Political Nun-sense

By Kate Tarasenko

DENVER—The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver last week upheld the convictions of three Dominican nuns found guilty of sabotage for their nonviolent “plowshares” action at a first-strike Minuteman III nuclear missile silo in Weld County, in protest of the U.S.'s impending invasion of Iraq.

While most of the media went on high alert for the release of domestic dominatrix Martha Stewart (from the same prison that currently houses one of the nuns, Sister Carol Gilbert), Sister Jackie Hudson was released the same day—sans prison poncho—from a federal penitentiary in Victorville, California after fulfilling her 30-month sentence. Sister Ardeth Platte, the third member of group, is currently serving her 41-month sentence at the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut.

Bill Sulzman, head of the activist-watchdog group Citizens for Peace in Space, has been a prominent supporter of the nuns. Upon hearing of the unanimous ruling by the three-judge panel, he says, “I was very angry. One line in the opinion reads, ‘We are not saying in this opinion how we might have voted if we were on the jury.' That tells me that they know they were putting out a politically correct decision, not a just one.”

Last October, the judges questioned the appropriateness of the prosecution's charge of sabotage by an act of civil disobedience. Defense attorneys Susan Tyburski, Scott Poland and Clifford Barnard claimed that Judge Robert Blackburn erred in his ruling by being vague in his definition of “national defense.”

He also refused to allow the nuns' argument that they had the right to protest under international law and the “Nuremberg defense,” which compels citizens to violate laws where crimes against the peace and crimes against humanity are being committed by the state. The trio has consistently asserted that the United States, with its $40 billion arsenal of more than 10,000 nuclear warheads, is doing just that.

The nuns and their supporters accuse the judges of walking in lockstep with the nation's current political climate being dictated by newly appointed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who has promised to extend and expand the Patriot Act.

Sulzman says, “It helps explain why it took five-and-a-half months to come down with the decision. They had to massage their comments very carefully.”

In the meantime, Hudson, now 70 years old, faces parole violation for failing to seek gainful employment and for returning to her home state of Washington, where she has been denied residency for refusing to pay $3,000-plus court-ordered restitution. The fact that she has taken a vow of poverty hasn't seemed to faze the parole board so much as her defiance of supporting “a morally bereft government.”

Gilbert, due to be released from prison at the end of May, and Platte, who will be released at the end of this year, are looking at the same potential parole violations. Prior to their arrests, they lived and worked at the Jonah House near Baltimore. In anticipation of their release, U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat, has written a letter to the Department of Justice asking that they be allowed to return to their home to continue their charitable work in the community.

While it may be difficult to determine a legal right from a criminal act these days, Sulzman is certain. Of the court's ruling, he says, “There are political crimes, and this is one of them.”

–Kate Tarasenko