A judge has cleared a group of protesters of all but one of the five charges against them stemming from a July 21 protest outside a Dole Institute of Politics event.

Saying some of the evidence fell “woefully short,” municipal court Judge Randy McGrath found the protesters not guilty of unlawful assembly, disorderly conduct, failure to get a right-of-way permit, and refusing to comply with a traffic order.

He found them guilty of walking in the roadway, a traffic infraction.

McGrath’s written ruling, obtained Monday by the Journal-World, says:

• The protesters are not guilty of unlawful assembly because the city failed to prove they planned to commit acts of violence or disturb the peace. City prosecutor Jerry Little had argued in a trial that the protesters showed violent intent in part by carrying signs with slogans such as “Kick the a– of the ruling class” and by carrying cardboard boxes stuffed with paper that could have been set on fire.

But McGrath pointed out that one of the protesters had told police she expected it to be a nonviolent protest.

“Some chanted, some held signs, some did both, and some, such as the elderly woman in the wheel chair who was part of the march. . .were just there lending support,” McGrath wrote. “There is no direct or circumstantial evidence supporting this charge, and it falls woefully short of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”

• There was no proof that police chief Ron Olin or other officers gave the protesters clear instructions to get out of McDonald Drive.
• The city failed to show that the protesters were required to have a right-of-way permit.
• The city failed to show that each protesters’ actions were enough to “alarm, anger or disturb” others- a required element of the charge of disorderly conduct.

For more on this story, see the 6News reports at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Sunflower Broadband’s channel 6 and pick up a copy of Tuesday’s Journal-World.