You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Judge Rules Anti-Pipeline Protesters Not Guilty Because of Necessity of Fighting Climate Change

HeadlineMar 28, 2018

And in Massachusetts, a judge has found 13 protesters “not responsible” after they temporarily halted a pipeline’s construction by nonviolently lying down in a trench being dug by Spectra Energy to carry fracked gas through West Roxbury. District Judge Mary Ann Driscoll made her ruling after the protesters argued the “necessity defense”—saying their civil disobedience was justified by the urgent need to stop climate change. Among those arrested in the civil disobedience was Karenna Gore, the daughter of Vice President Al Gore, who spoke on Tuesday after the ruling.

Karenna Gore: “What happened today was really important. We had a long and winding road, but, essentially, the people that put themselves in the way of building this fossil fuel pipeline were found 'not responsible' by reason of necessity.”

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top