Today, attorneys for SC Progressive Network Director Brett Bursey filed a writ of coram nobis, usually translated as “the error before us,” in Federal District Court in Columbia, SC. A coram nobis petition applies to persons who have already been convicted and have served their sentence. Such motions cannot be used to address issues of law previously ruled upon by the court but only to address errors of fact that were not known at time of trial or were knowingly withheld during and after trial from judges and defendants by prosecutors, and which might have altered the verdict were they presented at the trial.

The writ argues that the government withheld evidence of White House involvement in segregating peaceful protestors from from supporters of President Bush at presidential rallies. Bursey was arrested at a Bush rally in Columbia in October 2002 for refusing to be segregated from the general public.

“I said at the time of my arrest that the Secret Service was being used as an armed political advance team by the president,” Bursey said. He filed discovery motions and subpoenas during his trial for any White House directives to the Secret Service, but the government successfully moved to deny his efforts, calling them a “fishing expedintion.”

A recently discovered Presidential Advance Manual instructs the Secret Service to do what Bursey alleged they did to him. “There are several ways the advance person can prepare a site to minimize demonstrators. First, as always, work with the Secret Service and have them ask the local police department to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferable not in view of the event site or the motorcade route.” (pg. 32, Presidential Advance Manual, see below).

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