Eric McDavid Denied Vegan Food - AGAIN

Hello everyone,

Please read on for the latest on Eric and his upcoming trial...

Eric denied vegan food....again

Eric is still being denied a healthy diet. As of Friday night, the jail stopped bringing Eric breakfast and dinner trays that he could eat. The only vegan food the jail was bringing Eric was a bagged lunch with a peanut butter sandwich and fruit. Now, they have stopped providing him ANY vegan meals - not even the bagged lunch. This means that the only food available to Eric is what he is able to order from commissary and the food on his trays that happens to be vegan (usually a little fruit and bread each day). Obviously, this is not enough to meet his body's needs. No one can be healthy on just bread and fruit, there are few vegan options from the commissary, and he only has access to commissary once a week. Eric has exhausted all official channels for having his meals restored. It is difficult to believe the timing of this dramatic and abrupt change in his diet is merely a coincidence. With less than a week to trial, Eric is now struggling to take care of his physical health as well as maintaining his emotional and mental health. With all of Eric's options for redress being exhausted, we need your help! Please call the Sacramento County Jail and request that they provide Eric with complete vegan meals immediately. The have been giving him vegan food for the last 15 months and they can do it again. Please call the jail at: 916.874.6752

Fundraising

The last of the matching funds have been met! This means that we have surpassed our goal of ,000. Our biggest thanks to all of you who helped make this possible. All of the money raised will go directly to Eric's legal defense. We still do not have a final figure from Eric's lawyer about how much money we will actually need to get all the way through trial - the ,000 was an estimate that he gave us many months ago. While we hope this will be enough to pay for all of the legal fees, we won't be certain for another couple of weeks. Please stay tuned and be ready - we might need your help again in the future!



In Limine Hearing

On Friday, Eric will have his final hearing before trial begins on Monday. This hearing is very important, as the government has filed two motions that seek to deny Eric the ability to choose his own defense strategy. The first motion is a motion to preclude the use of the entrapment defense. The second motion is to preclude the defense from "raising previously decided legal issues" - which would include all of the issues raised in virtually all of the pre-trial defense motions that Eric's lawyer filed in December/January. We are working on posting the government's In Limine motions on Eric's website.



Trial in less than a week!

Eric's trial begins on Monday, September 10. The first day will be jury selection, with opening arguments probably beginning on September 11. We have been told that court will only be in session Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of each week. This means that we will (probably) be in court September 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19, etc. Originally the government was speculating that trial would last 10-14 days - now they are only projecting 6. This means that we could possibly be done with closing arguments after the second week, although that seems somewhat unlikely. It seems more likely that trial will run into the third week - September 24, 25, and 26. However, nothing is certain. For those of you who are planning on attending trial, please keep in mind that Eric's preference is for people to be there, if possible, at the end of trial. We realize this is complicated by the fact that we don't actually know WHEN that might be... We'll keep everyone updated as trial progresses and we should have a better sense of the timeline as things move along. And please remember, if you are planning on attending trial make sure that you are dressed appropriately for court.



After almost 20 months in Total Separation, Eric is very ready for his trial to get started. His strong heart and good spirits have constantly amazed us - he often seems to handle things better than those of us who are not locked behind steel doors and concrete walls. And while he is aware that this will not be an easy fight, he remains steadfast and secure in his decision to move forward with integrity and to fight these outrageous charges against him. Thank you all for standing with him, for supporting him, for sharing your love, your joy, and your outrage at injustices suffered.

Yours,

Eric's Support Crew