Arrested Student Given Probation

A Harvard undergraduate who was facing possible jail time was given probation in a ruling that he called “essentially a victory.”

Last Wednesday, a judge ruled that Aaron K. Tanaka ’04 receive 30 days of administrative probation, but said that Tanaka had already served the punishment retroactively through time spent awaiting trial.

Tanaka and 12 local demonstrators were arrested last June in a protest against proposed state budget cuts outside the Massachusetts State House.

The protestors’ two-day trial began on Feb. 10. Tanaka, fearing a sentence of up to 30 days in jail, e-mailed his friends and asked them to come to the courtroom on Wednesday to show their support. Over half a dozen students answered Tanaka’s request.

Michael A. Gould-Wartofsky ’07, co-founder of Harvard Progressive Advocacy Group with Tanaka, said that he went to the courtroom on Wednesday to show his “solidarity as a friend.”

“He is someone who has been essential to the [social justice] movement at Harvard for a long time,” Gould-Wartofsky said.

According to Tanaka, the judge at first said he would be willing to reduce his sentence if Tanaka would plead guilty.

Tanaka said he and his fellow protestors used a “necessity defense” during the trial. They claimed that they had broke the law because they were faced with an “imminent threat”—namely that the budget cuts were a direct threat to the protestors and those with whom they worked.

Before his June arrest, Tanaka, along with a group of about 300 demonstrators, held a press conference to “highlight the impending harm of the budget cuts,” according to Tanaka.

Tanaka said he feared that these cuts would harm low-income families in the state.

After the press conference, Tanaka and 12 other protestors led the group to an area just outside the Massachusetts House of Representatives deliberation chamber.

Tanaka said the group wanted to talk to state representatives and decided to stay until they received attention from policymakers.

According to Tanaka, that did not happen.

“There was no recognition and state police was there to make sure we would be out of the sight of legislators,” he said.

State police told the protestors that if they did not leave the building by 6 p.m., they would be arrested for trespassing.

Most of the crowd left, but Tanaka and a dozen protestors—including Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner ‘63 and other Boston residents—remained past the deadline. The police then arrested them for criminal trespassing.

In the final ruling, all the protestors were put on administrative probation, but the judge ruled that they had already but the judge ruled that they had already served this probation before the start of the trial.

The protestors were free to go.

At a press conference yesterday, the protestors “announced [their] victory and reaffirmed their commitment” to the cause, Tanaka said.

“We wanted to thank others for working on this and I hope this trial and our win will continue to energize the statewide movement,” Tanaka said.

—Staff writer Hera A. Abbasi can be reached at abbasi@fas.harvard.edu