Plowshares activists sentenced to 2 to 15 months in prison

Five peace activists, dubbed the Disarm Now Plowshares, were given prison sentences ranging from two months to 15 months in federal court in Tacoma on March 28 for breaking into the U.S. Navy Subase Kitsap-Bangor on Hood Canal to symbolically disarm the nuclear weapons stored there. The five, including two Jesuit priests and a nun, were convicted by a federal jury in December of using bolt cutters to cut through three chain-link fences to enter an area where some 1,700 thermonuclear warheads are stored.

Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General under President Lyndon B. Johnson, Thomas Gumbleton, retired Catholic bishop of Detroit, and others testified on behalf of the defendants. Clark testified that never in his life has he encountered such unselfish people as those who participate in the Plowshares tradition of direct action against nuclear weapons. Regarding their decision to live a life of civil resistance, he said, “Their consciences tell them they have to do it.” Gumbleton, founding president of the peace group Pax Christi USA, testified that the Catholic Church has spoken out very strongly against nuclear weapons, saying that no use of nuclear weapons can be justified morally.

The Rev. Bill Bichsel of Tacoma, 82, was sentenced to three months in prison and six months home detention by U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle. Settle also sentenced 84-year-old Sr. Anne Montgomery to two months in prison and four months in home detention. The Rev. Stephen Kelly, 62, from Oakland, Calif., and Susan Crane, 67, a retired public school teacher from Baltimore, were both sentenced to 15 months in prison. Lynne Greenwald, 61, a social worker from Bremerton, received a sentence of six months.

Supporters asked the judge not to sentence any of the five to prison. But Settle called the protesters’ actions a “form of anarchy” that if left unchecked would result in a breakdown of society. While Settle praised the five for their life stories and their humanitarian work, the judge said he was bound by the law to send “a very clear message” that legal—not illegal—means must be used to try to bring about the change they sought.

As member of the legal team, Anabel Dwyer, a Michigan attorney and board member of The Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy in New York, said she was impressed by the judge’s civility and his thoughtful attention to the case. Judge Settle issued shorter sentences than prosecutors recommended. He said he gave Bichsel a shorter sentence, in part, because of his “precarious health” and also cited his work in the community at the Tacoma Catholic Worker House. “It’s not easy to sit in judgment of people who have lived such sacrificial lives,” Settle said.

Photo: Fr. Bill Bichsel's mugshot from the county jail in Knoxville, Tenn.

Bichsel has already spent about 20 months in federal prison for prior acts of trespass at Bangor and at the School of Americas, Fort Benning, Georgia. However, apparently due to the lapse in time since his prior convictions, the government’s sentencing memo said Bichsel had “no counting criminal history.”

Kelly and Crane received the longest sentences because they had the most extensive criminal history. Both have several prior convictions for damaging government property at military installations across the country in protest of U.S. military weapons.

The five were convicted December 13 of conspiracy, trespassing and destruction of government property. They faced up to 10 years in prison. The defendants admitted they broke into the base around 2:00 a.m. on November 2, 2009. Bichsel previously said the protesters were inside the perimeter fence for about 4½ hours before they cut through the final two fences and approached the nuclear weapons bunkers. Armed guards responded to an alarm, ordered the banner-carrying activists to the ground and placed bags over their heads so they couldn’t view any more of the secure area.

During their week-long trial, the protesters wanted to focus their defense on their motivation for breaking into the base, but Settle barred them from submitting arguments that called the weapons illegal under international law. During the sentencing, however, the protesters were free to speak about their intent. All read statements in court that focused on the personal responsibility they feel to disarm nuclear weapons, and their desire to prevent pain, suffering and death for “those deprived by our wars and military budget of a human way of life.”

The five protesters have 10 days from the sentencing to decide whether they will appeal the jury’s December verdict to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

– edited from the Tacoma News Tribune and Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action e-mail
PeaceMeal, March/April 2011

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