Olympia 22 win initial court battle: First Iraq War protest case to be allowed to argue "defense of necessity"

topic : Port Militarization Resistance | Port of Olympia

In a historic ruling in the Thurston County District Court on Oct. 3, presiding judge Susan Dubuisson has allowed the necessity defense to be used in a case resulting from civil resistance against the Iraq war.

This is only the fourth time in Washington State that the necessity defense has been allowed in trial for a case of civil resistance, and possibly the first time in the United States to be allowed in the case of activists demonstrating against the Iraq War.

The 17 defendants in this case were charged under the criminal trespass statute after participating in acts of civil resistance at the Port of Olympia on May 30, 2006, in response to the deployment of Army Stryker vehicles to Iraq for the continued US occupation of Iraq. 22 activists were arrested that day, leading to the activsts being identified as the "Olympia 22."

Despite initial accusations in the mainstream press that protesters engaged in vandalism and property destruction, no one has been charged with property destruction. Initial reports of the arrestees in The Olympian contained serious errors concerning the arrest charges and actions at the pretrial hearings.

The necessity defense, recognized only under limited circumstances, is applied to justify alleged actions conducted to stop a greater wrong -- in this case, the defendants' belief that the Iraq War is illegal and immoral.

According to one of the attorneys in the case, Larry Hildes, "The jury will get to hear from defendants why their actions were necessary and render a verdict based on that evidence. Defendants also get to demonstrate why they had no alternative but to take action to stop the [military] shipments."

The ruling followed numerous pretrial hearings, which began on June 6 and have already dealt with issues of police destruction of video documentation and the obstruction of the gathering of evidence [see page 5 for more details].

On May 22, Stryker vehicles from the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Division of Fort Lewis began arriving at the Port of Olympia for shipment to Iraq, which resulted in ten days of protest and 37 arrests, when local residents blocked a Stryker convoy and held demonstrations at the Port. Police responded with pepper spray, Tasers, and batons against the nonviolent anti-war activists.

The 3rd Brigade, 2nd Division was deployed to Iraq for a second tour in late June. Since then, the Brigade has suffered at least 6 fatalities and over 20 wounded. On June 22, Lt. Ehren Watada of the 3rd Stryker Brigade became the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse deployment to Iraq, also on the grounds that the Iraq War is illegal.

The trial date for the 17 defendants has been set for Nov. 13 at the Thurston County Courthouse, with a final pretrial hearing on Nov. 6. The public is invited.

The last time that the necessity defense was allowed in Thurston County District Court occurred in 1987, when activists were arrested while demonstrating against US support of South African Apartheid.

For more information, visit the Olympia 22 website at http://www.olympia22.org