Into the Valley
of Heavy Metal
Kids — Def Leppard
lights the way.
Page 6
Oregon doily
emerald
Thursday, August 4, 1983
Eugene, Oregon
Volume 85, Number 13
Court overturns RCYB arson conviction
By Joan Herman
Of tha Emerald
The Oregon Supreme Court
overturned Tuesday the 1981
arson conviction of Revolu
tionary Communist Youth
Brigade member Nancy
Whitley of Eugene because
the incident, in which she and
another RCYB member burned
a gasoline-drenched yellow
ribbon, did not involve
destroying property of any
value.
The first-degree arson
statute, under which Whitley,
32, was convicted, requires
that the fire must damage pro
perty that in turn places
another person or property in
danger, said Jim Nass, legal
counsel to the Oregon
Supreme Court.
The Key to the Supreme
Court’s decision is that the
prosecution failed to prove the
yellow rag that Whitley and
fellow RCYB member John
Kaiser burned had any value,
Nass said.
Kaiser and Whitley original
ly were convicted by a jury of
first-degree arson for setting a
yellow cloth on fire at a Feb. 9,
1981 speech by former Iranian
hostage Victor Tomseth in the
EMU ballroom, which was
packed with more than 1,000
people. In the past, the RCYB
had accused Tomseth of being
a CIA spy and called the burn
ing a “symbolic political
statement.
Kaiser, 26, died Jan. 3 of
viral encephylitis while
visiting his family in Nevada.
His case is still pending
before the Supreme Court.
The reversal was a "victory,
but a forced victory,” said
Whitley at an informal press
conference outside Lane
County District Court in
downtown Eugene Tuesday
afternoon. “You can consider
we’ve been successful and
climbed the ladder of the
system, but when this ladder
is crumbling in great
economic and political crisis, I
don’t think you can call it a vic
tory on legal terms, she said.”
In reversing the conviction,
the Supreme Court noted that
Whitley might have been guil
ty of a lesser crime of reckless
endangerment, Nass said, yet
because she was not charged
originally with that crime, she
can’t be convicted of it.
Whitley's defense attorney
Mike Phillips was “disap
pointed the reversal took that
long and we had to go that
far,” but he’s not surprised at
the result. “All the question
ing and oral argument sug
gested this outcome, so I
guess I’m not real surprised,”
Phillips said in a phone inter
view Tuesday afternoon.
The ribbon burning “was
never arson to begin with. Ar
son requires burning of
something of substance. They
(the prosecution) tried to con
vert a reckless act into a very
serious charge,” Phillips said.
Although the case had
“strong political overtones,”
Phillips doesn’t think the con
viction was politically
Photo by Mark Pynes
FtCYB member Nancy Whitley (in white t-shirt) talks to members of the Eugene media on the steps
of District Courthouse Tuesday afternoon only hours after the Oregon Supreme Court overturned
her 1981 conviction for arson.
motivated.
Whitley disagreed, stating
the conviction had been a
“political railroad from start to
finish against John Kaiser,
myself and the RCYB. There’s
absolutely no evidence for a
felony conviction and I think
the State knows that.”
In the original conviction,
Lane County Circuit Court
Judge George Woodrich gave
the ‘yellow ribbon burners’ a
suspended sentence of two
years of unsupervised proba
tion, 10 days in jail and 80
hours of community service.
He also ordered them to pay
their court costs and $35
restitution each.
Whitley and Kaiser appeal
ed the verdict to the Oregon
Court of Appeals, which ruled
Dec. 29, 1982, to uphold the
convictions.
Whitley and other RCYB
members then took their case
to the Oregon Supreme Court
June 7. During the hearing,
Chief Justice Berkeley Lent
fined two other RCYB
members $100 for unfurling a
banner that disrupted the
court proceedings, Lent said.
Claire Cheng, 24, and Beverly
Hubbard, 36, both of Eugene,
ignored Lent’s request to put
the banner away. Lent also
reprimanded Whitley who ap
proached the bench during the
hearing and handed him a
Continued on Page 7
‘Must we strike?’ asks employees’ union
“We gave back our raises — We
won’t give up our rights, ” read one sign
of an Oregon Public Employee Member
picketing to make the University com
munity aware of the conflict between
the OPEU and the state of Oregon.
The members of the OPEU, in
cluding about 800 University classified
staff, have been working without a con
tract since July 1. In a vote on July 21-22,
the members of the OPEU overwhelm
ingly voted to reject the state’s last
offer.
The union will take a strike
authorization vote on Aug. 16-17, unless
significant progress is made at the
negotiating table, according to Donna
Glathar, a University staff member who
is on the negotiating team for the OPEU.
Photo by Mark Pynes
Business school account
gets clean bill of health
By Debbie Howlett
Of th« Emerald
A special fund in the University’s business school which
has been under investigation by the Lane County district at
torney’s office since February was given a clean bill of legal
health Monday.
The business school had set up a non-profit corporation
with money collected from seminars to pay the expenses of
those seminars. The $143,000 fund was discovered during a
routine University audit. University officials questioned the ac
count’s propriety. So did the county’s district attorney.
The fund, under the title “Business Seminars of Oregon,”
had been used to pay for instructors, special printing, and other
expenses of the seminars.
“Business Seminars of Oregon will operate in a contractual
capacity with the University as it has operated in the past,"
James Reinmuth, dean of the business school told the Eugene
Register-Guard.
Reinmuth was unavailable for further comment
Wednesday.
District Attorney Pat Horton opened the investigation to
check the legalities of the fund after the audit. There were no
violations of federal or state law, said Horton.
"There’s a distinct difference between saying our depart
ment endorses the account.. and a more precise answer, that
there were no provable allegations of illegality,” Horton
said.
The account, and the special seminars, were essentially
frozen until the investigation was complete.
Horton said the account may have broken some University
administrative rules in its implementation and use, but he refus
ed to elaborate.
“I do not want to comment on some of the improprieties
that might be in violation of administrative rules," Horton said.