would likely laugh at them.
More generally the term “genocide” is not helpful or constructive in any debate about Israel. It signifies that the utterer is taking the Arab side of that dispute. It denotes bias in much the same way as referring to Arabs as “terrorists” is unhelpful.
I doubt that any discussion of the land dispute going on in that region will resolve anything as long as people are spraying such pejorative terms around.
To your other point, yes, blocking the bridge and harming ordinary people who have no say in foreign affairs is pointless, petulant and therefore should be punished. The jury should look at the actions of the mob and not turn the trial into an ideological debate. In a very real sense, it doesn’t matter what they were protesting. It is their actions that are criminal.
You reference Palestinians by their race and charge bias because you seek to muddy the waters. What matters is if the accusation of genocide is true or not. “Land dispute” is a whitewash.
Why is it OK for you to label the conflict “genocide” but it is not OK to label the conflict as a land dispute?
There has to be some semblance of accuracy and truth, but when it comes to Israel, the focus is often narrative to shape perception. We’re not talking why here, we’re talking what. I wouldn’t describe October 7th as a “land dispute” because it doesn’t capture the truth, ie is not accurate. It was an attack meant to cause mayhem and murder with a goal of taking hostages. Conversely, what Israel inflicted on Gaza post-10/7 should reflect that Israel’s two year assault was meant to mass kill, mass displace, and destroy Gaza. Fine by me if that is conveyed in a way that omits the word “genocide,” but “land dispute” ain’t it.
There is no debate that Palestinian Genocide by Israel with Western enablement has been taking place for the last 2 1/2 years. This is not a position of taking sides. It is fact. No amount of word dancing will ever change that. We all need to own it and correct it. It is immoral, illegal and repugnant.
That’s opinion, not fact, and asserts not taking sides when taking a side, and claims it’s based on fact and that contrary evidence is mere word dancing. Any court trial must properly include unbiased consideration of competing positions. All supporters of political dissenters on trial for possibly crossing boundaries of dissent might themselves possibly consider allowing room for healthy fair dissent. To be zealously antiwar allows for other peaceful antiwar opinions. It doesn’t help the cause of peaceful dissent to dismissively gaslight other peaceful dissenters and their factual evidence as just word-dancing. Or, if you’re a hater with a peace mask, words like “genocide,” AIPAC, apartheid, colonial, and theocracy are this generation’s popular Jewish-targeting weapons.
While the deliberate blocking of roadways is indeed petulant and warrants punishment, whether the use of certain words is constructive or illuminating is the burden of those employing the terms. There are a few sides to this dispute, and the use of the term “Arab” comes across as a monolithic catchall, without specificity or precision. The optics of an elected DA would seek to regulate speech of those she’s prosecuting seems petty and desperate.
“Other pro-Palestine protesters have faced similarly harsh measures… sentenced to 20 years behind bars for a string of arsons targeting a police car and government buildings.”
This is antithetical to legitimate protest and the exercise of constitutional rights. To equate an arsonist with a “protester” is dangerous and offensive. Arson is not a protected form of protest. Neither is blocking the GG bridge for 4+ hours
Whether or not blocking a bridge for a few hours is a good way of bringing attention to the genocide, yes, genocide, because that’s what it is and whitewashing it won’t help the situation, is a different discussion than whether it’s a good use of county resources to try to send 7 peaceful protestors without criminal records to prison for 15 years for inconveniencing some people. Civil disobedience is designed to be inconvenient for the population. It’s designed to attract attention. But this is the first time in recent memory that the DA’s office has prosecuted peaceful protestors. And it’s sooooo obvious why -this DA puts her career first and foremost and she’s out there on her knees begging for more of that yummy AIPAC money… cause she thinks she’s the next Kamala… ugh, vomit.
It does more than bring attention while “inconveniencing some people” and does (and should) have consequences, even if sometimes severe. Whether one describes them as peaceful precisely is subjective and feels like a fig leaf or absolution. Many will disagree.
The AIPAC reference lapses into the realm of antisemitism, and that hurts general opposition to DA Jenkins.
It does not lapse into antisemitism unless one thinks of AIPAC as a ‘Jewish lobby’ group as opposed to a political one. Opposition to Jenkins and her offices policies is multi faceted and myriad.
To the defendants, I would say thank you for your civil disobedience (CD). CD has a long proud tradition, but it comes with the penalty. MLK’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” would not have earned him a Nobel written from a hotel lobby.
To the jurors, I would say there is also a long proud tradition of juror nullification when jurors see the greater justice issue, not articulable by the legal defense.
MLK had supporters posting up at the jail around the clock making sure he was not murdered and rallying for his release. The letter is of course a quality philosophical missive on civil disobedience, but practically MLK took a straight-forward approach and pled not-guilty, going to court with his lawyers in an attempt to secure rights and his personal freedom. You didn’t do it, but too often it is said that MLK was willing to accept whatever punishment came his way as he expressed in the letter that one needs to “willingly accept the penalty”, but that’s largely bullshit and the philosophy needs to be parsed from the reality.