“Stunning”: State Court Silences Climate Experts Set to Testify in Valve Turners’ Necessity Defense Trial “Four days before trial, for no apparent reason, the court eviscerated our defense, and essentially overruled itself.” Excerpts below in italics with my bolds.
Minneapolis October 8, 2018 In an eleventh hour decision, a Minnesota court “eviscerated” the defense of three activists—whose landmark trial began Monday for their 2016 multi-state #ShutItDown action that temporarily disabled tar sands pipelines crossing the U.S.-Canada border—by barring experts from testifying that their civil disobedience was necessary because fossil fuels are driving the global climate crisis.
While all charges against Steve Liptay, who filmed the Minnesota action, have been dropped, valve turners Emily Nesbitt Johnston and Annette Klapstein, along with their support person, Benjamin Joldersma, are still facing felony charges under Minnesota state law. Their legal team will now have to present their “necessity defense” without the slate…
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