By Gwen Frost
Two protesters on trial for blocking a highway in Lynden have been found guilty and sentenced to an imposed 10 day jail sentence served through Whatcom’s out of custody work crew, with a $250 fine that could be worked off with community service.
On Saturday May 7, 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump came to Lynden to hold a support rally after visiting Spokane. Counter protests were held both at the Northwest Washington Fairgrounds where the rally was, as well as on a Lynden highway less than a mile from the grounds.
In an attempt to block potential attendees of the rally, Josefina Alanis-Mora, Thomas Correia Kaplan and Neah Lin Monteiro used chains, PVC pipes and ladders to form a human chain that blocked two lanes of traffic. State and county patrol and officials took apart the barrier thirty minutes after the blockade began at about 2 p.m.
Mora and Kaplan were the defendants on trial today, October 11. Judge David Grant stated that Monteiro had deferred her sentence and settled for a $250 fine and 25 hours of community service.
Mora is currently a Western student. Kaplan graduated this August with a Law, Diversity, and Justice Major from Fairhaven.
The verdict for all defendants was announced as guilty, a unanimous decision by the jurors for each defendant. After excusing the jurors, Judge Grant segued into “the next thing I want to do- well, not want to do, but the next thing, it’s sentencing.”
After prosecutor Roche made numerous objections during the closing statements of the defendants, he continued his aggressive approach and advised the Grant to impose a maximum sentence for what he described as a “far-reaching offense” where “significant harms were done”. The judge himself actually made an objection during the defendant’s closing statements.
Roche said that “everyone has a right to engage… not to the point where the interfering upon another person.” By blocking the flow of traffic, both rally-attendees and counter-protestors were delayed by about 30 minutes, as well as other citizens who had no particular goals of political participation that day, he said.
In a video Mora posted on Facebook, she explained that a necessity defense was denied by Judge Grant on the element that there were legal alternative means, like a permitted march. Some protesters weren’t arrested because they weren’t blocking the road.
She also pointed out that the trooper arresting Kaplan used a pain-compliance technique, bending Kaplan’s thumb backwards. Mora complained that a witness flown in from Portland by Defense wasn’t allowed to testify, and that Roche said in his closing statement that “their (defendants) action, in the military, is classified as an ambush technique”.
Defense lawyer Larry Hildes told the court that the civil rights movement was inconvenient, and “people on the bus in Montgomery didn’t get home on time”, much like those who were inconvenienced by the Whatcom 3.
He declared that “this is not an act worthy of jail time. We disagree with the verdict, we will appeal the verdict,” and recommended a lower-scale punishment than 90 days of jail time, which coupled with a $1000 fine is the maximum sentence for disorderly conduct.
Before the sentence was announced, the defendants were given a platform to speak.
“I’m taking 18 credits this quarter,” Mora said between tears. “And I think it’s unreasonable. We don’t have any prior records.”
Judge Grant began to ramble about Thoreau, and asked if the defendants had read him; because Thoreau, apparently, has a place in the courtroom as a theory of how to engage in civil disobedience. He went on to say “Thoreau went to jail, though.”
After giving both defendants the homework assignment of reading Thoreau’s essay on Civil Disobedience, he went on to give them an imposed jail sentence served on Whatcom County’s custody work crew, through a jail alternative center. Every morning for two weeks, 7:30 am, and with a sack lunch, the defendants will be serving the community to compensate those “whose freedom you stole from,” said Grant.
Interestingly enough, Hildes, the defense lawyer, stood up and said “If you’re going to send her to slave labor, you can at least get her name right,” which was followed by a very long quiet awkwardness in the courtroom. He went on to discuss how community service was a sort of “chain gang” and a “badge of slavery,” and contested the actual existence of the punitive system rather than discussing his case specifically.
The case will most definitely be appealed and possibly move onto appellate courts. Many in the courtroom were disappointed, an opinion that was summarized well by Hildes slowly saying “I think we can do better than that. I think we are better than that.”
I would certainly hope so, but we’ll see; for now, it looks like “we’re” not.
[The defendants in court Oct. 11. Gwen Frost // AS Review]