There’s no question who won and who lost in the recent Pilgrim12 trespassing trial. The defendants got a tap-on-the-wrist sentence, but it was pretty obvious, as reported in news stories, Pilgrim and the NRC were on trial—and found guilty.
As Diane Turco, Cape Downwinders co-founder and a defendant said, “The verdict doesn’t matter; the truth got out.”
So if everybody and his mother thinks Pilgrim and the NRC wrong and the defendants right, how could the verdict come out guilty?
The defendants used the “necessity defense,” the basic idea of which is that a crime committed to prevent a much larger crime is not a crime. A long line of eloquent witnesses testified to the need to close down Pilgrim and the the reasonableness of the defendants’ action to that end. They even had a social justice expert testify as to the effectiveness and nobility of civil disobedience.
The verdict at weeks’ end, though not a surprise, was disappointing. The newspaper reports made it seem that Judge Cannone never showed just how the defendants had failed to prove the necessity defense. Clearly, she must have had in mind some lawful ways of shutting down Pilgrim the activists still haven’t tried. It would have been instructive to hear what those might be.
Having tried so many legal ways—resolutions by all Cape towns, a letter from the governor, demonstrations, petitions, and so on (and on) concerned citizens are left to wonder: what legal means haven’t been tried that might actually get the job done? Judge Cannone, we are all ears.
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