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Daniel Ellsberg to Testify in Tacoma Anti-war Trial
from the office of Lawrence Hildes, attorney
Note: the courthouse address is 930 Tacoma Ave. S., Tacoma and according to the courthouse the trial starts at 9am on the 11th. —ed, Aug 10, 2010.
Daniel Ellsberg will appear as a key witness in an anti-war case in Pierce County District Court on Wednesday, August 11th and Thursday, August 12th of 2010. Ellsberg will testify that direct acts of civil disobedience are affective and necessary if unpopular wars are to end.
Ellsberg is the noted US military analyst employed by the RAND Corporation who was responsible for release of the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times in 1971. The act of releasing the classified documents was technically illegal, but the act of civil resistance turned public sentiment against the Vietnam war, ultimately encouraging an end to the war.
The two day trial focuses on defense of Olympia peace activist, Patricia Imani, who was arrested during a non-violent protest near the gates of Fort Lewis in August of 2008 and charged with Disorderly Conduct.
Over 160 NW peace activists, in association with Port Militarization Resistance, have been arrested in the past four years while taking part in non-violent civil disobedience to protest the US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
This is the first defense stemming from those arrests that will have the opportunity to argue before a jury that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are illegal, and that citizens have both a right and an obligation to resist illegal acts of war.
On January 27th, 2010, Pierce County District Court Judge Margaret Vail Ross ruled that the necessity defense was appropriate for such a case. The necessity defense protects individuals who must technically breach the law in a situation where it is more advantageous to society than the consequence of strict adherence to the law.
This will be one of the first anti-war protest cases heard following release of The War Logs, a massive Wikipedia leak of government files exposing US war crimes. The trial will be held in courtroom 936, Pierce Co. District Court at the City County Building located 930 Tacoma Avenue South, Tacoma.
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