Federal Appeals Court Overturns Sabotage Convictions for Y-12 Protestors

In a 2-1 decision, a federal appeals court has reversed the conviction of three Plowshares protesters on sabotage charges for the 2012 break-in at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant and sent the case back to U.S. District Court in Knoxville for re-sentencing on the other charge of injuring government property. If the government doesn’t appeal the May 8 decision by the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, it’s likely that the three defendants – Sister Megan Rice, an 85-year-old Catholic nun, and her two fellow protesters, Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed – will be freed from federal prisons for their time already served. No date for resentencing has yet been scheduled. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Theodore, who prosecuted the case, said the government had no comment on the decision at this time.

The three protesters, who called their actions at Y-12 the Transform Now Plowshares, broke into Y-12 in the early morning hours of July 28, 2012, cutting through multiple fences – including the sensor-laden fences of the Perimeter Intrusion Detection and Assessment System – to reach the plant’s storage facility for bomb-grade uranium. They defaced the exterior of the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility with painted messages and human blood and were on site for the better part of an hour before a guard showed up to put them under detention and, later, arrest.

The court’s decision said that the sabotage charge didn’t hold up in this case, noting that there was no clear evidence that the protesters actually intended to interfere with the nation’s defense or that their actions actually resulted in any damage to the nation’s security. “We reject the government’s argument that the defendants intended to interfere with the national defense by seeking to create ‘bad publicity’ for Y-12. First Amendment issues aside, it takes more than bad publicity to injure the national defense,” the court’s conclusion stated. The majority judges noted, “Y-12 houses not a single weapon of any kind (other than the guards’ firearms, presumably), much less any weapons whose brief incapacitation would affect the nation’s ability to wage war or defend against attack.” The decision also noted that the 15-day shutdown of operations at the Oak Ridge plant did not have any effect on the size or the effectiveness of the nation’s nuclear arsenal.