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Cape Cod Activists ‘Guilty’ for Plymouth Nuclear Plant Protest – Use of ‘Necessity Defense’ Denied

https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/03/22-0

Published on Saturday, March 22, 2014 by Common Dreams

Three years after Fukushima, and approximately one year after their acts of civil resistance, 12 Massachusetts residents were found guilty Friday in Plymouth (MA) District Court for illegally entering the grounds of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant located on the Cape Cod coast.

The activists admitted to entering the Plymouth facility, but using the ‘necessity defense,’ declared they were innocent of “trespassing” because they were trying to prevent a greater and imminent public danger from occuring.

Diana Turco, co-founder of Cape Downwinders, Cape Cod residents who want the nuclear plant permanently shut down, was one of the 12 defendants.

“There are cancers caused by the nuclear power plant. There is no assurance of public safety in the evacuation plans. Those are huge issues,” Turco said. “The verdict doesn’t matter; the truth got out.”

The judge ruled the standards for the necessity defense were not met.

The 12 defendants were found guilty and each was sentenced to a day in jail, or time served.

Those defendants are: Bill Maurer, Diane Turco, Doug Long, Femke Rosenbaum, Janet Azarovitz, Joyce Johnson, Margaret Rice Moir, Mike Risch, Paul Rifkin, Sarah Thacher, and Susan Carpenter.

WBUR radio in Boston reports:

March 23, 2014 - Posted by arclight2011part2 | Uncategorized