The following material is written by the National Lawyers Guild of Los Angeles and can be downloaded from their website or from this website.
The information should be helpful to you and your affinity group as you prepare to engage in civil disobedience. However, you should also be aware that the material was written for Los Angeles, California. Therefore, some of the material will not apply to you. This is especially true of that information which discusses potential penalties for crimes. For example, page 3 cites the provisions of California state law for damage to property which obviously would not apply to a person charged with damaging property in Illinois or Wisconsin.
You should consult with a local attorney, or others experienced in civil disobedience in your area, for information on how the legal system works in your particular area. If you do not know an attorney, you may want to look for a local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild .
You can also research possible charges of trespass, disorderly conduct, etc.—as well as the potential sentences—in your home community. You will want to research possible federal charges, as well as possible state, county or city charges. Usually, wherever there’s a courthouse, there’s a law library which is publicly accessible and which will have legal reference materials available. Often you can find this legal information on the internet.
If you have questions about how to research possible criminal charges, feel free to contact the Occupation Project, or 773-878-3815. We’re not attorneys by any means (though many of us have been through the legal process numerous times) though we may be able to assist you with researching possible charges in a civil disobedience action. But the best source will always be a local attorney or others who’ve engaged in civil disobedience and know the process from the inside out.
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