Last week the Orange County DA brought charges against nineteen participants in a sit-in at the University of California at Irvine.

The sit-in was last February. The charges were brought during finals week.

That’s right. The district attorney waited a total of 288 days to bring the charges, then brought them in the middle of finals. And set appearance dates during winter break.

This week a DA in San Francisco pulled a similar stunt, surprising several students who had been arrested at November’s protest at the UC Regents meeting with unannounced battery charges. Two of the students wound up having to post high bail. And yes, finals week at Berkeley was this week.