Going To Jail For
Peacemaking by Steve Clemens. May 15, 2012
I could tell by the way the jurors entering the courtroom today
refused to meet our eyes or even look at us that the verdict would go against
the 11 peacemakers on trial in Hennepin County’s 4th District Court.
The jury trial was the result of a nonviolent witness at the entrance of
Alliant Techsystems’ corporate headquarters in Eden Praire, MN just two days
before ATK would move its main office to Arlington, VA on October 1, 2011 to be
close to the Pentagon, its largest customer.
There were 12 defendants the day we were arrested on
trespass charges when we refused to leave unless we could meet with the CEO or
other corporate officers to deliver a Civil Arrest Warrant as well as a
notebook entitled “Employee Liabilities of Weapons Manufacturers Under
International Law”. Even though the Eden Prairie Police Officers agreed to
place the documents we carried into our case files, Judge Ronald Abrams agreed
with Prosecutor Patrick Leach’s objection to the documents being allowed to be
entered as evidence in our trial. So the jurors never had the excerpts of the
international laws and treaties in front of them when they deliberated and
instead seemed to agree with the prosecutor’s closing statement claiming we cited
no actual laws in our defense after he and the Judge had prevented including
them as evidence.
Despite the disappointing verdict, it was a great pleasure
to hear the moving, clear testimony of my fellow defendants. I was proud to sit
beside Sister Marguerite Corcoran at the defense table and watch her slowly walk
up to the witness chair aided by her cane due to her Parkinson’s. She knew,
given some of her health challenges, that at age 82 this might be one of her
last times she might be able to participate in civil disobedience for a cause
she cares deeply about. She wasn’t alone in that sentiment: her housemates,
Sister Rita McDonald, age 89, and Sister Kate McDonald, age 83, didn’t choose
to sit on the sidelines that September morning and so were great compatriots
while testifying on their own behalf.
A third of the four “notorious” McDonald Sisters, Brigid,
was feisty with her comments in the courtroom, expressing her outrage that ATK
can profit by killing people yet we were the ones hauled into court rather than
“the real criminals”. Jeanne Hynes carried a bandaged doll to the ATK protest
and brought it again to hold while testifying about how indiscriminate weapons
like the ones ATK sells continue to victimize real children – and keep killing
and deforming long after a war has ended. Dr. David Harris, a retired surgeon
and military veteran told his reasons for joining the arrest witness. Retired
postal worker and fellow veteran, John Schmid tried to talk about some of the
medical affects he has learned about from depleted uranium but Prosecutor Leach
interrupted his testimony as irrelevant. Roger Cuthbertson attempted to explain
the need for a citizen’s arrest procedure but was also stifled by objections
which were sustained by the Judge.
Tom Bottolene, the creator of Alliant Action’s webpage and
fount of information about Minnesota’s largest war profiteer testified about
ATK’s history of making indiscriminate weapons, describing three of them in
greater detail: cluster bombs, the XM-25 combat weapons designed to fire around
corners or over walls, and depleted uranium. He told of our October 2010
“secret meeting” with ATK’s CEO, Mark DeYoung, and how he told us his company
was no longer making depleted uranium munitions, indicating that he did not feel
compelled to continue some of the “bad” decisions of his predecessors.
Bottolene went on to describe his attendance at the AKT Shareholders meeting in
August 2011 where CEO DeYoung admitted that the new contract for tank shells
included depleted uranium. Therefore, Bottolene continued, it was incumbent
that we remind the CEO of the illegality of this indiscriminate weapon by
trying to once again deliver to him copies of relevant treaties and
international law contained in the notebook.
Bill Barnett, also a stockholder, told how he had been
arrested while trying to attend a shareholders meeting in past years and once
again asked the Judge to reconsider entering our notebook into evidence since
we carried it with us at the time of arrest and certainly documented our intent
that day – to no avail. My own testimony may have been the longest because I
attempted to read into the court record excerpts of Treaties the U.S. has
signed, including the Hague and Geneva Conventions which clearly outlaw
indiscriminate weapons. I tried to describe provisions from the Nuremberg
Tribunals which compel all people to resist complicity with War Crimes and
Crimes Against Humanity. Although I managed to read a few of these excerpts
despite the prosecutor’s objections, copies of these were prohibited from being
included as evidence even though the US Constitution declares such treaties as
“the supreme law of the land and judges in every state shall be bound thereby”.
It appears that in Hennepin County, “supreme” somehow needs to take a backseat to
private property trespass laws!
The jury took barely one hour to convict all of us when they
returned to deliberate the next morning after receiving the jury instructions
from the judge. After dismissing them, the Judge asked if we were ready to
proceed to sentencing. The defendants were. Having already appeared four times
in the courtroom at Ridgedale for arraignment and pre-trial appearances, we had
little desire to make another separate trip to the façade of “justice”.
However, the Prosecutor asked if he could have some time to consult with the
defendants before making his recommendations to the Court.
“What do you want to do, Mr. Clemens?” Leach asked me. I
responded that I felt my actions were a “community service” already and if the
court felt it needed to punish me, I’d prefer to go to jail. “For how long?”
was his response. I refused to set the parameters of my own punishment
declaring that he should “let the punishment fit the crime.”
Why would I “choose” jail over a sentence of community
service and a fine?
Doing the time for the “crime” certainly is closer to
Gandhi’s own practice of asking his judges for the maximum penalty. He
understood the value of taking on suffering as a moral force for change and how
it exposed the violence and cruelty of the state. For me, having the Judge
order me to jail helps expose the preposterous idea that peaceful, nonviolent
protest should be punished when it challenges the “rights” of corporate war
profiteers. [The Prosecutor went out of his way to say that he might not like
what ATK produces and did not represent the company in his role as prosecutor.
Other prosecutors I’ve had in the past went further –admitting they despised
what ATK did – but all followed their prescribed role in protecting a trespass
law over human life in “enemy” lands.]
Choosing jail is my offering to my new (and future) friends
in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a statement to them that I take seriously my
desire to stand in solidarity with them in denouncing the scourge of depleted
uranium and depleted consciences. Their knowledge that there are Americans
willing to sit in jail (even if only for 10 days) out of concern for their
well-being can hopefully help the healing needed between citizens of the US
empire and citizens of its new vassal states in the Middle East and southwest
Asia. I go to jail in good conscience to stand in solidarity with my friends
Sami, Hakim, Abdulai, Sammera, Faiz, Zuhair, President Akeel, Zahra and
Sharbanoo, Dr. Ali, Hiba, Dr. Askouri, and many others. I’ll have time in jail to
think about and pray for them. I’ll have time to think about and pray for my
own nation’s leaders and corporate chieftains.
Dr. David Harris, a stalwart friend (although all the other
defendants have become good friends over our years of vigil and protest
together), said he wanted to join me in going to jail when Mr. Leach asked him
what he felt was an appropriate sentence for his conviction. Although he was
sentenced to only two days in jail, the Prosecutor deciding (without a lot of
first-hand evidence) that he had fewer criminal convictions, I am grateful for
his act of conscience and solidarity.
While other defendants have been sentenced to between 32 and
68 hours of community service, our 12th defendant, Charlie Bloss,
had his sentence suspended because he remains in the hospital battling the
effects of cancer. He had been excused from attending the trial but the court
honored his desire to be included with us, accepting whatever verdict came down
on the others.
So, after our conversation with the Prosecutor, one by one
we were called before the bench for our sentencing. It was a little startling
to hear “I sentence you to 90 days in the Hennepin County Adult Corrections
Facility (Workhouse). Execution of 81 days is stayed for one year. You are
fined $50. You will serve 10 days with the 10th day served in lieu
of paying your fine and surcharge and assessments. You will report to the
Workhouse on June 26th by 11AM. You are not to go on the property of
7480 Flying Cloud Drive in Eden Prairie for a year. No trespass (within the
State of Minnesota) during that year. I wish you well in the future.”
David was sentenced before me and the Judge prefaced his
sentence saying, “I work very hard to keep people out of jail. I am sending you
to jail (at your request) with a heavy heart.” I believe he meant it. Our Judge
is trapped in the same system which seems bent on victimizing everyone in the
process. Such is life in the declining empire.
