FARMINGTON – In a little more than 5 minutes, a Franklin County jury found two Earth First! protesters guilty of failure to disperse after stopping a semi-truck last summer carrying a 140-foot wind turbine blade on its way to the Kibby Wind Power Project construction site.
Justice Michaela Murphy sentenced Willow Cordes-Eklund, 27, of Minneapolis, Minn., and Erik Gillard, 27, of Montpelier, Vt., to each serve 10 days in jail and pay a $500 fine for the Class D misdemeanor charge of failure to disperse. Murphy took issue with the fact that the tractor trailer driver, a private citizen who was not named in court, had been subjected to the brunt of the protesters’ actions on July 6, 2010. Those actions included 20 or so protesters stopping the truck on Route 27 and surrounding it as law enforcement officers attempted to keep the crowd away from truck. Gillard testified he climbed up to the cab to keep the driver calm and ask him to turn off the truck’s engine.
After Gillard was pulled down by an officer and handcuffed, Eklund scrambled underneath the truck’s trailer and chained herself to the trailer’s support using two bike locks. The driver was seen in video clips shown during the trial as being angry.
“He was upset and frightened,” Murphy told the defendants at sentencing. “He was simply a guy trying to do his work,” she said. “This situation quickly could have escalated out of control for the truck driver and protesters. It was a dangerous situation they created and he (driver) had no involvement in the political dispute.”
Justice Murphy’s 10-day jail sentence came as somewhat of a surprise, because following the guilty verdicts that came at noon today, Assistant District Attorney James Andrews had suggested a sentence for each of $500 fine and 100 hours of community service to be served in Maine. Defense attorneys Philip Worden and Lynne Williams suggested 100 hours was “a little steep” and recommended 75 hours instead.
Jurors took little time in convicting the pair. The jury began deliberations at 11:40 a.m. and knocked on the jury room door at nearly 11:46 a.m. to announce they had reached a verdict. Juror Raymond Richard of Wilton, said in that time two votes were taken. The first was 50-50 for conviction.
Richard said he told jurors: “They both had trouble telling the truth.” He said the officers were “just doing their jobs and trying to keep the situation safe” and he said watched the videos depicting the scene carefully. But, he had the most trouble with Gillard’s and Eklund’s testimony because they “weren’t answering the questions,” Andrews asked them on cross examination. Another vote was taken after a short discussion in which the other jurors had similar concerns as Richard did and all 12 members agreed to convict.
During the trial, three state police troopers and a U.S. Border Patrol agent testified and videos were viewed of the blockade scene take by cameras on two cruiser during the trial on Monday. Much of the focus by both the prosecutor and defense team had been on the officers’ response to the protesters’ actions. Specifically, that the officers did not use the word “disperse” as the defense contended was needed to convey the correct order for the protesters actions to be in violation of a failure to disperse. In videos and testimony, the officers said, “get back, stop and don’t move” to keep the protesters away from the truck.
“They knew what they were doing,” Andrews said of the protesters’ actions to create a blockade of a wind turbine blade that day. “Now we’re simply asking that they be held responsible.”
In negotiated plea agreements before the jury trial started yesterday, two others charged in the blockade entered pleas to a misdemeanor charge of failure to disperse. Ana Rodriguez, 30, of Florida and Courtney Butcher, 26, of Minnesota, had their attorney Barbara Chassie enter their pleas because they were not present. Rodriguez pleaded guilty to the Class E failure to disperse, agreeing to a 12-month deferred disposition in which she is to complete 50 hours of community service and refrain from further criminal conduct. If successful, the charge will be dismissed a year from now. Butcher pleaded no contest to the charge of Class E failure to disperse and received a $100 fine plus $60 in court fees.
Today, following sentencing Gillard was taken into custody. A supporter said as he was lead away in handcuffs, “You’re my hero.” A few others clapped. Eklund was granted a stay of execution until 6 p.m. Aug. 25, so she can return to Minnesota to start a summer job on Thursday as a chef at a children’s urban garden program.
Outside of court today, Eklund said she was surprised to be sentenced to 10 days in jail and how quickly the verdict was rendered. She added, “We were all focused on the interaction with police, but Justice Murphy was right for bringing up that concern for the truck driver.” Eklund, tearing up, said she plans on continuing her efforts of “being an environmental activist to protect wildlife.”
To read the results of the first day of the trial, click here.
Why a stay of jail time for Eklund? She inconvenienced others from doing their job. Why not give her the same treatment and prevent her from doing her job?
> Why not give her the same treatment and prevent her from doing her job?
The conviction on her record will do that for a long time to come…
I hope those two protesters have time to think about how moronic their actions were. Everyone has beliefs and I don’t disrespect how they feel about this situation. However, the fact remains that NOTHING was going to change by them doing this. All they did was postpone the wind turbine process and cost the town money for putting them through the judicial system. There’s nothing heroic or honorable about this entire ordeal.
Im sure they’re trust fund babies that have never had a real job anyways.
Yeah, I bet a conviction for being an environmental activist will prevent her from working as an environmental activist. HA! One thing is for sure, having her in jail for ten days will waste a lot of our money.
One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach us more of man
And woman,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.
Neither of them are trust fund babies, and both of them have had to work a lot of very challenging “real” jobs. They are people who care deeply about our forests and our future. They are passionate, intelligent, grounded, loving and sweet people who would do just about anything for their friends. TransCanada and those destroying the Maine wilderness are the ones that should be in jail.
I guess some of you just don’t see the dignity in standing up for what you believe in. Maybe you don’t care enough about anything to take risks for the greater good.
And another thing— their actions DID make a difference. This was the first anti-industrial wind power action in the country, and it has gotten people to question this “solution” much more than before. In addition, it likely had an affect on LURC’s decisions about the turbines, and brought a hell of a lot of media attention to the issue.
Dear Jasper James,
“Grounded ” people do not use bicycle locks to chain themselves to the underside of a loaded 18 wheeler.
I recall the protest sign to say: “Please don’t ruin OUR mountain”…
Willow Cordes-Eklund of Minneapolis, Minn
Erik Gillard of Montpelier, Vt.
Ana Rodriguez of Florida
Courtney Butcher of Minnesota
I can tell this was a true MAINE effort…
My country, ’tis of thee,
the UNITED States of America
Jasper,
Please if you know these Earth First people, tell them to leave now. They are doing more harm than good. A good number of people in rural Maine don’t like Earth First and will oppose them on anything. The people that are against wind companies have worked hard to educate people on the issue and Earth First came in and set us back years. I can’t stand the idea of wind companies but when I read about Earth First protest I wanted the drivers to do what they were paid for, DRIVE!!! Think about it, now any sign that is against wind companies will be seen as an Earth First sign. The people of rural Maine don’t need or want Earth First help so tell them to stop.
P.S. For the comment about the first anti-industrial wind power. I was being called a NIMBY(of coarse I am not) long before Earth First showed up.
You’re right, Trapper! Just as those Bostonians tossing tea into the harbor made other protests against British rule questionable.
Worthy Words, to bring up the Boston Tea Party in the same conversation as these morons is just wrong and an insult to the members of the Boston Tea Party. 1) the Boston Tea Party member were from Boston or at least Mass. 2) if history serves me right there was people that were going through the proper channels to have the states govern themselves. So the Boston Tea Party probably made any British citizen that supported America question the issue. 3) The Boston Tea Party members risked their lives to toss that tea. Did Willow really risk her life by hooking herself under a stopped truck with law enforcement officers stand right there, NO. Now if she hooked herself to that truck when it was going 55 mph then she start to compare herself to the Boston Tea Party member.
Just to make sure, Words is Earth First wanting the US to go to war with the British again? I don’t want us talking about to different things. LOL
I believe everyone has the right to stand up for what they believe in, but I don’t believe that should involve destruction of other’s property.
In recent years EarthFirst activists have vandalized SUVs, sabotaged the building of a $2million apartment complex, burned fields of crops, cut hydraulic lines on equipment, set fire to equipment, and threatened the lives of workers and their family members for working for companies that EarthFirst opposes. I’m sorry, but I think that cutting hydraulic lines and allowing the oil to run on to the ground is an act of hypocracy on their part.
And for those of you who didn’t hear last year, some Earth First activists attempted to detonate an explosive at the base of one of the wind towers. Thankfully law enforcement over-extended their budget to have enough officers there to prevent mass destruction.
If you don’t like the acts of others, act like a civil, educated, responsible human being; not a felon!
Earth First! is an international movement and there is a local Maine Earth First! group that hosted the national Earth First! summer gathering last July near Stratton Maine. Maine Earth First! is made up of people who live in maine and care deeply about what happens to maine’s woods. We are made up of farmers, nurses, carpenters, small business owners, and many other hardworking professions. So yes the four arrested were from out of state, but they were here because we invited them and they wanted to help us with our campaign against industrial wind, so don’t think that Earth First! is all out of staters, we live here, all over the state, and want to see maine’s natural heritage protected for nature’s sake and for our future generations to be able to live here with healthy forests, clean water, and clean air. The last comment from Concerned wrote about actions that may not even be accurate and are certainly not the norm of actions that earth firsters! take part in, here in maine, earth first! attends public hearings, holds peaceful demonstrations and is committed to nonviolent forms of protest that are protected under our first amendment right. Will you stand up for what you believe is right? our fossil fuel dependent culture is destroying our planet, capitalism is a failed system, will you stand up for something else? something better? I love Maine and I will fight peacefully to protect it from the interests of international corporations whose interests do not include the people of maine or the environment, Trans Canada, the company behind the wind project that these kids protested last year is responsible for one of the worst environmental disasters of our times, the Alberta Tar Sands. So please lets focus our energy on the real criminals here!
Worth thinking about in relation to the news and all the comments above:
http://www.truth-out.org/printmail/3591