News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
[See the website of the Fully Informed Jury Association for information
on jury nullification:
http://www.fija.org/
]
Maine Jury Says It's Legal to Protest an Illegal War
By Penny Coleman, AlterNet
Posted on May 31, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/86568/
The stink leaking out of Ira Katz's office at the Veterans Affairs just
doesn't stop. Every day some callous new email shows how little he cares
that the stunning statistics about soldier and veteran suicides he is
trying to suppress represent real lives that were his responsibility;
some flat-footed attempt is made to convince Congress -- again -- that
he didn't mean to "mislead." As the widow of a Vietnam vet who took his
own life after coming home, all the skulduggery and frightening
indifference that agents of this government have exhibited in its
attempt to keep it all out of sight has been particularly hard to take.
But even given my deep personal connection to these stories, I'm finding
it increasingly difficult to sustain an appropriately high-decibel level
of outrage. I am so very tired of it all. A little good news would go a
long way.
This must be the dreaded scandal fatigue.
But just when I was feeling tempted to settle for the paltry
encouragement in something as entirely meaningless as the demise of yet
another administration enabler like Katz, who, for all his weasely ways,
is finally only the dull instrument of his boss's heartlessness, a story
came my way that gave me a moment of hope.
But first, the bad news. The bad news is that this hopeful story -- one
that illustrates a constructive and effective direct action for change
-- was re****ted only in the Bangor Daily News. Period.
The good news, which that paper re****ted on April 30, is that six peace
activists were acquitted on charges of criminal trespass for failing to
obey a police request that they abandon their sit-in outside U.S. Sen.
Susan Collins' office in the Margaret Chase Smith Federal Building in
Maine.
The defendants, Doug Rawlings, Henry Braun, Jimmy Freeman, Dud Hendrick,
Rob Shetterly and Jonathan Kreps -- dubbed the Bangor Six -- were
arrested in March 2007 for protesting Bush's proposed troop escalation
and Collins' continued sup****t of funding for the war. According to
Rawlings, "Our case was pretty simple: We argued that we believed we had
a right and an obligation to stay in that federal building until Collins
heard us out and agreed that the war is not only immoral but illegal
under international law." Specifically, they based their defense on the
First Amendment's "right of the people ... to petition the Government
for redress of grievances," and their belief that the war is being
pursued in defiance of Article VI of the Constitution ("all treaties
made ... under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme
law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby"),
the Nuremberg Principles and the Geneva Conventions.
After a two-day trial in Penobscot County Superior Court, a jury of 12
citizens agreed and brought back a verdict of "not guilty."
Though Judge Michaela Murphy explicitly instructed the jury to set aside
their feelings about the war and only deliberate on the evidence
presented during the trial, she did allow jurors to consider whether or
not the defendants believed that they had the "license and privilege" to
consciously choose to break Maine law because they thought international
law was being violated. The jurors decided unanimously that the
protesters did, in fact, believe they had that right.
For Hendrick, a Naval Academy graduate and former Air Force officer who
volunteered for two tours in Vietnam and who now teaches peace studies
at the University of Maine at Orono, the "not guilty" verdict was
especially sweet. Hendrick has been down this road before, having been
arrested five years ago for protesting the war in front of Collins'
office and again three years ago in front of the office of Maine's other
senator, Olympia Snowe. In his defense, he told the jury, "My best
friend's name is on the wall in Wa****ngton, as are the names of three
other teammates and nine classmates." Those deaths and the deaths of
another generation of soldiers and civilians were on his mind when he
refused to leave the Federal Building: "Every life lost is a heinous
crime, and we are all complicit. We should all be working to stop a
foreign policy run amok without conscience," Hendrick told me.
Penobscot County District Attorney Christopher Almy told the Bangor
Daily News that he believes the verdict could be read as an indication
of Mainers' disgust toward what he referred to as the "debacle" in Iraq
and their impatience with both Maine senators, Collins and Snowe, who
have continued to sup****t it. He said he would have to reconsider how to
handle such cases in the future.
One option, he suggested, would be to refer such cases to federal
prosecutors, but Maine's chief federal prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Paula
Silsby, has said she does not think she has jurisdiction.
Why the feds were not asked to handle this particular case to begin with
is unclear -- other than the fact that it would have drawn greater
attention to Collins' steadfast refusal, over the past six years, to
allow her constituents to express their opinions in town hall-style
meetings.
After the verdict was announced, the defendants headed to a local
watering hole for drinks and champagne. "We called Collins' office from
the bar," Rawlings told me, "to tell her aide about the verdict. We got
a terse note back from the office announcing Collins's firm stand on
funding the war to 'protect the troops.'"
Collins is up for re-election in November.
Jurors, advised by the judge not to "surrender an honest conviction,"
appeared pleased with the decision. "A good thing was done here today,"
said trial juror Emily Herrold, who left the courthouse smiling.
A little good news goes a long way.
Penny Coleman is the widow of a Vietnam veteran who took his own life
after coming home. Her latest book, Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress
Disorder, Suicide, and the Lessons of War, was released on Memorial Day,
2006. Her website is Flashback.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt
Lord We˙rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Skipper: Professor, will you tell these people who is
in charge on this island?
Professor: Why, no one.
Skipper: No one?
Thurston Howell III: No one? Good heavens, this is anarchy!
-- _Gilligan's Island_, episode #6, "President Gilligan"
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