OREGON FOREST PROTESTER LAW RULED UNCONSTITUTIONAL

CLDC, 30.10.2009 08:06

Forest defenders in Oregon won a major victory at the Oregon Court of Appeals defending the constitutional right to protest

Immediate Press Advisory
October 28, 2009
Eugene, Oregon


COURT RULES OREGON FOREST PROTESTER LAW IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL


Today attorneys representing forest defenders in Oregon won a major victory at the Oregon Court of Appeals defending the constitutional right to protest by arguing that a state law is unconstitutional under the federal constitution. The Court struck down the statute it its entirety. The state statute at issue, ORS 164.886, “Interfering with Agricultural Operations,” was enacted in 1999 to discourage demonstrators from protesting against controversial timber sales in Oregon. It stated that if a person hindered, obstructed or impaired an agricultural operation they were guilty of a Class A misdemeanor crime and has been used to prosecuted dozens and dozens of nonviolent forest defense activists. The statute contained an exception to these prohibitions if the protesters were engaged in a labor dispute. Ninety-nine percent of all state prosecutions utilizing this statute were against non-violent protestors exercising their First Amendment rights. The Court ruled that the law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and struck the law in its entirety.

“This is a great victory for activists in Oregon and affirms that the Constitution is still alive and kicking!” said Lauren Regan, Staff Attorney and Director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center. “In an era when activists are being maligned as ’terrorists,’ it is very important that repressive laws like this one and other “ecoterror” laws are challenged and beaten from the law books as a patent disgrace to our constitutional rights and liberties. We are grateful to our courageous clients who placed their liberty on the line in defense of irretrievable forests, rivers and wildlife, and hope that this ruling will be viewed as an affirmation of the critical importance the right to dissent holds in our democracy.”

The CLDC argued, and the Court agreed, that “a person peacefully picketing against labor or logging practices on public or private land could, under the definitions [contained in the law], be attempting to obstruct an agricultural practice by another person on that person’s property by attempting to convince the person, the person’s employees, or the general public to alter the offensive practice” and that the law was thus facially unconstitutional in all applications.

In ruling that the entire statute was unconstitutional, the Court stated: “[H]ad the legislature known that a bill criminalizing all obstructions, impairments, and hindrances of agricultural operations also implicated serious constitutional questions, it would have chosen to avoid the issue entirely—particularly in light of the fact that the conduct at which the statute was primarily directed (vandalism, property destruction, etc.) was already prohibited by existing statutes.”

One of the appellants, George Sexton, a conservation director who was arrested at the infamous Biscuit timber sales added, "It is heartening that the 14th Amendment prohibits overzealous Josephine County prosecutors from making criminals out of courageous citizens who peacefully put their bodies between the log trucks and the illegal old-growth logging frenzy of public lands under the Bush Administration."


Kudos to attorneys Lauren Regan, Misha Dunlap English, and Kenneth Krueshner for this hard fought victory.

The full text of the opinion can be found at  http://www.publications.ojd.state.or.us/A132129.htm

For more information on the Civil Liberties Defense Center, go to www.cldc.org

Contact Lauren Regan, Attorney for Appellants and Director of the CLDC at  lregan@cldc.org; Ph: 541-687-9180

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Homepage:: www.cldc.org

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Yes, sounds unconstitutional 02.11.2009 - 17:16 I dispute this phrase. "the illegal old-growth logging frenzy of public lands under the Bush Administration" History says that Clinton cut a lot more old growth than Bush ever wanted to. Clinton APPROVED the cutting of trees up to 60" in diameter. . . . . . While I approve the restoration of the right of protest, I don't support the practice of eliminating others of their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Blocking loggers from doing legal, honest and beneficial work in our forests, due to faith-based beliefs is akin to anti-abortion protesters blocking pro-choice centers. Violence comes in many forms and stopping someone from working IS a form of harm. If a project is indeed "illegal", then the courts are there to decide that issue. Protesting and education is good but, depriving others of their rights is not. Our forests ARE dying, rotting and burning. Blocking science instead of reaching consensus only leads to big profits for firefighters and eco-lawyers and forest disaster for the rest of us. Hotfeet> Homepage:: http:// protesting vs. interfering 05.11.2009 - 01:04 Protesting is one thing. I fully support that right. Everyone should be able to speak their mind. Physically interfering with others is a different story. That's not a right. These protesters were arrested for interfering, not for speaking. I agree that the law at issue here is unconstitutional. It unfairly grants labor unions a free pass to interfere with agricultural operations, while other groups cannot. Laws should be universally applicable. If anything, this ruling points out the extreme political weight that labor unions have. I hope that Oregon's legislature sees the sense in putting this law back on the books, minus the exclusion for labor unions. Moon Muffin> Homepage:: http:// Legal schmeegal... 13.11.2009 - 18:41 Siskiyou Defenders Well, in fact, often the logging operations that were "obstructed" by non-violent civil disobedience were then subsequently halted by the courts, as indeed, being illegal. The industry has tended to engage in illegal acts as a consistent pattern of practice, not only stealing trees, but also ripping off the government with the contracts, road subsidies, etc, they were getting, and disregarding environmental protections. Industry has known for a long time what we have democratically decided they must do, but have intransigently refused to reform their practices, and thus bear the full responsibility for loggers, mill workers, truckers, and surrounding communities being left in the lurch, out of work. Instead of embracing and helping the communities that built their fortunes, Big Timber has refused to allow a dignified transition to more sustainable practices and retooling of the industry, preferring instead to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on propaganda, bribes and court battles, to evade and try to over throw EPA, ESA and other regulations. They prefer to see us economically terrorized, held hostage by lack of local jobs, public safety, health care, education, libraries, etc., while they deliberately agitate for violent hostility against environmentalists, as the "enemy" responsible for those conditions. Oh well. Stimulus funds are starting to be issued for the new paradigm in our forests, which will, at last, be focused on restoration and sustainable harvest, instead of on clearcutting every last ancient old-growth tree, and killing all the fish. Local mills are finally retooling, to handle the smaller diameter trees, and local value added industries are being developed, to produce furniture, flooring, etc in our own communities, rather than say, selling raw logs to Japan. Jobs in the woods and mills, etc, will be coming back, even if not to the same boom and bust levels of the past. Large areas of wilderness have finally been locked up, prohibiting rape and plunder "development", which will be good for eco-tourism, scientific study, and more comfortable, prosperous, secure, and aesthetically pleasing local conditions. About the "right to protest"... It's one thing when locals, and supporters from elsewhere, struggle to enforce the EPA and ESA, to force the Timber Industry and government agencies to comply with the law, and the popular democratic mandate, to save the planet... ...And quite another thing, to protest against that, with threats, insults and lies, blaming environmentalists for the intransigence of the industry, and urging for overthrow of the popular democratic mandates of the EPA and ESA. There's really no comparison between the environmentalist forest defense movement, and tea-bagging right wing whacko reactionary pro-industry Chamber of Commerce astroturf hacks. The right is politically incorrect in this country, and they will be suppressed, democratically, electorally, in 2010 and 2012, so we can finally surge forward into the 21st Century, toward a new green paradigm. android9> Homepage:: http:// "Unstewardship"?? 13.11.2009 - 23:42 "The industry has tended to engage in illegal acts as a consistent pattern of practice, not only stealing trees, but also ripping off the government with the contracts, road subsidies, etc, they were getting, and disregarding environmental protections." You surely must be talking about the timber industry of 20 years ago. I had worked for the Forest Service dealing directly with purchasers and logging contractors and can say that stealing trees is not a common practice, and when undesignated trees are cut, the loggers often pay double or triple stumpage on them. Road subsidies also include the re-construction of roads that haven't seen regularmaintenance since they were built. If a logger uses a crappy road, he has to restore the road to proper maintenance when he is done. Now that many mills have gone out of business, yes, timber companies sometimes get nice deals on timber sales through monopolies in their areas. Regarding "environmental protections", I've sent many a logger back to fulfill the contractual requirements of a great many aspects of a complex timber sale contract. "Local mills are finally retooling, to handle the smaller diameter trees, and local value added industries are being developed, to produce furniture, flooring, etc in our own communities, rather than say, selling raw logs to Japan." Mills have been retooled for 15 years now. Mills in Quincy and Camino in California were state of the art small log mills retooled just for harvesting the small diameter logs in trees choking our National Forests. Those mills are now shutdown because the Feds cannot get fuels projects through the courts. Also, you know DAMN well that raw, unmilled Federal logs CANNOT be exported, except by special waiver. This is a long-standing law that eco's often conveniently forget about. "Large areas of wilderness have finally been locked up, prohibiting rape and plunder "development", which will be good for eco-tourism, scientific study, and more comfortable, prosperous, secure, and aesthetically pleasing local conditions." Tourists do not like snag patches and thick smoke. Locking up forests does not save them. It actually severely limits man's response to unhealthy and unnatural conditions. Hmmmmm, I wonder what real rape victims think of your comparison of their horrible experiences to modern scientific forest management. Ask the locals who live near big fires like the Biscuit and the B&B Complex if they like their new "wilderness areas", choked with brush and snags, waiting for that next spark to burn catastrophically, yet again. You cannot restore forests by doing nothing! Hotfeet> Homepage:: http://