Anti-nuclear nuns appeal sabotage conviction

By Karen Abbott , Rocky Mountain News
October 2, 2004

Lawyers for three Catholic nuns imprisoned after a 2002 protest at a nuclear missile site in Weld County argued Friday in Denver that the government grossly overcharged the women in order to silence opposition to U.S. weapons policies.

Dominican sisters Carol Gilbert , 58, Jackie Marie Hudson , 69, and Ardeth Platte, 68, have appealed their convictions to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Defense lawyer Susan Tyburski opened her argument before three 10th Circuit judges with a Chinese proverb: "Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend's forehead."

The nuns' lawyers said the women intended to send a message to the world when they cut links to open a chain-link fence around the missile silo, banged on a railing with a small hammer, spilled their own blood on the ground, and prayed, sang and chanted for peace.

But the nuns never intended to interfere with national defense, the lawyers argued.

A jury convicted the nuns last year of injuring, interfering and obstructing national defense materials and premises - or sabotage - and of the less serious charge of damaging government property.

Tyburski told the 10th Circuit judges that Colorado U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn, who presided over the nuns' trial, should have dismissed the sabotage charge because there was no evidence to support it.

Defense lawyer Cliff Barnard said merely damaging the fence around the missile silo was not enough to show that the nuns meant to interfere with national defense.

"Intending to harm the fence is not the same thing as intending to harm the national defense," he said.

Defense lawyer Scott Poland also argued that Blackburn should have instructed the jurors about the legal meaning of the term "good faith" in the context of the nuns' case.

The nuns' actions were based on their sincere belief that nuclear missiles and other weapons of mass destruction are immoral and illegal under international law - hence their "good faith" claim, the lawyers argued.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Murphy countered that the sincerity of the nuns' beliefs doesn't permit them to interfere with national defense.

"They are entitled to their beliefs, but that belief does not counter any intent to interfere with the national defense," Murphy said.

He argued that the nuns actually did interfere with national defense because U.S. troops, engaged in a training exercise at another missile site, were called to the scene because of the nuns' protest. A helicopter also was deployed to the scene.

"They called out explosives experts," Murphy said. "They were diverted from their duties."

Supporters of the nuns who nearly filled the courtroom groaned when Murphy also argued that the nuns' blood, spilled at the silo site from baby bottles, contaminated the government's ground.

Judges Stephen Anderson of Utah and Harris Hartz of New Mexico questioned that contention.

"Well, human blood - I think if someone threw human blood in this courtroom we would all consider it to be contamination," Murphy said.

The nuns weren't in the courtroom. They are serving sentences ranging from 30 months to 41 months.

Blackburn also ordered them to pay the government $3,080 for damage to the fence and the cost of cleaning up the blood.

He also ordered the nuns, who are veteran anti-nuclear protesters, to stay away from military facilities once they're released from prison.

The three-judge appeals panel that heard arguments Friday also included Judge Timothy Tymkovich , of Colorado .

The judges are expected to issue a decision within months on the nuns' request for a new trial.

Outside the courthouse, the nuns' supporters stood in the rain on the marble steps to hoist a banner quoting the Bible's book of Isaiah: "THEY SHALL BEAT THEIR SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES; NATIONS SHALL LEARN WAR NO MORE."