Last of Arizona immigration protesters on trial

By AMANDA LEE MYERS Associated Press
Posted: 07/29/2011 11:35:57 AM MDT

PHOENIX—The president of a national religious organization and five others are on trial in Phoenix a year after they were arrested protesting Arizona's immigration law and a crackdown on illegal immigrants.

The Rev. Peter Morales with the Boston-based Unitarian Universalist Association is charged with a misdemeanor count of failure to obey an order. He lives in Arvada, Colo., and Salem, Mass.

The other defendants include the leader of a Phoenix-based immigrant-rights group and a UCLA graduate student.

The group is the last of the so-called "human-chain trials." Dozens of people arrested in downtown Phoenix in July 2010 were charged with blocking a roadway or failing to obey an officer.

A lawyer for those arrested says none of them has gotten serious consequences and many had their cases thrown out.

———

Follow Amanda Lee Myers at http://twitter.com/AmandaLeeAP.

http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_18576128