Does budget come into this discussion at all? If the charges are dropped, I'm sure Occupy will shout that it's because the DA knew they had no merit. But does the DA's office even have the budget to go through with 70+ full trials, no matter how strong they think their cases are?

And how much would 70+ jury trials cost the city?

"legal council"

"says lawyers"

"there's a good possibly"

Christ.

Congrats to Albrecht for sticking to her guns. I don't agree with darn near anything Occupy does, but individuals deserve their day in court, and it's extra bullshit that the DA is trying some end-around to get past the decision.

On the other hand, the quote "There’s no difference between what we did and what happen during the Boston Tea Party." is:

a) moronic
b) probably not an event you want to equate your actions to if you believe you didn't commit a crime
c) either Whitten thinks the Boston Tea Party is "happen" right now, or there's yet another typo in this post.

There is no difference between what happened during Occupy Portland and the Boston Tea Party. Civil disobedience = symbolically breaking laws to express a higher moral good. It's the same pattern with Civil Rights Activists throughout history. Martin Luther King Jr. went to jail. Gandhi got beaten up a bunch. Look at the WTO protests. These People all broke laws for a greater cause they believed in. Some of it cost their respective governments money, and that's because we've got a tyrannical governmental system that is designed to maintain the status quo, not to be equitable and progressive. So yes, Occupiers have practiced the original patriotic spirit of the America, by adamantly stepping up to fight corruption and apathy.