The Oklahoma 3 - “This indictment is not about the law, but about politics—ugly, anti-democratic politics.” Paul Jacob

Here is a quick summary of the story (some copied from Paul Jacob's account of events)

In 2005, two Oklahoma initiative campaigns were launched, designed to end eminent domain and cap the rate of government spending growth, allowing greater spending only with voter approval.

Petitioners were having a hard time getting signatures, so a number of petitioners moved to Oklahoma, declared residency, and proceeded to gather signatures on the various petitions. In Oklahoma, you must be a resident to gather signatures on a petition. However, Oklahoma isn't very clear on what constitutes a "resident".

Ultimately, both the spending cap and the property rights measure garnered enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. Then the petition was challenged and the Oklahoma Supreme Court provided a much different standard for residency then in the past. The judges now equated residency with a “permanent home.”

How permanent was “permanent”? One petitioner, who moved to Oklahoma in September of 2005 and was still living there in July of the following year, was ruled not to be a resident.

The court thus struck enough signatures from the 300,000 gathered to deny the people of Oklahoma a vote on the spending cap measure.

Then three petitioners, Susan Johnson, Rick Carpenter and Paul Jacob were charged with conspiracy to defraud the state of Oklahoma for allegedly “willfully” violating the state’s residency statute. For this alleged crime Attorney General Drew Edmondson seeks to imprison them for up to ten years.

For the full story, see this link:
http://www.freepauljacob.com/the-story

Constitution: Amendment 1

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and TO PETITION THE GOVERNMENT FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES.