Tim DeChristopher is facing 10 years in prison for civil disobedience–bidding in a sham oil and gas auction. State lawmakers have called DeChristopher an “eco-terrorist.” The jury, however, has been prevented from hearing anything about climate change, or why someone would be compelled to non-violently disrupt the auction.
As the New York Times reported:
…Judge Dee Benson of United States District Court in Salt Lake City, who is hearing the case, is intent on preventing the jury from weighing the broader social and environmental implications of the case.
Judge Benson has already ruled that Mr. DeChristopher’s attorneys cannot seek acquittal on a “necessity defense,†which would involve arguing that his actions were necessary to stop the greater wrong of man-made climate change or other environmental harm…
The defense may also be barred from presenting evidence that the leases for the that parcels Mr. DeChristopher illegally bid on and won — many of which lie near Utah’s scenic Arches and Canyonlands national parks — were themselves later struck down by a federal judge and Obama administration officials as unlawful.
This isn’t an isolated occurrence. In the trial of the SHAC 7, the jury was prevented from hearing about why a group of activists would feel compelled to devote their lives to shutting down an animal testing lab. In the Operation Backfire Earth Liberation Front cases, the judge repeatedly said “this is not a political case,” and acted if all crimes are the same.
But motive matters. Someone who disrupts an oil and gas auction in order to line their own pockets is not the same as someone who commits the same act in order to stop an illegal, destructive operation for a greater good.
In the Tim DeChristopher case and many others, a judge’s refusal to let jurors learn about the politics of the defendant doesn’t mean the case is apolitical; it means that only one side of the courtroom is political–the prosecution. And that’s just the way the oil and gas corporations want it.