Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Judge Mary Ann Driscoll has dismissed criminal charges against protestors including Al Gore’s daughter on the grounds that their actions were necessary to prevent climate change.
Judge sets aside charges in pipeline protest
Jordan Graham Thursday, March 29, 2018
…
The protesters, including Karenna Gore, the daughter of former Vice President Al Gore, were facing charges of trespassing and disturbing the peace after climbing into a construction trench. On Tuesday, prosecutors asked a judge to convert the criminal charges into civil infractions, saying in the event of a conviction they were unlikely to ask for any further punishment. After allowing the motion, Judge Mary Ann Driscoll found the defendants not responsible, saying she agreed with their argument that their actions were necessary to combat climate change.
“Based on the very heartfelt expressions of the defendants who believe, and I don’t question their beliefs in any respect, who believe in their cause because they believe they were entitled to invoke the necessity defense, I’ll accept what they said,” Driscoll said.
…
This finding echoes a similar judgement in England in 2008, in which protestors were cleared of causing £30,000 of criminal damage because necessity defence.
Not guilty: the Greenpeace activists who used climate change as a legal defence
Six Greenpeace climate change activists have been cleared of causing £30,000 of criminal damage at a coal-fired power station in a verdict that is expected to embarrass the government and lead to more direct action protests against energy companies.
The jury of nine men and three women at Maidstone crown court cleared the six by a majority verdict. Five of the protesters had scaled a 200-metre chimney at Kingsnorth power station, Hoo, Kent, in October last year.
The activists admitted trying to shut down the station by occupying the smokestack and painting the word “Gordon” down the chimney, but argued that they were legally justified because they were trying to prevent climate change causing greater damage to property around the world. It was the first case in which preventing property damage caused by climate change had been used as part of a “lawful excuse” defence in court. It is now expected to be used more widely by environment groups.
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/sep/11/activists.kingsnorthclimatecamp
If activists take this in my opinion ridiculous court process as a green light to interfere with fossil fuel installations, fossil fuel companies could suffer economic losses.
It might even lead to loss of life – sneaking onto active worksites, jumping into construction trenches, closing valves without warning on high pressure pipelines and scaling smokestacks is dangerous, both for the activists themselves and for any workers caught up with trying to save activists from their own stupidity.
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There should be an appeal against this blatant miscarriage of justice.
And the dimwit judge should be disbarred.
No judge who isn’t corrupt.
Its rather symbolic and poignant innit, climbing into a hole in the ground.
When all said & done, what’s the difference ‘tween a construction trench and a grave?
Leading by example. So sweet of them. Really.
and PLEASE say I’m not the only one to make that connection or are my ravings re: sugar, carbs and booze justified?
I think that most commentators do not understand the particular point of law which the activists are making use of here.
In British Common Law, and in legal systems derived from it, there is a specific ‘get-out’ clause from the charge of trespass and criminal damage. This is meant to cover emergency situations where someone has to do something illegal in order to obtain a higher good. For instance, if a fireman breaks down a door to rescue someone from a fire, that would normally be ‘criminal damage’. It is not, because the fireman honestly believed there was imminent danger, and breaking the door was the best way to rescue people. If the fireman had slashed the tyres of their car, however, he would not have had that defence.
For the defence to work, the person causing damage has to honestly believe that they are doing good in an emergency. That is all. So the fireman who breaks the wrong door by mistake is also covered. And this law is necessary.
The problem here is that the politicians cannot go public and say there is NO imminent danger, otherwise they lose face, and votes. So, under these circumstances, it is quite correct for activists to damage CO2-creating equipment. They have the politicians supporting their actions by claiming that there really is a danger – and I hope we all believe in democracy and the rule of law?
The answer is to get the politicians and the schools to agree that there is no immediate danger, and publicise this so that such a belief would not be reasonable any more. Good luck with that…
Dodgy Geezer
Good argument but there is no evidence mankind is changing the climate. In fact, there’s considerable evidence to suggest increased atmospheric CO2, however emitted, is doing much good, with the planet greening by 14% over the last 30 years.
Now that’s solid evidence, whereas this woman seems to base her judgement on the planet being in immediate danger from man made CO2 emissions which, estimated at 2ppm per year, are inconsequential. Her personal beliefs are coloured by, largely, media influence and she didn’t bother to acquaint herself with the facts.
All this in light of the Exxon case being all but kicked out of court on the first day, which she should have been familiar with, other than there has been no media coverage.
As I understand it, US judges are politically appointed and don’t have the luxury of operating independently with rule of law paramount rather than political interests.
Having said that, they still cocked up over the Gordon incident.
**Good argument but there is no evidence mankind is changing the climate**
Except it appears that the judge has not read this part.
We are not ridiculing the point of law.
We are ridiculing the notion that climate change fits under it.
…Good argument but there is no evidence mankind is changing the climate. ..We are ridiculing the notion that climate change fits under (the law)…..
I think that both of you miss the point.
There does not have to be any ‘evidence’ that mankind is changing the climate for this law to operate. All that is needed is for a ‘reasonable person’ to hold a ‘reasonable belief’. In the case I gave above, if a fireman breaks down the wrong door, there can be no evidence that it was right – because it was frankly wrong. Nevertheless, the firemen is held to have a ‘reasonable belief’ that he was acting to prevent a greater harm – so he is not guilty of criminal damage.
What is needed here, as I said, is for the excuse of ‘reasonable belief’ to be negated. At the moment, a ‘reasonable person’ could well believe that we are close to the tipping point to Armageddon – there are a lot of assertions of this in the press and by public figures. They are all lies, but I cannot see that it is unreasonable for someone who has been subjected to the barrage of climate propaganda to believe in it.
If I were prosecuting the case, I would probably try to show that the duty to inform oneself about the realities of the situation should be considered important if a criminal act was being considered, and that the activists took no steps to consider the arguments that climate change was a fraud, which they should have done. But I don’t know how well that would fly in a Boston court with a Vice-President’s daughter in the dock…
Dodgy
I understand your point entirely, but there can be no reasonable comparison drawn between a fireman kicking down or otherwise opening the correct, or incorrect door, in the event of a fire, which represents immediate threat to life; and the notion that human induced climate change is anything but an unproven hypothesis, the effect of which is in any event, man caused, or otherwise, a gradual and not immediately life threatening event.
It could also be argued, convincingly judging by historic warming periods, that mankind flourishes with a warmer climate. Indeed, it appears man emerged from warmer parts of the world, like Africa, so living in colder climates like the UK is unnatural for us.
But humans are adaptable, resilient and innovative, so we take advantage of the prevailing benefits of our location and circumstances.
The human race is not in immediate danger therefore the decision is a travesty of justice.
Dodgy Geezer:
I don’t know if it’s actually in the law, but there should be another point considered: whether the person’s actions, were his belief true, were reasonably necessary to prevent the perceived harm. In the case of the fireman, if someone were behind that door in danger from fire, then breaking down the door is not only reasonable, but a necessary act to protect life. There is no “perhaps” or “may” here, people trapped in burning structures actually die on a regular basis. Firemen are not just allowed to break down doors, they are required to do so when circumstances indicate, and trained and equipped accordingly. Not that we want them to smash doors indiscriminately, but we forgive the occasional mistake because their sanctioned role is so vital.
This brings us back to one consideration which appears to have been absent in the judge’s decision — imminence. The fireman’s actions are necessitated by the immediate and otherwise unavoidable danger to human life if someone is left trapped in a burning building. If Al Gore was right about the immediate danger from global warming, then we would be on a one-way trip to hothouse Venus right now (we passed his 10-year “tipping point” several years back).
If there actually is a danger from global warming, it is coming slowly enough that Karenna Gore has time to put together a campaign committee to run for Congress, host several hundred fund-raisers and get into office where she can actually work within the provided process to change the law. But I see she is the director of the “Center of Earth Ethics” at Union Theological Seminary. Hmmm, where have we seen an ethics director with a penchant for breaking the law before?
Maybe she can take a shortcut into office via a term as Ethics and Compliance Officer for the Clinton Global Initiative Fund.
Sorry, this is another case of those charged with upholding law giving a pass to thugs they happen to agree with.
drama uber alles! there is simply an insatiable demand for gothic horror-
danger (especially if it’s comfortably fake) is a Great Frisson!
why, if the pope announced there were no hell where souls suffer for eternity- it would bring no joy; only disappointment.
I was under the impression Mankind had progressed from the days of Galileo’s Inquisition? Apparently not.
DRISCOLL, MARY ANN
By: Mass. Lawyers Weekly Staff August 1, 2001
West Roxbury Division Boston Municipal Court 535 E. Broadway South Boston, MA 02127 (617) 268-8305 Born: March 30, 1943, Boston Year admitted to bar: 1974 Year appointed/elected: 1990, by Gov. Michael S. Dukakis …
We knew this would happen when you let women enter the workforce. Just look how much problems you have with kids of single mothers. It’s all about ‘feelings’.
https://youtu.be/ewvqEqIXdhU
I had this thrown at me the other day.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/03/15/the-first-climate-model-turns-50-and-predicted-global-warming-almost-perfectly/#fc5300c6614d
Modeling the Earth’s climate is one of the most daunting, complicated tasks out there. If only we were more like the Moon, things would be easy. The Moon has no atmosphere, no oceans, no icecaps, no seasons, and no complicated flora and fauna to get in the way of simple radiative physics. No wonder it’s so challenging to model! In fact, if you google “climate models wrong”, eight of the first ten results showcase failure. But headlines are never as reliable as going to the scientific source itself, and the ultimate source, in this case, is the first accurate climate model ever: by Syukuro Manabe and Richard T. Wetherald. 50 years after their groundbreaking 1967 paper, the science can be robustly evaluated, and they got almost everything exactly right.
The Earth and Moon, to scale, in terms of both size and albedo/reflectivity. Note how much fainter the Moon appears, as it absorbs light much better than Earth does.
I had this thrown at me the other day:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/03/15/the-first-climate-model-turns-50-and-predicted-global-warming-almost-perfectly/#fc5300c6614d
Modeling the Earth’s climate is one of the most daunting, complicated tasks out there. If only we were more like the Moon, things would be easy. The Moon has no atmosphere, no oceans, no icecaps, no seasons, and no complicated flora and fauna to get in the way of simple radiative physics. No wonder it’s so challenging to model! In fact, if you google “climate models wrong”, eight of the first ten results showcase failure. But headlines are never as reliable as going to the scientific source itself, and the ultimate source, in this case, is the first accurate climate model ever: by Syukuro Manabe and Richard T. Wetherald. 50 years after their groundbreaking 1967 paper, the science can be robustly evaluated, and they got almost everything exactly right.
The Earth and Moon, to scale, in terms of both size and albedo/reflectivity. Note how much fainter the Moon appears, as it absorbs light much better than Earth does.
I’m not sure what Judicial Review procedures are available to prosecutions in the US but this is clearly bad law and needs to be challenged. The consequences of this are far more serious than even your commentary suggests. If narcissistic subjective world views are to afford a defence to serious criminal acts like criminal damage why can’t it be a defence to acts of assault or worse on employees of Fossil Fuel companies?
As long as the endangerment clause remains in place they will have a defence. Mr. Pruitt?
It seems that this CO2 viral infection damages the synapses in the brain rendering the logical networks substandard. We definitely need a suitable vaccine. It is reaching pandemic levels.
I can understand why Al Gore’s daughter is riddled with the infection; but surely a judge should have taken precautions.
Al Gore uses up all the oxygen in any room he occupies. Doubtless his daughter suffers from infant CO2 exposure.
“I believe they believe strongly” is a justification for nearly every malicious act in the history of mankind. Legally, at a minimum,.it is a growing precedent for future decisions including swaying a jure of peers. Can you say mobs, civil chaos, genocide and lynching any better than “they are justified because their beliefs are heartfelt”?
This sounds like great news for the black lives matter cop killers.
They truly believe all white cops are evil.
Now, find the right judge and it’s “Katie bar the door”.
So where was the clear and present danger and the defense they were to receive? Sorry for the double dip, but this is the most outrageous and dangerous thing I’ve read this month – and it’s been a long month.
There’s almost 24 hours left, it could still be topped.
So sue in civil court for triple damages. And name the Judge as a co-defendant. Use the RICO laws and allege he’s biased/paid off by the Greens due to zero proof that hydrocarbons are anything but a net plus for humanity.
The companies need to budget a percent of their revenue for suits like these. Skip the criminal case except to testify but go all in on civil damages.
Judge Mary Ann Driscoll clearly does not understand the importance of Rule-of-Law. Judges like Ms Driscoll are so utterly incompetent that they should be dismissed.
We have seen too many examples of this sort of irrational conduct in society:
– A citizen disagrees with national foreign policy and places a bomb in public to protest – NOT ACCEPTABLE.
– A citizen disagrees with excessive police violence against civilians and shoots some cops – NOT ACCEPTABLE.
These are extreme examples, but they illustrate the point – Rule of Law matters, and it cannot be bent and broken at the whim of a foolish judge or extremist thugs. As imperfect as our legal system is, and it is highly imperfect, it is what separates the rich countries of the world from all the rest.
Ask yourself “Why are the Magna Carta countries so much wealthier that the rest?” The answer is Rule-of-Law.
When we allow extremists and criminals to influence and control our societies, our economies and our freedoms are harmed. That happened in the USA under Obama and would have been much worse under Hillary.
It is happening now in Europe, where the EU has fallen under the power of Russia due to its reliance on incompetent green energy policies. Any rational person could have foreseen this outcome decades ago. That was probably the objective of pro-Russian leftists in Europe, and their counterparts in North America.
Ask yourselves why the radical enviros adopt policies that clearly favour uneconomic and unreliable green energy schemes, and promote policies that clearly harm the environment? Their objectives were intended to cripple western economies, and have nothing to do with improving the environment.
These people are not pro-environment – many of their programs such as clear-cutting of tropical rainforests to grow biofuels, draining the Ogallala aquifer to grow corn for fuel ethanol, clear-cutting eastern US forests to provide wood pellets for British power plants, erecting huge wind power towers to slice up birds and bats, etc are ALL anti-environmental.
Anti fossil fuels, anti pipelines, anti fracking, anti oilsands, pro green energy, etc. etc. – all promoted by the same people, all deliberately harming our economies while wrapping themselves in the cloak of phony environmentalism.
Absolutely correct Mr Macrae. As a minor group of people in our society, the Green movement has done more to damage the world economic progress than anything in our history. Having persuaded gullible governments, who want to be seen to be responding to this very vocal minority, they have successfully managed to ruin our electricity producing industry, and in so doing increase the cost of electricity to every user of this vital resource. They have also been responsible for adding huge costs to our vehicle and oil industries for very questionable health reasons. They are now about to embark on a programme of ruining our plastic packaging and drinks industries by introducing draconian measures for controlling the production of plastic packaging simply because David Attenborough and his Green cohorts made the silly statement that plastic in the seas could kill a million fish or crustaceans every year. He totally ignores the fact that the deep sea fishing industry takes billions of fish and crustaceans from the seas across the world each day and every day of the year as a valuable food source for humanity, and overlooks the fact that fish, mammals and crustaceans live by predating on other animals in the oceans for their own survival, yet he seems to think that everything living in the sea is going to change their diets by eating plastic bottles! But governments simply ignore these facts and always take the word of the anti-humanity Greens as indisputable and without question.
A huge packaging and drinks industry will be seriously damaged if Governments don’t have the courage to take a sensible line against these irresponsible people who cry ‘wolf’ every time a minor occurrence gives them a platform from which to voice their illogical opinions, opinions which are always supported by the irresponsible news outlets such as the BBC who rarely question the opinion of the Greens regardless of how stupid that opinion might be.
With a single bang of her gavel, Judge Mary Ann Driscol has abolished all reason for society to maintain judges.
Rather than being an unbiased umpire, she became a partisan of one side. She did not rule in accordance with law or justice.
The effect of her ruling is the legal precedent that no-one has protection under the law for their life or property from climate cultists.
This was not just judicial misbehavior, and a travesty of justice, it was another sharp cut creating divisions within your country.
The message from Judge Driscoll’s ruling is that the law doesn’t matter. You cannot turn to it to seek justice. That she disregarded law, and replaced justice with her political preferences, demonstrates her unfitness of the office she holds.
What options do you have in your country? In addition to appealing the decision, which will be an expensive effort with no gain in justice nor deterrence, but must be done to abolish Driscol’s wrong-headed ‘precedent’, don’t you have impeachment and recall elections?
It’s a great deal of effort, but if you believe their should be a legal system above partisanship, you must do those things. It’s a matter of necessity.
Declaring necessity and expressing belief in a cause was/is sufficient justification to break the law and to trespass/damage with impunity? Smacks of Sharia.
the parents of the american taliban- out there in the bay area- were lawyers.
they said they were glad he found something to believe in.
this has been long foreshadowed.
I will assume you are correct about the lawyers as I don’t know. It seems fairly incredible to me that lawyers, for whom truth is always relative, would have any regard for the faith and belief of their child. It reminds me of a number of minister’s kids I knew who seemed to be determined to act up as much as possible.
don’t believe anything you hear on the internet …lol
his daddy frank:
” He lives on a quiet tree-lined street in San Rafael, in Marin County, and rides the bus every morning across the Golden Gate Bridge to San Francisco, where he is the general counsel for the California Public Utilities Commission and oversees a sixty-five-lawyer legal division. He recently remarried, this time to a man”
https://www.gq.com/story/john-walker-lindh-afghanistan-captured-taliban
” “Everyone’s assuming John’s guilty of the worst crime in our history. And now here’s his father not apologizing. But I can’t apologize for something that’s not true. I can’t feed into that myth. He’s a really good person.” He pauses and takes a halting breath. “I’m proud of my son.””
mommy was into all the progressive new ageness…(spirituality is fashionable in da bay)
“Marilyn Walker was a stay-at-home mom who kept her maiden name.”
” Marilyn Walker had left Catholicism and become a Buddhist”
http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,187564,00.html
I don’t think we allow anarchists to be judges in the UK. Oh, I’m sorry. You call them Democrats don’t you?
Steve B: See Greenpeace/Kingsnorth in the post. This defence has also been used successfully in UK for destruction of GM crops by Greenpeace.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2000/sep/21/activists.gmcrops
Lord Melchett of Greenpeace, no relation to General Melchett in the Flanders Pigeon Murderer case as far as I know.
So, it appears we’re now legally justified to blow up Al Gore’s private jet.
Shouldn’t have to blow it up. All one needs are a handful of “capitalists” to chain themselves to the wheels. But I’m sure Gore has fencing and guards to keep everyone away from his plane. Think you could find a judge to side with that demonstration? It should, however, be challenged. The US legal system is running the country. And this judge is 75 yo!
When the judges start showing contempt for the law then you have a serious problem.
We h ad 8 years of a President and Attorney General showing contempt for the law. During that time they nominated a Supreme Court judge who, in her congressional vetting process declared that she felt it was important to be able to show empathy for the victim’s situation. Rather than declaring her unfit to judge anything, let alone sit on the Supreme Court, her nomination was approved.
McDonalds gets sued because their coffee is too hot. One of the metroliners (NY Subway I believe it was) gets sued because a drunk fell in front of the train and was dismembered. Both suits won, along with many other equally ridiculous cases.
The serious problem began long ago and will not be undone any time soon, if at all. This case is little more than a pimple on the elephant’s butt.
I can certainly accept the intricacies of Tort-Law when something bad happens and there is a process of arriving at who’s fault it is, if anybody’s.
But when a judge sides with the argument of “Sure, I broke the law because my personal beliefs about something decades or centuries in the future, that might not actually happen at all, allows me to do just what ever I want today”, then that seems like One Step Beyond (appropriately sung by the UK pop group “Madness” back in the 80’s).
michael
Top comment. Especially weaving Suggs et al in there.
🤣
Society is more efficient when the political class works seamlessly with the judiciary. Boston is learning from Zimbabwe.
It’s simple. To keep things balanced the defendants must now go to all countries where there are oil and gas pipelines and get them shut down: Russia; Iran; Iraq; Qatar; Nigeria; Venezuela; Saudi Arabia; Libya; UK; Norway. A few of these places have the rule of law which I would have thought might be a problem, but as of now the rule of law should be no obstacle.
Cut off Judge Driscoll’s fossil fuels. Stop selling her gasoline, “Sorry your honor but it’s necessary in order to teach you a lesson about law and order.”
I concur Mike, using that defense I should be able to go over to the fine activist judge’s house and shut off her power, gas, and put her car up on blocks. She could be causing imminent danger in the future, to me and my loved ones. Off the rails, recall this judge, Boston, you can do better.
lets not mess around with ‘earth hour’ lets have ‘earth week’ or even ‘earth month’ and see what so called ‘saving the planet’ actually looks and feels like.
They could try an “earth lifetime”. I believe it was once called the stone age.
Activist Judges are tearing this country apart. They are justifying and enabling criminal behavior and anarchy.
Sanctuary Cities and States Should Not Be Allowed to Sue in Federal Court; Trump Should Nullify California vs Exxon
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2018/03/30/sanctuary-cities-and-states-should-not-be-allowed-to-sue-in-federal-court-trump-should-nullify-california-vs-exxon/
To clarify a couple of thingss:
1) The original criminal charges were reduced to civil infractions:
Boston – A long awaited local trial of 13 environmental activists, arrested in 2016 for their civil disobedience in protesting a major new fracked gas pipeline in West Roxbury, was suddenly and surprisingly canceled late last week by the prosecuting attorney. The original charges of trespassing and disturbing the peace were reduced to “civil infractions,” basically the equivalent of a parking ticket.
2) The Judge retired in 2013 at the age of 70 and was working on a temporary basis — basically she had nothing to lose.
3) Bill McKibben was slated to be an expert witness if the original charges were brought to trial.
I’m not a lawyer, but dismissing the equivalent of a parking ticket doesn’t set any kind of legal precedence.
“2) The Judge retired in 2013 at the age of 70 and was working on a temporary basis — basically she had nothing to lose.”
That selfish view is the problem, her actions undermine confidence in the entire judicial system, and in turn, our stability as a Nation.
Al Gore and green sympathizers brought in a ‘ringer’, to save his little sweet’ems from facing the consequences of her deliberate criminal actions???