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Nuns Sentenced To Prison For Anti-War Protest

Judith Kohler Associated Press Writer

l. Despite his strong words, U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn gave the women less than the six-year minimum called for under sentencing guidelines. Jackie Hudson was sentenced to 2 1/2 years, Carol Gilbert to two years, nine months, and Ardeth Platte to three years, five months. "We're satisfied," prosecutor Robert Brown said. Hudson, 68, Gilbert, 55, and Platte, 66, were convicted in April of obstructing the national defense and damaging government property. The Roman Catholic nuns cut a fence and walked onto a Minuteman III silo site last October, pounding the silo with hammers and painting a cross on it with their blood. Officials said they caused at least $1,000 in damage. The nuns had until Aug. 25 to report to prison but chose to go immediately. Some peace activists have said the felony convictions were harsh and intended to have a chilling effect on other protesters, but the prosecutor said the nuns were repeat offenders who deserved prison. He said Platte had been arrested at least 10 times at anti-war protests, Hudson five times and Gilbert at least 13 times.

mark@cruzio.com

For more than six hundred years-- that is, since Magna Carta, in 1215--there has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what was the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their right, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such law. --Lysander Spooner, The Right of Juries

If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by a judge, and contrary to the evidence. -- 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, US v Moylan, 1969

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