Author Topic: Opening Pandoras Box  (Read 1690 times)

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Offline AlanS

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Opening Pandoras Box
« on: January 26, 2016, 12:13:45 PM »
When your best defense is breaking the law for the better good, the possibilities are endless.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/01/25/can-breaking-the-law-be-a-legal-defense.html
Quote
First, they’ll focus on Snohomish County, Washington, where, last Friday, Seattle-area jurors found the so-called Delta 5 not guilty of obstruction for blockading a regional oil facility in 2014. The protest and the acquittal were notable as part of a growing wave of anti-oil-gas-and-coal citizen actions that has swept the country in the past few years, and the courtroom in Snohomish County was treated to a master class on why principled lawbreaking is just the tonic needed to cure our government’s woeful inaction on warming.

But what law students of the future will learn about the Delta 5 trial is something a bit more arcane, if no less momentous. For the first time in the United States, a jury heard testimony that defendants’ criminal actions were justified by “climate necessity”—that is, the argument that it’s better to break the law while getting in a few punches at the fossil fuel system than to sit back and lawfully watch the world burn. It’s a defense that’s been tried a handful of times, but in the U.S. has never made it past the judge’s bench slap. (One group of protesters used it successfully in England in 2008.)

In a last minute letdown in the Delta 5 case, the Snohomish County district judge barred the jury from actually considering the necessity defense. The cat was already out of the bag by then, though, and having at least heard the first American climate-necessity defense, the jury acquitted on the obstruction charge and convicted on trespassing. The defendants are appealing that conviction as well as the judge’s denial of their defense. In this case as in others that came before it, the judge decided that there were lots of things one should do to fight climate change besides engaging in civil disobedience—at least until the courthouse is underwater, presumably.

This precedent will not go as they planned.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem."

Thomas Jefferson

Offline IronDioPriest

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Re: Opening Pandoras Box
« Reply #1 on: January 26, 2016, 01:29:48 PM »
Wow. I'm sure they'll be applying that logic to those who break the law to save the unborn.

"A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means."

- Thomas Jefferson

Offline Alphabet Soup

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Re: Opening Pandoras Box
« Reply #2 on: January 26, 2016, 01:39:19 PM »
While you're digesting this bit of idiocy keep in mind that Snohomish County is (slightly) right of center.

!

Offline Weisshaupt

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Re: Opening Pandoras Box
« Reply #3 on: January 26, 2016, 02:06:30 PM »
In not too long it will be necessity to kill non-contributing zeros who think they have a right to what you produce....

and I am just waiting for Pan to change this thread title...

« Last Edit: January 26, 2016, 02:25:45 PM by Weisshaupt »

Online ToddF

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Re: Opening Pandoras Box
« Reply #4 on: January 26, 2016, 03:18:11 PM »
When the legal system breaks down there is only one way left to protect one's stuff.  It will be implemented.  Guaranteed.


Online Pandora

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Re: Opening Pandoras Box
« Reply #5 on: January 26, 2016, 04:12:21 PM »
In not too long it will be necessity to kill non-contributing zeros who think they have a right to what you produce....

and I am just waiting for Pan to change this thread title...

Wouldn't think of it.  It's a legitimate phrase.  'Sides, my email addy is pandorasbox, soooo .......
"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer." - Mark Twain

"Let us assume for the moment everything you say about me is true. That just makes your problem bigger, doesn't it?"

Offline Libertas

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Re: Opening Pandoras Box
« Reply #6 on: January 27, 2016, 07:30:02 AM »
Bleep 'em!  "Cry 'Havoc' "!

 ::viking::
We are now where The Founders were when they faced despotism.

Offline John Florida

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Re: Opening Pandoras Box
« Reply #7 on: January 27, 2016, 12:23:40 PM »
When the legal system breaks down there is only one way left to protect one's stuff.  It will be implemented.  Guaranteed.

     ::curtsy4::
All men are created equal"
 Filippo Mazzie