April Protestors Prepare Appeals

Starting next week, more than 100 Harvard students, graduate students, and alumni will be able to appeal convictions stemming from last April's forcible occupation of University Hall.

Judge Robert Sullivan of the Middlesex County Superior Court will begin hearing appeals Monday in groups of hearing appeals Monday from protestors in groups of 20 convicted of criminal trespass in Cambridge District Court last spring.

Judge G. S. Flym, the lawyer representing most of the appellants, said yesterday that he will ask the court to order a change of venue or to postpone the trials because of the public excitement caused by this week's disturbances at M. I. T.

Jury Trial

If the judge denies these preliminary motions, the court will begin the process of selecting a jury for what will be the second full public examination of the University Hall trespass cases.

Last May. Cambridge District Court Judge M. Edward Viola found a total of 172 persons guilty of trespassing in University Hall, and fined then each $20.

District Court proceedings do not require jury trials.

No one knows precisely how many of the 141 demonstrators who did not pay their fines last May still intend to appeal. Flym met last night with a group of about 25, but he still has not heard from many of the 115 for whom he filed appeals.

Superior Court will also hear next week the appeal of Carl D. Offner, a graduate student in mathematics whom Viola sentenced to a year in jail for assaulting Dean Watson during the demonstration. The court, however, has not set an exact date for his new trial.