Saturday, July 26, 2003 - A federal
judge on Friday sent three nuns to prison for an October 2002 act of civil
disobedience at a Weld County missile silo - but for lesser sentences than
government prosecutors had requested.
Though Judge Bob Blackburn disagreed with those who call the nuns
heroes for breaking into the missile site to protest the U.S. nuclear
arsenal, the sisters did not deserve sentences of six to eight years,
Blackburn ruled.
Blackburn exercised his option to depart from federal sentencing
guidelines and give the nuns shorter prison terms.
Blackburn sentenced Ardeth Platte, 67, to 41 months in prison; Carol
Gilbert, 55, to 33 months; and Jackie Marie Hudson, 68, to 30 months.
He waived all fines but ordered that the nuns reimburse the government
what it reportedly spent to fix a fence they damaged - $3,080.04.
"I was surprised," Walter Gerash, Hudson's attorney, said after
Blackburn announced the sentences. "I was expecting a lot worse."
Gerash, who in court had described the sisters as "human angels,"
stopped short of calling the decision a victory for the three Dominican
nuns.
"Well, they shouldn't even have been charged," he said.
A jury in April convicted the nuns of two felonies - obstructing
national defense and damaging government property.
Blackburn gave the nuns shorter sentences than required by federal
sentencing rules because they were not the types of criminals - saboteurs
- for whom those laws are intended, he said.
The sentences were different for each nun because each has a different
criminal history of similar acts of civil disobedience across the country
dating to the 1980s.
The nuns, who spent approximately six months as inmates at the Clear
Creek County Jail while awaiting trial, will receive credit for time
served.
"Let me state the obvious," Blackburn told a courtroom packed with the
nuns' supporters before delivering the sentences. "This is not a win-win,
politically correct situation where everyone will leave this court feeling
warm and fuzzy. Some will criticize (the sentences) for being too harsh,
perhaps, and others, for being too lenient."
On Oct. 6, 2002, the three sisters cut a chain-link fence and sneaked
onto a Minuteman III missile silo in northeastern Colorado, where they
drew crosses with their blood on the silo lid and whacked railroad tracks
with hammers.
Military riflemen arrived an hour after an alarm went off, training
automatic weapons on the nuns, who were singing and praying. A military
Humvee crashed through the fence when the nuns didn't obey an officer's
orders, which they said they couldn't hear.
In court Friday, supporters of the nuns spilled over into an adjacent
courtroom to listen to an audio feed of the proceedings. Even that
courtroom was filled to overflowing, with some people sitting on the floor
and others standing.
Blackburn ordered the nuns to turn themselves in to serve their
sentences Aug. 25. But rather than sign a form indicating they would come
back - an act of complicity with the system they did not want to make,
lawyers said - they surrendered immediately.
"If we go now, we're gone," Hudson said jokingly to friends in the
courtroom, saying she has had offers from people in Argentina willing to
put her up.
"They were ready to go," said Scott Poland, Platte's lawyer, after
marshals took the nuns into custody.
Though there was some grumbling - and isolated shouts of "Close the
silos! Free the nuns!" - afterward, there were many more activists smiling
than frowning at U.S. District Court on Friday afternoon.
Terry Greenberg of Nederland said she came to Denver on Friday prepared
to form a new protest group - Jews to Free Nuns. But she left praising
Blackburn's ruling.
"It made me feel hope," she said. "It gave me hope in the very hopeless
world we live in these days."
In a telephone interview later in the day, U.S. Attorney John Suthers
called Blackburn's sentences appropriate.
"I think the sentence that Judge Blackburn has imposed is eminently
fair and reasonable," he said.
Not that everybody agreed. At one point, Blackburn chided the nuns for
placing soldiers in a situation that, as far as they knew, could have been
dangerous.
"The idea that (the soldiers) were out there putting themselves in
harm's way with three nuns is just ludicrous," said Sue Carr-Novotny, who
traveled from Breckenridge to show her support for the sisters.
The strongest criticism came in a news release issued late Friday
afternoon by Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput.
"The three religious women sentenced today acted symbolically in their
missile-silo protest and did no serious damage," the release read. "I'm
disappointed that the sentences handed down this afternoon were not
equally restrained and symbolic."
In the months since their arrest, the nuns have attained a status among
activists approaching celebrity.
Since their conviction, they have spoken in various American cities,
arguing for nuclear disarmament.
Meanwhile, protesters' criticisms of Blackburn and Suthers grew
personal.
Blackburn in particular has been criticized for not allowing defense
attorneys to argue in court that the nuns' actions were legal under
international law.
Defense lawyers still complain about the judge's pretrial ruling on
that defense.
"He can say it's not political, but it is," said Annabel Dwyer, a
Michigan lawyer who served Platte in an advisory capacity. "He's saying
nuclear weapons keep us safe. We're saying our nuclear weapons are as
illegal as anyone else's."
Though Blackburn tried to keep politics out of his courtroom Friday, it
was all over the courthouse steps throughout the day. More than 100
activists began the day by attending an 8 a.m. news conference and rally
called by the nuns.
"I don't fear going to prison," Gilbert told them and a large number of
reporters that included a crew from a German television network. "I don't
fear loss of freedom to move about. I don't even fear death. The fear that
fills me is not having lived hard enough, deep enough, and sweet enough
with whatever gifts God has given me."
The nuns wore all black Friday. They told their supporters that they
would not speak in court, as is the right of every criminal defendant
sentenced at federal court.
In court, they spoke only when giving one-word answers to direct
questions from Blackburn.
They had chosen their garb and their silence to convey their continued
protest of war-making, they said Friday
morning.
