Photo: Delta 5 defendants in front of the Snohomish County Courthouse. Photo: Delta5Trial.org
Today a six person jury in the trial of the Delta 5 returned verdicts of guilty of criminal trespass but not guilty of obstructing or delaying a train. The judge sentenced them to two years of probation. The five defendants, Abby Brockway, Michael Lapointe, Patrick Mazza, Jackie Minchew, and Liz Spoerri, had blocked the train tracks in Everett, Wa, north of Seattle on Sept. 2, 2104, and blocked a Tesoro oil train.
Judge Anthony E. Howard initially allowed the defendants’ lawyers to present a “necessity” defense”, which argued that the harm of climate change exceeds the harm caused by blocking the train tracks; in other words, their actions were a necessity.
The Delta 5 put the oil industry and climate change on trial, presenting detailed evidence supporting the necessity defense. At the last minute, the judge instructed the jury that they must not take into consideration the necessity defense.
However, in an emotional ending to the trial, the jury voted only to give a guilty verdict for the charge of trespassing. As reported by Sydney Brownstone in The Stranger:
After the verdict was read, three jurors came outside and talked to the defendants. Some exchanged hugs. One, 61-year-old truck driver Joe Lundheim, wiped away tears.
“I’m actually really pleased with what you delivered to us, because we have options now and there’s more we can do with this, and this was probably the best verdict that could have been returned to us,” Brockway told Lundheim and Sue McGowan, 49, another juror.
“It was hard to take the emotion out of it,” McGowan said. “I mean, for myself, I didn’t want to convict you of anything, but I had to uphold the law. Emotionally I was like, ‘No, they’re good people, I don’t want to deliver guilty!'”
It’s clear that the tactic of putting the oil industry on trial for climate change helped to educate the jurors. As juror Lundheim said:
“It’s not going to be available forever, this whole fossil fuel thing. China’s not going to want coal forever, they want to get off it as soon as they can. And people know that. But there’s this, ‘Quick, let’s make money here, we’ll push it through Washington.’ And I know this because I’ve been listening to this stuff all week long, so thank you for that.”
“We don’t want to be the corridor,” McGowan, the juror, added.
They discussed other new climate developments before Minchew, one of the Delta 5 defendants, had a thought about the jurors: “May I say welcome to the movement?”(The Stranger)
Learn more about the Delta 5 case here.
