Judge overturns W.Va. Rainbow Family convictions

A federal judge has overturned the nearly 5-year-old illegal assembly convictions of eight members of the Rainbow Family of Living Light, ruling a magistrate’s makeshift courtroom in the Monongahela National Forest inadvertently denied the defendants the ability to effectively appeal. U.S. District Judge Robert Maxwell said it’s clear U.S. Magistrate John Kaull “was sincerely trying to help” by holding onsite hearings in the summer of 2005, sparing the itinerant campers the need to hitchhike 70 miles to a federal courtroom in Elkins. But the lack of a transcriptionist and decent sound recording produced an incomplete record of what transpired, and that “had the unintended effect of denying each of the defendant’s right to a meaningful appeal,” Maxwell ruled last week. “The court simply cannot imagine a case where a better argument could be made that counsel’s ability to identify issues for their clients’ appeals was significantly prejudiced,” he wrote...read more