Justice Denied

Judge: "Members of the jury, you must follow the law as I give it to you whether you agree with it or not. And you must not be influenced by any personal likes or dislikes, opinions, prejudices, or sympathy."

The above authoritarian words are spoken daily in courts around America. Our founding fathers intended for the jury to rule on the law and not just the facts. John Adams, our 2nd President had this to say about the Juror: "It is not only his right but his duty...to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgement, and concience, though in direct opposition to direction of the court."

Marcus Page, Brian Buckley, Elizabeth Wyrsch, and Scott Galindez were found guilty of Conspiracy and two counts of trespassing for their act of concience on May 20th at Vandenberg Air Force Base. All 4 face sentancing on October 15th.

Testimony and evidence at trial showed that we entered the base at 4am on the morning of January 20th and hiked throughought the beautiful wilderness area surrounding the instilations on the base. We stopped on the ridge of one of the rolling hills on the base during dawn for a sunrise prayer. We sat in a circle and shared one by one something that motivated us to be there...We then continued on and spent hours touring the base, stoping to nap under eucoliptus trees. We then headed for a tower where marcus climbed up and attatched an earth flag. From there we went from instilation to instilation looking for a missile launch pad. Before we could find one we were arrested while carrying a banner with the words "Sacred Earth Sacred Space"

Two others were with us...both from the Los Angeles Catholic Workers. Jeff Deitrich and Elizabeth Griswold. They both pled guilty. Jeff pled guilty to all three charges at arraignment and said he was prepared to do the maximum sentance. The prosecutor offered time served, and 5 years unsupervised probation, Jeff refused the probation stating he intended to go back to Vandenberg. The judge then ordered a pre sentancing report and scheduled his sentancing for August 6th. The probation department has recomended 6 months in jail and 2 years unsupervised probation in his case.

Elizabeth Griswold pled guilty to 1 count of tresspassing and recieved 2 years unsupervised probation.

The rest of us having been found guilty of all three charges expect a more severe sentance than Elizabeth recieved.

For more information contact Scott Galindez at sgalindez@prodigy.net