Eugene, OR — Today is a historic moment for climate activists in the U.S. The Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld a lower trial court’s ruling that will allow four climate activists to provide evidence of the necessity of their actions to a jury of their peers.
On Monday night I laid awake all night long in an uncomfortable hotel bed waiting for my alarm to go off at 6am. I was obsessively ruminating on the sentencing presentation I would give to the Chouteau County District Court in Fort Benton, MT on Tuesday morning on behalf of Valve Turner Leonard Higgins.
The activists took these actions with the intention of bringing forth a climate necessity defense in the various state courts of Washington, Montana, Minnesota and North Dakota.
March 20, 2018– Statement of Lauren Regan, Civil Liberties Defense Center Attorney for Higgins.
On behalf of our client Leonard Higgins, we want to begin by thanking your honor, court staff, and the district attorney for their time and professionalism with regard to this case. It is not very often that […]
In troubled political times like these, Civil Liberties Defense Center is called upon to provide expert legal support to a wide variety of social and environmental movements with unprecedented frequency. We are proud and honored to have defended over 150 climate defenders nationwide this year, including those in Skagit County, […]
November 9, 2017
Mount Vernon, WA — An appeal was filed today in the Washington Court of Appeals challenging a Superior Court ruling that denied climate activists the ability to present a necessity defense to a jury. Ken Ward, a climate activist from Corbett, Oregon, was charged with sabotage and burglary […]
Greetings from Cavalier, North Dakota where we are currently defending the North Dakota Valve Turners, Michael Foster and Sam Jessup. It’s day 3 of trial today. We spent a day and a half picking a jury in this rural, conservative farming community on the outskirts of the Baaken oil fields […]
Mount Vernon, WA — In a victory for the climate movement, a jury was unable to reach a verdict in the trial of Ken Ward, a climate activist from Corbett, Oregon, who had been charged with sabotage and burglary after an October 2016 protest in which he and four other […]
