War protesters go on trialJury selection begins today in Binghamton for ‘St. Patrick's Four'By NANCY DOOLING
Gannett News Service
Matthew Hinton/Journal Staff
From left, Peter De Mott, Clare Grady, Teresa Grady and Daniel Burns go on trial today in Binghamton. The war protesters face charges stemming from a March 17, 2003 incident at a military recruitment office in Ithaca and splashed blood on the walls, floor, some photographs and a flag.
BINGHAMTON — Clare Grady admits she and three others spilled blood in a Tompkins County military recruiting office on St. Patrick's Day, 2003. What she wants the federal government to admit is that the war in Iraq is illegal and that, under international law, she has the right — in fact, an obligation — to prevent the United States from breaking the law.
Today, the 46-year-old Grady, her sister, Teresa Grady, 39, Peter De Mott, 58, and Daniel Burns, 45, will go on trial in Binghamton's federal court for splashing their blood in the Lansing recruiting office in protest against the Iraq war.
The St. Patrick's Four, as they call themselves, all live in Ithaca and are associated with a Catholic Worker movement. They face federal charges of conspiring to impede an officer of the United States, and entering and damaging federal property. A conviction on the conspiracy charge alone — the most serious of a four-count indictment — carries up to six years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.
Getting arrested for protesting at U.S. military facilities is nothing new to them. All have arrests related to protests, some going back decades.
“I have anxiety about jail time,” said Burns, 45, a son of the late Binghamton Mayor John Burns Sr. “I can't lie about that.”
But he and the others are willing to go to prison for what they believe in — even if it means having to be separated from his two young children. “What if I did nothing?” he asks. “What would I tell them?”
None of the four have any regrets about what landed them in New York's federal court system. On March 17, 2003 — St. Patrick's Day — just days before the United States began combat operations in Iraq, the four carried containers of their own blood into the recruiting office and splashed it on the walls, floor, some photographs and an American flag in the lobby. They admit to the act, but they dispute the monetary value of the damage they caused. They say about $200; prosecutors say more than $1,000.
And they say what they did wasn't a crime.
It isn't the first time they've gone on trial for the incident. Last year, a Tompkins County jury could not agree on whether the four were guilty of felony mischief charges and the trial ended in a mistrial.
The four protesters represented themselves in Tompkins County and will do so again this week, with legal advisers standing by. Had they been convicted last year, their state prison time could have been as long as four years.
Tompkins County District Attorney George Dentes said that jury was motivated by political ideology and not by the evidence, which determines whether or not a crime has been committed. He turned the case over to the federal prosecutors instead of retrying it in Tompkins County.
But the St. Patrick's Four's defense - that they acted under a higher law to prevent their country from committing further crimes — has been banned this time by Thomas J. McAvoy, the federal judge who will oversee the new trial, court documents show.
McAvoy, a 19-year veteran of the federal bench, refused to dismiss the indictments on the grounds offered by the four protesters that the war in Iraq is illegal, calling their argument without merit. “This Court offers no opinion on the war in Iraq as it is entirely irrelevant to this matter,” McAvoy wrote in a May decision. Even assuming the war is illegal, McAvoy wrote, “it does not provide a justification for violating the laws of the United States.”
Miroslav Lovric, the assistant U.S. attorney who will prosecute the case, declined comment. He earlier argued in court papers that the Iraq war defense was irrelevant to the case.
“The status of the war in Iraq is absolutely irrelevant as to the question of whether defendants are guilty or not guilty of the commission of the criminal offenses charged,” Lovric wrote in court documents. The prosecutor cited a U.S. Supreme Court opinion: “(Defendants') professed unselfish motivation, rather than a justification, actually identified a form of arrogance which organized society cannot tolerate.”
Court documents indicate that Lovric expects to call the military personnel who witnessed the blood-throwing incident, as well as use transcripts from the Tompkins County Court trial, statements made by the protesters and their criminal histories.
The four protesters will be facing a different jury pool for the federal trial. Jurors will be picked from a wider region, including Broome, Chenango and Tioga counties, documents indicate.
McAvoy will let the protesters' legal advisers question potential jurors or conduct questioning himself, he wrote in court documents. The judge also has approved some jury questions proposed by the protesters, although he vetoed more than half of the survey, including queries about religious backgrounds and feelings about protests, court records indicate.
Originally published September 19, 2005
