nuclear-news

Stoever was representing eight nuclear protesters on this unlucky trial date, and Bland, who had sentenced other nuclear activists to jail just two years prior, was the inauspicious icing on the cake.

Bland’s eyebrows rose at Stoever’s odd request and the packed courthouse tensed for the inevitable ridicule.

“Well, I permit it!” Bland said.

With that statement, Bland set the tone for the next three hours, as protest songs, jokes about national security and even the elderly reveries of Oblate Fr. Carl Kabat, 80, and Franciscan Fr. Jerome Zawada, 76, were permitted in the Kansas City municipal courtroom.

The eight activists were pleading not guilty to charges of trespassing onto the relocated National Nuclear Security Administration’s Kansas City Plant July 13……..

On July 13, around 80 people gathered outside the plant’s new location, including priests, sisters, Catholic Workers and local activists. They came to protest nuclear weapons stockpiling, as well as the environmental destruction and exorbitant cost of the plant’s relocation. Twenty-four people were arrested after they walked through a full-sized wooden door (the same door that Stoever ultimately hefted into the courtroom) and onto plant property…….

 the courtroom was assailed with Louis Armstrong loudly singing: “I’m gonna lay down my sword and shield/Down by the riverside/Ain’t gonna study war no more.”

People in the gallery glanced at one another in surprise, and when Bland did not tell Stoever to turn off the video, the courtroom filled with whispers, and then outright laughter.,,,,,,,,,

Bland announced the sentence, shocking the courtroom.

“I want each one of you to write a one-page, single-spaced essay on each of the following six topics,” Bland said. “Your responses will be attached to the court record, which is a public record. They will exist as long as Kansas City exists. My way will give you a chance to say what you want to say.”…… http://ncronline.org/news/peace-justice/trial-anti-nuclear-activists-ends-unusual-sentence#.UsJK3aW9kiU.facebook