Berkeley's infamous tree-sitters have been hit with a rude surprise since they came down to earth: Judges are socking them with thousands of dollars in fines and legal fees.

UC Berkeley estimates it spent more than $800,000 on police and other security measures during the 22 months sitters were up in the trees. The university spent $40,000 alone on the scaffolding that went up around the final tree during the last day of the protest this month.

Now, the school wants its pound of flesh.

"It's really vindictive," said an attorney for some the sitters, Dennis Cunningham. "They don't have this kind of money."

Maybe, but university lawyer Michael Goldstein isn't making any apologies.

"We've asked the judge to throw the book at them," Goldstein said flatly.

So far, most of the 15 to 20 protesters arrested in the past year have been hit with fines of about $100 for trespassing and little or no jail time.

Once they were back on the street, however, the university hauled them back into court on contempt charges for violating an order issued in October by Judge Richard Keller of Alameda County Superior Court that banned people from sitting in the trees or doing anything to help the protesters already up in the branches.

The university is also seeking as much as $10,000 from each of them for its attorney fees.

Lawyers on both sides said the tree-sitters' chances of beating the contempt charges are slim.

As Cunningham noted, "You were either up in the trees or not. What's to argue?"

To which Goldstein added, "Who said free speech is always free?"

Amen to that.

The right of peaceful protest has been for decades a shield for criminal activity by the Left. You can almost get away with murder as long as you are "raising awareness" or "speaking truth to power." Maybe if we actually enforce the law, people will respect it. Maybe if we start holding all of these "brave" social activists accountable for their actions, we might find that they aren't quite so brave after all. Hopefully, we'll start see some indictments for the RNC protesters soon.

Can you smell the Social Justice in the air?