Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner said the step signified the best approach to serve justice against the eight activists, accused of plotting to violently disrupt September's Republican National Convention.
The RNC 8 said the dropped terrorism counts signaled long-awaited relief after months spent pressuring Gaertner's office.
But despite the dropped charges, first leveled in December under Minnesota's version of the controversial PATRIOT Act, both sides still face a steep legal battle.
The dropped terrorism charges have changed the game, to be sure, but in whose favor is yet unclear.
In the cases against the RNC 8, the only certainty for both sides has been a historic outcome. However the charges end up - falling away, going to trial, marring the criminal records of eight young activists - will be momentous in the law enforcement and political organizing communities.
Political power play?
The RNC 8 each carry two felony charges for conspiracy to riot and damage property, which could bring significant prison time if convicted. Gaertner said she's confident her office can prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.
The prosecution team is burdened with proving that the activists, who after their preemptive arrests never actually made it to the RNC, intended violent interference, including kidnapping delegates and using explosives.
The activists and their allies have vowed to redouble the political pressure on Gaertner, also a DFL candidate for governor, until she lets the remaining charges go. The two felonies still carry a possibility of several years in prison upon conviction.
For the prosecution, the heat is off for filing charges against protesters based on an anti-terrorism statute passed in immediate reaction to 9/11.
Supporters of the RNC 8 ridiculed the statute and the charges, and the suggestion that the eight activists could live the rest of their lives labeled as terrorists - a powerful and troubling identifier in a post-9/11 world.
The RNC 8 could face a new kind of difficulty gaining support for their cause, at least compared to before. The terrorism counts sounded harsh and excessive to some, allowing the RNC 8 to wrangle skeptics to their side.
Without the terrorism counts, that support-generating distaste for the PATRIOT Act becomes substantially less relevant.
Dismissing those charges, Gaertner said, was done to avoid distracting jurors who might be put off by the word "terrorism."
Gaertner acknowledged that while the statute covers the alleged actions of the RNC 8, such cases likely weren't its express purpose.
Speculation swirled since Gaertner's office first tacked on the terrorism charges in December. Critics used the charges to bolster their argument that authorities had waged a war on dissent and political opposition.
Back then, the RNC 8 called the trumped-up charges a political power play, claiming they would be something for the gubernatorial hopeful to tout.
Now, the RNC 8 call the charges' dismissal a similar political move - this time, a response to mounting political pressure put on by RNC 8 supporters and specifically DFL voters.
"Originally they thought it made a much more glamorous prosecution," said Jordan Kushner , an attorney for RNC 8 member Luce Guillen-Givins . "At the end, it couldn't be politically justified, in part because it can't be legally justified."
But Gaertner, who says she's no stranger to critics who accuse her of playing politics, maintains that her aggressive prosecution of the RNC 8 is not only justified, but necessary.
The activists still face years in prison if convicted. Sentencing is unaffected by the dropped charges, Gaertner said.
"[People say] either we're too soft on criminals, or we're too harsh on criminals," she said, "but we just have to shut out that background noise and make the decisions that we think are right."
As for the claim that politics influenced the dismissal of terrorism charges, Gaertner said that's not the case.
"If the defendants' lawyers don't like this decision, I suspect it's because they realize it's good trial strategy that will help us achieve a successful result," she said.
The tactical element isn't lost on RNC 8 member and University of Minnesota student Max Specktor .
"They're playing the game, they're being more strategic with what they're charging us with," he said. "It makes me think that the prosecutors are more serious about this now because they're actually trying to make a case that isn't as ridiculous."
Disagreement about dissent?
Since their arrests more than seven months ago, the RNC 8 have claimed their surveillance, arrests, detainment and charges result from one thing: suppressing dissent.
The RNC 8 say law enforcement agencies targeted them for their anarchist views and political organizing leading up to the RNC.
They've consistently maintained that they never planned to hurt anyone or do anything illegal. Instead, they say, they had only been exercising their First Amendment rights to speech and assembly.
Attorney Kushner said the pending felony charges are baseless and clear evidence of the government's criminalizing dissent.
"They're not based on anything that anyone did," he said. "They're accused of conspiring to commit illegal acts and in reality they're being prosecuted for their political organizing activities."
In rallies outside Gaertner's campaign events and elsewhere, supporters of the RNC 8 have vilified officials they believe targeted them. And there's a sense among the activists that the method worked.
"Look what happened in the last four or five months of us putting pressure on her," RNC 8 member Rob Czernik said, referring to the dropped charges. "It obviously had an affect."
Until now, it was easy for the activists to highlight the shock value of the terrorism charges, which to the public could easily sound harsh and excessive.
And the RNC 8 certainly capitalized on that. They have traveled across the country to speak on college campuses --they plan to visit more later this month -- and have been featured in the national media, including an appearance on MSNBC last week.
But perhaps a bigger challenge lies ahead.
"We've been defining the charges based on the terrorism enhancement and now that's gone," Czernik said. "Hopefully people will realize they're charging us with the same stuff, just with different language."
Specktor said he's been trying to put a positive spin on things.
Now, he said, the focus of the activists' outcry can shift from the use of terrorism charges to the core issue of stifling dissent.
"Instead of saying what we did wasn't terrorism, we can say what we did wasn't a crime either," Specktor said.
An uncertain upshot
The prosecutors now continue to prepare their case.
The activists continue their push to drop the other charges and garner grassroots support.
And even with last week's significant dismissal of the terrorism charges, Czernik said the eight aren't getting ahead of themselves.
"It's too early to celebrate," he said. "This isn't the end game; this is just the opening salvos in a long, drawn-out chess match."
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