9th Circuit Reverses Conviction in Ecoterror Case, Citing Judge's Errors
A federal appeals court has overturned the conviction of a woman who participated in a 2001 ecoterror attack on a university research center in Seattle.
The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a ruling (PDF) Wednesday, said the now-deceased judge who presided over the case made mistakes that cast doubt on the fairness of the woman’s trial, the Associated Press reported Thursday.
Briana Waters, 34, was convicted of serving as a lookout during the Earth Liberation Front attack on the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture and sentenced to six years in prison plus $6 million in restitution.
But the 9th circuit took issue with several aspects of the trial, including the late U.S. District Court Judge Franklin Burgess’ decision to allow jurors to review articles Waters purportedly gave an alleged co-conspirator that advocatd violence against well-known American institutions such as Wall Street and Disneyland.
Burgess, who died last spring, compounded the error by not allowing jurors to see a documentary Waters had made advocating nonviolent protests, the appeals court said.
Seattle lawyer Mark Bartlett, the former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case, said he was disappointed by the ruling. “The conviction was not only based on the evidence, but based on a fair fight in the courtroom,” he said.
Waters’ lawyer, Dennis Riordan of San Francisco, said he would seek his client’s release from a federal prison in Connecticut pending a new trial, if prosecutors decide to retry the case.
