An Evil Day for Justice

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Last week federal District Court Judge Dee Benson granted the prosecution's request to prevent Tim DeChristopher from telling a jury of his peers why he disrupted the illegal auction of Bureau of Land Management lands for oil drilling. Bravely acting as his conscience dictated, he engaged in an act of civil disobedience to protect us all from the imminent threat of climate catastrophe.he federal government chose to indict him for his actions, forcing him to defend himself at a criminal trial where he faces 10 years in prison and a $750,000 fine. The prosecution is allowed to do that -- to try to prove to a jury that a person is guilty of breaking the law. But what is outrageous is that the court will not allow him to defend himself, to explain why he did what he did. He is effectively being denied his right to a trial by jury.

The burden is on the prosecution to prove to a jury that DeChristopher is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, a burden that has been virtually lifted by the court, since he and his defense team will not be able to respond to the charges and explain to the jury his side of the story.

Why is the court allowing the prosecution to gag DeChristopher's defense? Benson has decided "as a matter of law" that DeChristopher doesn't have enough evidence to prove his "choice of evils" or "necessity" defense. This is a common defense in criminal law, where a person explains that he or she chose to break a law to prevent an even greater harm.

The analogy we teach in law school is the case of a person who breaks into a burning building to save a child, or demolishes a home to make a firebreak. Here DeChristopher disrupted what we now know was an illegal auction to prevent the destruction of the climate which makes our planet habitable for human life. I believe that the jury gets to decide if the analogy holds in this case or not. The judge disagrees.

Why does the court say DeChristopher can't even try to prove his defense? In his nine-page ruling Benson said that DeChristopher could not have "reasonably anticipated" that his actions would really stop the lease sale.

"Unlike a person demolishing a home to create a firebreak," Benson wrote, "DeChristopher's actions were more akin to placing a small pile of dirt in the fire's path." Translation: One person is powerless to stop evil.

When Rosa Parks sat in the white section of that city bus in Montgomery, Ala., she only placed a small pile of dirt in the path of racial segregation. But that one pile of dirt helped spark a movement that saved our country from a great evil. I am thankful she placed that one pile of dirt, because we have to start somewhere.

If you read the pleadings in this case, it is clear that not only will the court ignore the evidence of the danger we are in, but it won't let the jury even hear that evidence. And we teach that justice is blind, not deaf.

 

Rebecca Hall is an attorney and holds a PhD in American history. She has taught at the University of Utah's S.J. Quinney College of Law and the University of California's Boalt Hall School of Law. She is a member of the Salt Lake City Human Rights Commission.