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Jury Hangs for Colombia Peace

by Kate Berrigan

adies and gentlemen, you are obstructing traffic on Capitol grounds. Please leave now, or you will be arrested.”

Washington, April 22: The protest against Plan Colombia. Photo: Linda Panetta

So began Assistant U.S. Attorney John Han’s closing statement to the jury on the third day of our trial for obstructing and impeding traffic last April 22 at the U.S. Capitol. Han was quoting Lt. John Planchard, the officer who had warned us before our arrest the day of the action.

The jury listened as Han detailed the reasons to find us guilty: We had blocked an important vehicular entrance to the Capitol and caused several cars to be turned away, thereby interfering with the “orderly processes of Congress” on “more than a minimal basis”; we had done so “knowingly and willfully”; our actions were not, as we maintained, protected by the First Amendment; our cause—the suffering of the people of Colombia under the U.S. military aid authorized by “Plan Colombia”—was not, as we maintained, a justification for what we did.

When Han finished, codefendant Shauna Farabaugh gave our closing statement. (The seven of us were representing ourselves as “pro se” defendants.) Shauna reminded the jury that we had been exercising our First Amendment rights, whether or not we “obstructed or impeded passage.” She spoke of the Capitol building as a traditional site for redress of grievances, and of the need to speak for voiceless campesinos in Colombia. She mentioned that police had blocked off nearby streets that morning before our protest began, and that the government had showed evidence of only one car trying to get past us. After refuting much of the government’s evidence and calling into doubt whether our actions “interfered on more than a minimal basis” with the “orderly processes of Congress,” Shauna returned to the real issue at hand. She concluded, “Unfortunately, Plan Colombia is not on trial today, though it most certainly should be. Members of the jury, standing before you [are] innocent persons.” Her request for a not-guilty verdict concluded our trial. After dismissing the jury to begin deliberating, Judge Henry Greene told us that Shauna’s closing statement was the best he had heard in years.

We had come a long way from Officer Planchard’s warning to the jury deliberations. April 22, the end of a weekend of peace protests in Washington (NVA, May-June), began for about 3,000 people in an unpermitted march, part of the Colombia Mobilization. The route, from the Washington Monument to the Capitol and a rally in Upper Senate Park, was planned to raise awareness about Colombia with both morning commuters and members of Congress. The march was cut off several times by aggressive lines of police in cars and on foot, horseback and motorcycles. The police on foot shoved; those in cars ran over some protesters’ feet.

When we reached the Capitol, two smaller groups headed for building entrances. My affinity group of 19 people slipped through police barricades and went to First and East Capitol Streets, NE, to block a driveway there. We sang, chanted and held up signs and puppets for 10 minutes before the Capitol police started arresting us. Then we locked our legs and arms around each other to delay the arrests.

Our blockade was over within half an hour, but we continued singing and talking with police on the buses. We were charged with “obstructing and impeding passage on Capitol grounds,” a minor misdemeanor that carries a maximum of six months in jail and a $500 fine. We were released later in the day with the 18 people who had blocked another driveway.

That Monday morning march capped a weekend of protests that attracted approximately 75,000 people to Washington. People from very diverse communities marched for peace in Palestine and Israel, in Colombia and its Latin American neighbors and in Afghanistan and other targets of the “War On Terrorism”; for economic justice instead of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund; for sustainable global development rather than corporate globalization of profit; and for a just domestic policy with civil liberties and respect for all. The protests were peaceful and beautiful and, for the most part, undisturbed by the usual intimidating police presence.

The U.S. Plan for Colombia
The Colombia Mobilization events (organized by a coalition of many groups including the Colombia Support Network, the School of the Americas Watch, Witness for Peace and WRL) brought together people from all over the Americas to speak for peace in Colombia and against “Plan Colombia.”

Plan Colombia was originally described by then-President of Colombia Andres Pastrana as part of “the search for peace, the reactivation of our economy and job-creation, the protection of human rights.” But of the $1.3 billion in U.S. aid provided by the 2000 Plan Colombia Act, 83 percent is military, and the “plan” has become a vehicle for U.S. interests. U.S. corporations and politicians profit from the package’s emphasis on combat helicopters from Bell and United Technologies. The helicopters transport troops and protect planes that spray coca crops with Monsanto’s RoundUp Ultra, a herbicide that is highly toxic to people and ecosystems (by the third spraying, food crops are dead and people are getting sick), yet less effective on coca. Through this cooperation with the Colombian military (and its right-wing paramilitary arm, known to commit egregious human rights violations), the United States gains access to Colombia’s natural resources. Thousands have been displaced by the fumigation and the military operations, making way for multinational corporations, especially oil speculators.

Trying to Be Heard
The 37 of us who were arrested April 22 met briefly that morning to discuss trial strategy, but by arraignment the next month several people’s charges were dropped. Several more elected to plead guilty or take a “diversion” deal (similar to probation, but allowing charges to be subsequently erased). Mark Goldstone of the National Lawyer’s Guild’s Demonstration Support Committee helped us plan. His strategy as an “attorney advisor” to pro se defendants generally consists of finding loopholes in the charge, giving jury members a way to vote for acquittal if they so choose. For demonstrators who may have little or no understanding of the legal system, this strategy is helpful, at least to the extent that the goal is avoiding conviction. These loopholes, often the only legal case the defense has, then allow the political issues to be brought up.

Another trip to Washington for a status hearing in early June whittled us down to a group of eight. By the time the trial began, one more person had pled guilty and we were seven, all of us under 26. The group used a loose consensus-based process, making only decisions everyone felt comfortable with.

Our goals in going to trial were manifold: We wanted to put Plan Colombia on trial, to show that increased criminalization of dissent since September 11 won’t deter protest and to gain courtroom experience and demystify the legal system for future reference. But our priority was speaking to the suffering of people in Colombia—the reason we did the action in the first place. We recognized that the legal system gets one caught up in technicalities that don’t really matter. Our hope was to ignore that as much as possible and focus on educating the jury and others about Plan Colombia, since a conviction seemed immaterial in comparison. Thus we decided that we would argue that we weren’t being disruptive on “more than a minimal basis,” (one element of the statute the government has to prove), but that we would keep our thoughts on Colombia and not expect much success.

In preparing for trial, we chose roles to show off our strengths. Becky Johnson, who is perhaps more well-versed in legalese than the rest of us, argued most of our pretrial motions; Riley Merline, who gave our opening statement, was a calm and peaceful presence to introduce us to the jury. During the prosecution’s case, I tried to look righteous in cross-examining the police who testified. Our case rested on Anna Hendricks, who had been to Colombia (and is arguably the most charming of our group), testifying about what she had seen there; Sarah Saunders, who had also been to Colombia, direct-examined Anna to elicit the best testimony. Shauna Farabaugh, sincere and convincing, gave the all-important closing statement; Jackie Downing, who thinks well on her feet, argued our proposals for jury instructions. Mark was available to answer questions and give advice, but we did our own research and our own talking. There was much to learn about the law, as well as from simply standing up and speaking in such an intimidating environment as court.

We were surprised at how much we were allowed to say about Colombia; the judge was relatively lenient. The jury (eight men, six women, eight white, six Black) watched as two police officers took the stand for the government’s case. They testified that they had warned us we would be arrested, that we had blocked the whole driveway and prevented access, and that we worked very hard to be uncooperative when they were trying to arrest us. The prosecution showed a video of the protest, in which our signs were clearly visible and one could often hear us chanting, singing or talking about Colombia.

Our case consisted of Anna’s testimony. She talked about her community service work before explaining the suffering she saw when she visited Colombia. During cross-examination, the prosecutor grilled her about where she learned her blockade techniques and ordered her to look at him when she answered a question, although speaking to the jury during testimony is a common and accepted practice. Despite the intimidation, she tried to emphasize that we are ordinary citizens with a right to petition our government; protesting at the Capitol was a last resort once other ways of reaching Congress had failed.

When Shauna gave our closing statement and we left the courtroom, we felt triumphant. We had done the best we could, tried to touch the jury’s hearts and show them why we needed to take this action. Now it was up to them. We had no idea we would be waiting two-and-a-half days for a verdict.

The jury returned to the courtroom several times to ask questions about the evidence and the law and twice to say they could not come to a verdict. Each question was cause for hope: There was “reasonable doubt” in someone’s mind. Though we didn’t expect a not-guilty verdict, there was reason to hope for a hung jury, a mistrial. At about 4:30 p.m. on July 24, the sixth day of the trial, the jury came in, clearly frustrated, and declared themselves hopelessly deadlocked.

That was the end, or so we thought. But once the jury was dismissed, the prosecutors said they would retry the case. We thought, we have to do this again?

We did have the opportunity to speak with some of the jurors to find out what evidence had the most effect on their deliberations (obviously, this can be useful for the next trial). However, we soon had to ask ourselves how to use the information we got from them. One juror said our privilege as young, apparently middle-class white people was evident in our choice of issues and tactics. She felt if we had connected our action more clearly to, for example, the civil rights struggle of the 1960s, which often involved “inconvenience” to average folks in order to dramatize injustice, the jury might have understood. Some jurors were sympathetic with our cause, but the two who were for acquittal were so from the beginning; they felt the government simply hadn’t proven we disrupted the orderly processes of Congress.

The lessons were clear: Prosecution, find witnesses who can testify that they were inconvenienced April 22 while trying to participate in the orderly processes of Congress. Defendants, don’t talk about the Colombian people, because the average Washington resident won’t understand or care. Rather, paint yourselves as one more group of citizens trying to work for justice in the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr.

It’s also clear that, before our group goes to trial again October 28, we need to think long and hard about our goals and strategy. Are we trying to gain sympathy for ourselves and for our activism by subsuming the specific injustice under the larger, more palatable heading of “peace”? Are we trying to put Plan Colombia on trial? Or are we sick of the whole process by now, and simply trying to give the jury a way to acquit us?

* * *

For more information on Colombia, see www.colombiamobilization.org or www.colombiareport.org/fiftyyearsofviolence.htm.

Kate Berrigan comes from a family with a long history of nonviolent civil disobedience. She worked as the Summer 2002 Freeman intern in the WRL National Office.