Meanwhile, of the forty-four demonstrators arrested at the June 20 demonstration in Samoa, seventeen of them—none women and eight men—had refused to give their name.[1] They had been charged with obstructing a public thoroughfare, inciting to riot, failure to disperse, and providing false information to a police officer (they had all identified themselves as “Judi Bari”).[2] While in jail they each wrestled with the choice over whether to plead “guilty” or “not guilty”, which was made all the more difficult by the threats made by Humboldt County to maintain their incarceration of the activists until their arraignment and then throw the proverbial book at them. A guilty plea would have brought heavy fines and stiff probation. One of the seventeen, Lisa Henry, defiantly steadfast in her resolve was determined to plead “not guilty” declared, “They’re not going to fuck with me. I can always change it to ‘no contest’ later, but they’re not going to get away with this.” One of the other women, a member of the “Radical Ions” affinity group retained a lawyer immediately, even before the women arrestees all knew each others’ names.[3]
After four days in jail, however, the nine women knew each other much better and had established a solid rapport with each other. A similar process happened among the eight men arrestees, but by the arraignment, of the seventeen arrestees, only a handful of these would ultimately go to trial, including only two of the women. Eight men would join them, and only some of them had been among those in jail. Some among the men had been cited and released, but nevertheless plead “not guilty” at the arraignment in later June. So from forty-four arrestees, to seventeen incarcerated activists were left only ten to face trial.[4] And those ten, which consisted of Steven Fein, Ronnie Glick, Lisa Henry, Kendra Kurihara, Robert parker, John Thomas Rasmussen, Alexander Ruhe, Bob Serina, David Solnit, and Michael Yudowitz[5], were scattered across northern California.[6] Their legal fight seemed to be at best daunting and at worst, unwinnable.[7] The ten who had been so sure when they plead “not guilty” agonized over their stubbornness as the next month passed.[8] Once again, however, the underdog was about to get its day, and on August 8, 1990, after three solid days of jury deliberations, seven of the twelve jurors involved in the trial voted to acquit the ten defendants, while the remainder remained unmoved in their belief in the activists’ guilt.[9]
A detailed history of the trial deserves some attention. From the start, the ten were determined not to let the legal system run roughshod over them, as they all believed in the truth of what they had done, and that was standing up to corporate power—in this case Louisiana-Pacific.[10] The ten organized themselves into an affinity group (or, rather reorganized themselves out of the affinity groups that had taken action at Samoa).[11] They made sure they obtained each others’ contact information and set up defendants meetings immediately in the Bay Area and at base camp, which was still at Honeydew in southern Humboldt County at the time. They decided almost immediately to choose a name for themselves that would be recognizable and communicate their cause. Initially they bandied about names like “People for Forestry Now”, and other uninspiring sounding labels, until they hit upon names inspired by the controversial Doctor Seuss book, The Lorax, such as “Truffula Trees” and the like. Ultimately the ten decided to simply call themselves “The Lorax Ten,” which was fitting because of the book’s now iconic status in the “Timber Wars” due to Bill Bailey’s previous attempts to have it removed from the Laytonville School District’s second grade required reading list. The name gave the group an identity and an even stronger sense of both purpose and comraderie. The defendants all moved to Arcata to be close to their base of legal operations, rented an office in the Arcata action center, and spent weeks preparing legal briefs for their upcoming trial.[12]
The Ten drafted a statement outlining how they wanted their legal team to be set up and the legal and political goals they had for their trial. They chose a legal team composed of one public defender and seven court-appointed criminal law attorneys—one each for eight of the defendants, except for two who chose to represent themselves.[13] As Lisa Henry recollected:
“They have these little lawyer meetings, where the lawyers decide what they are going to do for their clients, and at the first defendants’ meeting we said, ‘This is a political trial. The defendants will have the bottom line as to where this trial goes. We may be making legal decisions you don’t think are wise. But we want maximum input. We’re coming to all your meetings.’”[14]
The Lorax ten repeated this demand to their legal team at least twice at which point one of them told Lisa Henry rather sarcastically, “You should have just said the spirit of the trees brought you into the road.” The cynicism was indicative of how much of a hassle Redwood Summer and its counter reaction had come to be perceived by everyone else in the county. The defendants felt very strongly that the political direction of the trial, and the decision making process should be made by the defendants themselves.[15] The defendants also felt that the court-appointed attorneys were fairly good at their jobs and could construct a good legal defense if pushed sufficiently hard enough, but they needed to work together and have someone else to guide them. One of the Ten’s insistences was that the eight court appointed attorneys be coordinated by environmental lawyer Ken Collins of Arcata who was perceived as having a good track record on environmental law, but lacked criminal law experience.[16] During the closing arguments of the trial, Collins somewhat facetiously recounted that, “At first he was ‘embarrassed’ by the Lorax Ten’s picketing, press conferences, and communal lunches on the courthouse lawn, and asked ‘Why don’t they take it somewhere else?”, but in fact, he was joking.[17] Collins suggested to the Lorax Ten, after the latter had persistently bugged the court appointed legal representatives, that they each speak to their legal representative individually and tell them how important it was that they follow the demands of the Lorax Ten affinity group. Lisa Henry recalled the experiences she had dialoging with her lawyer, Tim Cissna:
“Tim Cissna was reported to me as being a very conservative kind of person. But Ken Collins told me he was a really hot criminal lawyer and I should make friends with him. So, I made an appointment to go see him and I told him my story. I gave him the basic spiel about this being a political trial and asked about our chances, and he told me it was very grim, but he would be willing to work with it and asked what kind of plea bargains we would be willing to take.
“It was a very formal kind of meeting and I felt kind of hopeless about the whole thing, until the lawyers meeting really started and this kind of chemistry started building up between the lawyers.
“We got to hugging the lawyers at some point. They became like our surrogate parents. They kind of sheltered us, kind of keeping us in line as we bounced around the walls. We were always coming up with these great ideas that needed critiquing to say the least. Each person had their lawyer, and first thing in the morning you would go up to your lawyer and shake hands and get the update. Some people made such good relationships with their lawyers that they followed on to represent them in other matters—they got arrested again in Redwood Summer and they were represented again by the same lawyer.”[18]
This process didn’t happen overnight however, and at first the defendants and the lawyers drove each other crazy. The defendants were uncompromising in their demands and continued to attend the lawyers’ meetings, engage in vocal debates, and engage the media about their case; Lisa Henry described the process of getting the latter to agree to include the defendants in the decision making as “a constant battle.” The Lorax Ten insisted the lawyers use consensus process—widely used in the affinity group model—because they felt it was integral to social change inside and outside of the court room.[19],[20] The defendants recycled legal documents and harangued their attorneys for drinking coffee out of Styrofoam cups. For their part, the lawyers endured the activists and their unorthodox ways and helped them hone their strategy, including advising against repeating the politically suicidal tactic of circulating a poster depicting Humboldt County judges as the puppets of L-P. While at first the relations between the two groups may have seemed tense, they grew to substantially like each other.[21] Lisa Henry elaborated further:
“(I)t was a sort of interesting parent-kind of relationship in some ways. They would get real angry at these silly things we had done, but in reality, we had these principles that we were following—sort of like an eleven-year old kid: they have the truth in them and know what they are doing, but there are these people who have much more experience than these kids do telling them—‘this is the way you do it.’—and we just kept going.”[22]
The defendants grew to respect their attorney’s legal work and constructive criticism while the lawyers gained respect for the activists and their passion; both groups humorously referred to the upcoming case as “the trial from hell.” This was in part due to the enormous financial burden demanded by preparations for their upcoming trial, which was exacerbated by most of the members having quit, been fired, or having taken leave of their jobs. Meanwhile, the lawyers were only making half of their normal wages from the court.[23]
The Lorax Ten were able to survive this hardship by continuing to act as an affinity group.[24] They did indeed eat communally and slept where they could—in backyards, forest base camps, on porches, the beach, or in the homes of supportive activists. They rented an office space in the Arcata action center and used it to coordinate their legal defense, and sometimes cooked and ate their meals there.[25] They shared what few automobiles were available and received a modicum of funding from the San Francisco Bay Area Earth First! chapter.[26] Faced with their financial challenges, David Solnit hit upon the idea of designing a T-shirt featuring a facsimile of The Lorax adorned with the slogan, “I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees,” which quoted the Dr Seuss book by the same name, and also, “Take Direct Action Against Corporate Greed,” which did not, but was inherent in the book’s message.[27] Solnit found a local silkscreen printer who would donate their ink, screens, and labor and produce the shirts (complete with four-color separation) at wholesale cost.[28] They produced 300 shirts and sold them at a small markup and used the proceeds to repair one automobile, reimburse those who had fronted money for gasoline, purchase food, and make photocopies of documents to be used in their case.[29]
The Lorax and their legal team had initially intended to use the “Necessity Defense,” in which the defense attempts to prove that the crimes committed by the accused were carried out in order to prevent a “higher crime” or greater harm. One hypothetical example is trespassing into a burning building to save a child from certain death.[30] The Necessity Defense was based on the Nuremberg Principles. According to Lisa Henry, the higher crimes they wished to prevent were many, including:
“Deforestation…Pollution of the air and water was a secondary concern. Then there was the massive job layoffs that would occur when you have this mill moving to Mexico, and I thought that was a crime. There was the herbicide spraying, which was also a real hot issue up in Humboldt county, and we were going to prepare it that we were sitting down there to prevent a greater crime from being committed, which was, going through the operations business-as-usual…
“Basically, our argument was, we sat down in front of the truck to prevent the raw materials from going into the mills and creating pollution.”[31]
However the defense of necessity was almost always disallowed in clearly political cases—with the one consistent objection being anti-nuclear protests—and required the defense to prove six stringent criteria for acquittal, including “exhaustion of all legal means.” While one could make a philosophical case that the spirit of the law had been followed by the defendants, recent precedent—such as was the case with judge Luther’s ruling in the Osprey Grove THP—indicated that the local judiciary and most juries would rule based primarily on the letter of the law. In the case of the Samoa blockade, the defendants and their legal team recognized that they faced an uphill battle and would most likely not win.[32]
Four Days before the trial, one of the lawyers, William “Billy” Bragg had an inspiration: rather than rely upon the Defense of Necessity, the group should, instead, base their defense upon the similar, but more pragmatic and much more winnable precedents and provisions established by California State Penal Codes 692 and 624. Bragg also suggested that the defense team not reveal this until the trial itself, which would through the prosecution off balance, because they’d have geared themselves to the Defense of Necessity.[33] PC 692 and 694 stipulated that reasonable actions taken to prevent a public offense are not criminal and are legally justified. It also permitted a mere “reasonable belief” that a higher crime was being committed and doesn’t require that all legal means be exhausted.[34] Instead of trespassing into a burning building to save a child, this was more akin to striking someone or holding them down to prevent them from doing greater harm to a third party.[35] The risk in employing PC 692 and 694 was that, unlike the Defense of Necessity, the former was rarely allowed in political cases and was more commonly used in assault cases where immediate action is used by a defendant to prevent rape or murder.[36] This alternate strategy also allowed the defendants to bring in expert witnesses to testify about L-P’s specific crimes, which would be aired in front of the media which would be covering the story.[37] Bragg pointed out the obvious—but often overlooked—fact that L-P had been committing ongoing, daily felony violations of their permit to discharge toxins into the water.[38] The attorney informed the group that Bill Rodriguez of the California North Coast Water Quality Control Board was willing to testify to this on behalf of the defense.[39] The legal team obtained internal L-P documents—monthly reports signed by division manager Joe Wheeler himself—proving that the company was aware of its illegal and chronic wastewater discharges. This elevated the serious of L-P’s criminal activity from misdemeanors (negligence) to felonies.[40] Lisa Henry elaborates:
“Over a long period of time they were allowed to have so much toxins in the water. And they monitor these fish, which incidentally, are very hardy fish—it’s very hard to kill them—and they measure the toxicity. And when the fish start to die, those numbers are put into a little list, and if you go over it, you’re in violation, and if you stay under it, supposedly, you’re all safe.
“That’s another question. L-P never violated their acute test, which means massive, massive outflow of toxins which kill many other forms of life, they’d done it just as chronic build-up.
“We’d already known that you can’t eat a lot of the shellfish in that harbor. Surfers would come back with rashes. Mark Masarra of Surfrider Foundation had a suit against the pulp mill. We’d heard there were more cases of stomach cancer in Eureka than anywhere else in the state, and I’d heard that women in general have a high rate of cancer. So people knew this, but it was wonderful to have the documents there.
“We just looked down them for the past five months before we had committed our little act, and we saw that out of the 24 tests that were viable, 19 were in violation. It was 1.3 to 128 times the amount that they were supposed to be discharging. And we found this one record where it was 400 times![41]
This fit in perfectly with the Lorax Ten’s goals in the trial which were not merely legal defense—including protesting the heavy-handed one year probation, stiff fines (ranging from $265-$835 each), and four-month suspended sentences—but also political. The defendants hoped to reach both the jury and the public with the political issues that led them to protest Louisiana-Pacific in the first place.[42] Additionally, following the historic IWW strategy of “filling the jails” (used in particular in Spokane, Washington in 1919, but elsewhere as well) to protest the employer dominated local governments of the Pacific Northwest whose aims it was to prevent the One Big Union from gaining a foothold in the timber and mining industries there[43], the ten desired to jam up the court system which was being used to stifle other Redwood Summer demonstrators in their efforts as well as environmental direct actions in general.[44]
A great deal of time, almost three weeks, was spent trying to find a balanced jury. Over 300 perspective jurors were interviewed, from all walks of life among the residents of Humboldt County. These included apologists and supporters for L-P and corporate timber as well as environmentalists. The jury selection became a de facto public forum, where adherents to the “Green” and “Yellow” sides would hear the opinions of the other, because there were usually approximately one hundred candidates in the court at each time. Those among the latter uttered comments such as, “This spotted owl thing is really screwed up,” and, “I don’t agree with you,” and “you’re all Earth First!ers,” as if that were a crime. Lisa Henry perceived that those from the Yellow side would try and soften their views in order to be selected whereas those on the Green side would be open and unapologetic about their perspective making it more difficult to achieve actual balance. Finally, both sides agreed upon a jury. The Lorax Ten felt that there was one rather zealous juror who might cast the deciding vote. Though he apparently had no strong opinions either way about the case itself, he had served on military court martial trials, which won him the private nickname of “the Admiral” among the defendants. As luck would have it, he was elected the jury foreman.[45]
The defense kept their strategy of using PC 692 and 694 secret until their opening argument in the trial. As predicted, the prosecuting attorney, Deputy District Attorney Kucherek was stunned. He had prepared for the Defense of Necessity, planning on how to nail the defendants on legal technicalities; the Lorax Ten’s unexpected twist made all of this work moot. He would have less than twenty-four hours to rethink and redirect the prosecution’s strategy. Meanwhile, the defense argued that they had sat in front of the logging truck to prevent the raw product from entering the pulp mill where upon the manufacturing process would result in pollution of both the air and water and that the demonstrators would have been complicit in a crime if they hadn’t.[46] “Anne R. Keye” summarized the defense’s argument thusly:
“The Lorax defense presented evidence which documented L-P’s ongoing violations of their toxic effluent emission’s permit, the test for which L-P helped design. Out of the valid 24 tests of the chronic toxicity levels of effluent discharged into the Pacific Ocean over the last 5 months by L-P, 19 tests were in violation of L-P’s discharge permit. The offenses ranged from 1.3 to 128 times the amount deemed ‘legally’ dischargeable. One test in 1989 showed that L-P was discharging 400 times the legal limit. Bill Rodriguez of the California Water Quality Control Board testified to L-P’s ‘ongoing and repeated’ violations over his last two years on the Board.
“These self-monitoring tests, administered by Humboldt State University, as well as a University of California extension at Bodega Bay, are taken several times a week. The monthly reports are sent directly to L-P, Which compiles the data, and sends them—signed by Western Division L-P Representative, Joe Wheeler—to the Water Quality Control Board within a month. Because L-P has full knowledge of their offenses, their violations of the discharge permit are not merely ‘negligent’ misdemeanors, but ongoing felony offenses.”[47]
Originally, the defendants had reached consensus that Lisa Henry, a resident of Mendocino County, and John Rasmussen, from Humboldt County would give all of the defense’s testimony if they could manage it, because the risk of having all defendants testify was that one of them might accidentally contradict the testimony of the other. Such things happen naturally, as everyone sees things slightly differently from their own perspective, but nevertheless, even this could potentially sway a jury, and the Lorax Ten wanted their case to be tight. Deputy DA Kucherek had this in mind and insisted on cross examining all ten defendants, but the latter had prepared for such an eventuality. They had practiced being assertive and telling their story free of shyness or embarrassment. They addressed the court directly and looked at every single juror. Lisa Henry made it a point to declare that she was a women studies and environmental studies major at the University of California, Santa Cruz; that her mother, Liz Henry, was Mendocino County District 4 Supervisor; and that her father, Norm Henry, was a registered professional forester with the CDF. Another defendant stated that they were a double major in botany and social sciences. Still one more declared that they were a carpenter who worked with wood and made furniture. This same defendant surfed in the ocean and experienced body rashes, probably as a result of exposure to willful discharge of industrial effluents. The defense made it a point to cover every interconnected issue, from wastewater discharge, to toxins, to overcutting, to the outsourcing of jobs to Mexico by L-P. Lisa Henry observed that the members of the jury nodded frequently and a few of them smiled upon the conclusion of the defense’s testimony. As for “the Admiral”, he kept falling asleep![48]
Deputy DA Kucherek based his counter arguments on the fact that the defendants had stipulated as to their presence at the Samoa demonstration and their blockading of a log truck. He also tried to argue that their actions were neither lawful nor reasonable. Kucherek argued that the defense’s interpretation of PC 692 and 694 was a license for everyone to take the law into their own hands—as if a more participatory and democratic enforcement of laws protecting the environment would somehow be a chamber of horrors—and he attempted to prove his point by painting the arrestees as violent. He presented as evidence for this claim video footage of the log truck blockade and the subsequent arrest of the protesters. The video, however had the opposite effect, because it clearly showed that the police order to disperse could not be heard above the crowd. It also depicted every minute of Humboldt County deputy sheriff Lawson’s heavy handedness, including his ripping Ian Baitz off of the truck and spraying mace into the latter’s eyes. It showed the deputies’ rough handling of another demonstrator, a slender, 45-year old woman being pulled off of the truck by her hair.[49] The defendants testified over the course of two days as to their intent at the demonstration, “deftly and somewhat naïvely parrying the D.A.’s attempts to malign their motives” according to “Keye”.[50]
“Isn’t it true that you wanted to block the entire road”, Kucherek accused one defendant.
“No” was the response, “We wanted to block the log truck in one lane. There were other protestors blocking the northbound lane. Why weren’t they (also) arrested?”[51]
Kucherek also tried to argue that the blockade impeded a critical access route to a nearby Coast Guard station at the end of California State Highway 255, the main road into and out of Samoa. This demonstrated a lack of regard for public safety as far as the prosecution was concerned, but the defendant on the stand responded by declaring, “They’re (the) Coast Guard. I assume they can get out in any emergency through water means,” which evoked hearty laughter from the courtroom. The Deputy D.A. stuck to his guns and, in his closing arguments, accused the Lorax affinity group of changing the opening words to the US Constitution from “We the People” to “We the Ten”, followed by a misquote and misinterpretation of a famous statement made by Martin Luther King Jr. in defense of nonviolent civil disobedience.[52] To punctuate his statement, Kucherek wrote “We the People” on a dry-erase board, drew a line through it and wrote “We the Ten” next to it.[53] Then he resorted to good old fashioned red baiting and asked, “What if everybody took the law into their own hands?”[54] The Deputy D.A. responded to his own rhetorical question silently but dramatically by writing “ANARCHY!” on the board. “Anarchy is going to envelope the whole world, starting here.”[55] This was ridiculous, because civil disobedience of the sort that occurred at Samoa helped bring about the principles enshrined in the very Constitution that Kucherek was ostensibly attempting to defend, but more to the point, one may well have asked what would have happened if everyone started openly defying the laws as L-P did routinely. In any case, the prosecutor’s argument had been tried and found wanting a half century earlier in the very same place:
"Kucharek’s arguments were reminiscent of the prosecution’s arguments in the Humboldt Lumber Strike trial of 1935, in which, ironically, 10 defendants were tried in Eureka for “inciting riots.” They were also called communists and anarchists. It would have irked Kucharek to know that the prosecution couldn’t convict the 10 anarcho-commie defendants in 1935 either."[56]
It might have comforted him, however, to know that anarchy hadn’t envelope the world, at least not as of his closing arguments.
Meanwhile, the defense’s closing arguments were thorough and yet to the point. Each of the attorneys as well as the defendants representing themselves chimed in. As described by “Keye”,
“Ken Collins described meeting the defendants for the first time, somewhat daunted by their unorthodox methods, but encouraged by their dedication and knowledge about the relevant issues. Neal Sanders re-explained the law point by point. Gena Rae Eichenberg read relevant parts of The Lorax to the jury, leaving them with images of L-P’s ‘schloppity-schlopp’ and environmental ravishment to haunt their weekend dreams.
“Bill Bragg capped off the defense arguments by throwing the hundreds of pages of evidence of L-P’s offenses onto Kucharek’s desk, shouting ‘I went to the D.A.’s office today to see if anyone had filed charges since yesterday. They hadn’t. Now, why don’t you do something about it?’ Strident and angry, Bragg admitted that he’d been asleep on the issues before the trial, but was now awake. ‘Rome was a democracy before Caesar,’ said Bragg, ‘and Germany a democracy before Hitler. Let us not say that America was a democracy before the corporations.’”[57]
Lisa Henry commented that their lawyers repeatedly made statements in their closing arguments like, “(the defendants) have an amazing amount of integrity, they’re really good, they believe in what they are doing, and they are well informed.” She elaborated further:
“My lawyer had gotten Aldo Leopold’s book, Sand County Almanac, and he read part of that.
“Another lawyer said, ‘God damn it. I am a member of Greenpeace and I think what they are doing is great.’
“Another brought up the civil rights movement and direct action being taken in many social movements, and that we hadn’t harmed anybody, hadn’t intended on harming anybody. It just came off beautifully.”[58]
The jury then deliberated for three days, while the defendants and their attorneys remained on “twenty minute standby”. [59] The Lorax Ten sat on the courthouse lawn, ate communal meals, and held rallies while passersby honked in support our shouted in derision. Lisa Henry described the wait as “excruciating”.[60] On Wednesday, August 8, 1990, the jury reentered the courtroom and announced, in frustration, that they failed to reach a verdict and were deadlocked seven to five in favor of acquittal. At one time, they had actually leaned nine to three in favor of acquittal.[61] The Eureka Times-Standard headline for the day erroneously declared the case a “mistrial,”[62] but the verdict was in fact actually a hung jury.[63] Lisa Henry described the Lorax Ten’s initial reaction as one of disappointment, because by this point they were convinced that they would be completely exonerated. She noted that the defendants had carefully watched the jurors and attempted to read their reactions in order to make it clear which jurors in particular to focus their energies upon in order to perhaps sway their vote. They noted that one group had seemed sympathetic during the jury selection process but now seemed against them.[64] However most agreed that the defendants had emerged victorious. One of the lawyers for the defense commented that Kucherek normally won 95% of his cases, and beating 19 to 1 odds was quite an accomplishment.[65] Of course, as Bruce Anderson pointed out, in the big picture, all the defendants were truly guilty of was attempting to bring the actual criminals, in this case, L-P, to justice.[66] Upon the announcement of the verdict, Lisa Henry issued the following statement:
“Humboldt County District Attorney Terry Farmer now faces the choice of retrying the Lorax group at the cost of over $40,000 for Humboldt County or prosecuting the real criminal, Louisiana-Pacific (L-P), who is committing ongoing, daily felony violations of their already lenient water pollution discharge permit.”[67]
The Lorax Ten had won other victories also: the lawyers, for one thing, had become radicalized by their experience and shed some of the cynicism they had accumulated over their years working in the legal system. The same lawyer who had read from A Sand County Almanac made it a point to visit and consult with other Redwood Summer activists in jail on his own accord.[68] Attorney Ken Collins triumphantly declared, “L-P is so dirty, it was like shooting fish in a barrel.”[69] Some of the jurors reported that they, too, had approached Terry Farmer insisting that the D.A. prosecute L-P for its crimes.[70] Farmer announced that he would indeed look into the matter.[71] Whether or not he would actually do so remained to be seen:
“Whether Humboldt County residents follow through with what the Lorax helped start remains to be seen. Several Lorax have moved to Arcata, in part to help locals like Ida Honorof, Andy Areneo, the North Coast Environmental Center, and the California Alternative to Toxics fight the L-P toxic issues; but their help alone is not enough. Without constant political pressure from both inside and outside Humboldt County, D.A. Terry Farmer will certainly not pursue L-P to trial. Check Farmer’s list of past campaign contributors if you have any doubts.” [72]
The North Coast Environmental Center (NEC) and the Clean Air Network sued L-P charging that it had failed to warn residents in Arcata that they had been exposed to the carcinogenic chemical compound formaldehyde from the company’s flakeboard plant, and that it had exceeded acceptable limits under existing California law, namely Proposition 65, which the voters of the state had passed in 1986.[73]
The 7 to 5 acquittal in favor of the defendants was unprecedented in legal history[74], and certainly it represented a victory as far as the organizers of Redwood Summer were concerned, though it did raise some hackles from Anderson Valley Advertiser columnist Robert Anderson. Though he was a staunch supporter of Redwood Summer, was sympathetic to (if not in full agreement with) anarchism and consensus process. He opined:
“I’ve supported the politics of Redwood Summer from the start…The polite, legalistic objections of groups like the Sierra Club, though they play an important role, were—and are—an inadequate response to an economic and environmental crime of this magnitude. An angry, politically aggressive movement to challenge the timber corporations and their local spear-carriers was, and is, a worthy political project.”[75]
Still, Rob Anderson had some quibbles with the trial, and “Keye's” article in particular, admonishing the latter to be wary of coming across as elitist and further questioning whether or not the defense should have considered the efficacy of a lengthy trial when the potential outcome was in doubt given the poor financial state Humboldt County was currently in (which was scarcely better than Mendocino County which was practically bankrupt).[76] The trial had cost the County $3,500 for each day it dragged on, though D.A. Terry Farmer justified its expense, because it helped everyone “come to grips with the issue.” However, for Farmer, the issue was somewhat different than the concerns of the Lorax Ten. According to Farmer, the people of Humboldt County “(felt) squeezed between environmental interests and the timber industry.”[77] Anderson warned that such a trial, including the retention of eight attorneys at public expense, could reflect very poorly on Redwood Summer in the eyes of the public. Further, he commented, the lengthy and in depth discussion on the “cultural gap” between the “flamboyant” activists and their “sensible” lawyers, as well as the debates on recycled paper and Styrofoam cups might further make the Lorax Ten seem holier-than-thou.[78] Certainly, the corporate press had harped on the length of the trial in what seemed to them to be a simple case of civil disobedience. Even the length of the jury selection process was subject to scrutiny.[79]
No doubt Anderson was trying to be helpful, but his comments came across as those of a grumpy elder (not that he was more than a generation older than Lisa Henry or the other, youngest defendants who were in their twenties, and he was nearly equal in age to those older ones who were in their forties). As she had in the case of her civil disobedience to the jury, the exonerated activist urged Robert Anderson (and everyone else) to see the big picture, even where court costs were concerned, responding:
“The decision to go to trial was personally one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made. I am an activist, and I know damn well that my time in court might have been better spent organizing in the woods. But 1 year probation would have put too many activists out of action for too long, so I chose trial. I respect all the other activists who chose otherwise.
“Before you criticize the Lorax’s motives for going to trial, I ask the reader to take themselves back two months ago in Redwood Summer. The Samoa 44 were thrown unprecedented, politically-motivated sentences; the Lorax were being used as guinea pigs to try to scare off other activists willing to risk arrest. Protesting these kinds of sentences was a primary goal in the Lorax trial.
“The Lorax did not decide flippantly to ‘jam up the courts,’ as Rob infers. Had the Humboldt County courts offered us a more lenient sentence, or had they heeded our repeated sentence bargaining, the greater number of Lorax, in my opinion, would have opted to take the original sentence. The courts made a decision to jam up our lives, and Lorax individuals made decisions carefully and thoughtfully in response…
“[U]sing the court system to one’s legal and political advantage is a legitimate form of political protest. Just as activists use “jail solidarity” (refusing to “cite out”, resisting jail ha-rassment, insisting upon equal treatment both during sentencing and bail hearings) to exert political and economic pressure on jails from within, activists can also choose to use similar tactics, after arraignment by requesting court-appointed lawyers, going proper in order to speak more freely and make political speeches, etc., to exert further political and economic pressure on the courts…
“The eight court-appointed attorneys were requested, by the way, both for court solidarity and also in order to construct a legal team capable of constructing a time-consuming defense of necessity, the Lorax’s original defense (before the Penal Code defense was worked out). As Anne outlined in her article, the defense of necessity, and also the penal code defense, are almost always disallowed in political cases, and a huge team of lawyers was needed to construct a successful defense. As the defense became more interesting, the lawyers and the defendants began to enjoy the trial a little, and one lawyer even signed on because he found the case interesting.”[80]
Lisa Henry also rightfully pointed out that the ordeal was worth the time and effort because it pushed the envelope as far as nonviolent civil disobedience was concerned and beat back an attempt by the employing class and their courts to stifle the legitimate exercise of the same:
“Was this utilization of court money and time beneficial to Redwood Summer activists? I would say a definite ‘yes.’ Since the trial, Humboldt County has become more lenient in its sentencing. For example, the ‘Garlon 6,’ arrested in April for protesting against L-P herbicide spraying, were able to plead no contest and receive only one day in jail, time served(!). In Mendocino County, Osprey Grove arrestees were often cited and released without a court day set at all. This is a major shift from the beginning of Redwood Summer, and the stiff sentences thrown at the Samoa 44.
“The situation in Humboldt County is similar to the situation at (the) Nevada Test Site, Concord Naval Weapons Base, and Diablo Canyon before mass num-bers of protesters began to get arrested on a regular basis. It took may repeated trials at these sites to get to the point where activists were merely cited and released with minimal punishment, or were even taken and dropped off in neighboring towns. It will take a few trials in Humboldt County to achieve the same effect here, and the Lorax is only the first in an attempt to get reasonable sentencing precedents for Redwood Summer activists in Northern California.”[81]
Robert Anderson thanked Lisa Henry for clarifying the points he felt Keye had not raised in her article, though he stood by his assertion that the onus was on the Redwood Summer activists due the unfortunate “realpolitic” that existed. He finished by stating:
“My purpose is not to merely score debating points but to emphasize that we should make our politics as clear as possible, since—the timber corporations and their allies charge—that Redwood Summer is lacking in political seriousness. We play into the hands of our political opponents if we fail to make our political purposes clear…”[82]
This was unfortunately true, as the barrage of letters from corporate timber apologists—whether or not they originated from front groups like Mothers’ Watch—clearly demonstrated. Still, Lisa Henry had a point. Had the verdict been achieved before the four demonstrators that had been arrested in Carlotta earlier that month had been arrested, it is likely the latter would not have had their heads shorn in an act of retaliation by the jail staff. Like the Wobblies of old, somebody had to take a stand for free speech, and the Lorax Ten had done so in a principled and strategic fashion. The charges against the ten were dismissed by the judge[83], but rather than aggressively pursue L-P, D.A. Terry Farmer decided that the activists should pay Humboldt County $17,000 in court costs.[84] Meanwhile, after an employee at the nearby Simpson pulp mill in Samoa blew the whistle on the company bypassing its main stack (which resulted in dozens of complaints from Eureka residents about the acrid fumes discharged from the facility during the incident), local air quality officials immediately moved to settle with the company. They also warned Simpson and revealed the whistleblower’s name. The company then circulated a memo to its employees demanding that “everyone work together” to achieve a better environmental record and lamented that “specific employees (were) acting as informants.” Farmer chose not to intervene and he demurred at the possibility of prosecuting L-P as well, stating that it was the Regional Water Quality Control Board’s duty to police water quality, and that the latter had not brought a case against the mills to his desk. Given their conduct in the case with Simpson, no such case was likely to be forth coming.[85] Farmer may have honestly felt squeezed, but it was evident that it was corporate timber that squeezed him the hardest.
At the state level, the situation was no better. In May, the US Senate passed a legislation, sponsored by Republican Senator Robert Packwood from Oregon that allowed states , particularly Oregon and Washington, to ban the export of raw logs. The bill included a prohibition on the practice of “substitution”, the buying of federal logs to take the place of raw log exports from private land.[86] President George H. W Bush signed this bill, called the Customs and Trade Act of 1990 into law in late August, however the bill had little teeth, and was scarcely more than a paper tiger, because the authority to enact such a ban was reserved for the individual states.[87] California, being under the governorship of a Reagan Republican at the time, George Dukemeijan, was no more likely to pass such a bill than it was to nationalize the timber industry outright, and sure enough, on September 27, 1990, “Duke” vetoed just such a bill, claiming it would hurt the state’s economy and the economy of timber dependent communities.[88] Kucherek had been mistaken. Anarchy hadn’t enveloped the world; Plutocracy had.
Notes:
[1] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[2] “Here and There in Mendocino County”, by Bruce Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 8, 1990.
[3] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[4] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[5] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990. The name is misspelled “Anne B. Keye” in the latter source, but obviously the pseudonym is meant to be a play on the word “anarchy”. LA Weekly Reporter Greg Golden stated that “Keye” is in fact Lisa Henry (“Lost in the Woods”, September 7, 1990), which is a logical deduction (the writing styles seem to match), but it could also be Henry in combination with some of the other defendants.
[6] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[7] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[8] “Lorax Learning”, by Lisa Henry, Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 29, 1990.
[9] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[10] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[11] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[12] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[13] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[14] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[15] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[16] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[17] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[18] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[19] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[20] “Affinity Groups”, from the Redwood Summer Handbook, Volume 2, Summer 1990.
[21] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[22] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[23] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[24] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[25] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[26] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[27] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[28] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[29] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[30] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[31] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[32] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[33] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[34] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[35] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[36] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[37] “Revolution or Recycling”, by Lisa Henry, Anderson Valley Advertiser, October 24, 1990.
[38] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[39] “Here and There in Mendocino County”, by Bruce Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 8, 1990.
[40] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[41] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991. Emphasis in the original.
[42] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[43] Duda, John, ed. Wanted: Men to Fill the Jails of Spokane!, Fighting for Free Speech with the Hobo Agitators of the I.W.W., © 2009, Charles H Kerr & Co., Chicago, IL.
[44] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[45] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[46] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[47] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[48] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[49] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[50] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[51] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[52] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990. Keye doesn’t specify which statement of King’s that Kucherek quoted, but the likelihood is that it was King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail in Response to Public Statement by Eight Alabama Clergymen”, various sources, 1963.
[53] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[54] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[55] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[56] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[57] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[58] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[59] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[60] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[61] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[62] “‘Summer’ Case Ends With Mistrial”, by Lisa Shaw, Eureka Times-Standard, August 9, 1990.
[63] “North Coast Timber and a Hung Jury”, op/ ed. By Dan Walters, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, August 26, 1990.
[64] “Lisa Henry on her 22nd Birthday”, Lisa Henry interviewed by Beth Bosk, New Settler Interview, January 1991.
[65] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[66] “Here and There in Mendocino County”, by Bruce Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 8, 1990.
[67] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[68] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[69] “Scores of Protests, Hundreds of Arrests, Thousands of Demonstrators, Millions Made Aware of Timber Abuse”, by Sid Dominitz, EcoNews, September 1990.
[70] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[71] “D.A. to Investigate Charges Against L-P”, by Lisa Shaw, Eureka Times-Standard, August 9, 1990.
[72] “Learning from the Lorax Trial”, by Anne R. Keye, Country Activist, August 1990 and Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 15, 1990.
[73] “NEC Sues L-P”, EcoNews, September 1990.
[74] “1990: A Year in the Life of Earth First!”, by Judi Bari, Anderson Valley Advertiser, January 2, 1991.
[75] “Learning from the Lorax”, by Robert Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 22, 1990. For some unexplained reason, Anderson refers to “Anne R. Keye” (or rather “Anne B. Keye” if his brother Bruce’s editing is inadvertent) as “Evelyn Keye”. Nowhere in “Keye’s” article is the name “Evelyn” apparent. Bruce Anderson and Lisa Henry traded barbs over the latter’s “coming out” as a lesbian some months later.
[76] “Learning from the Lorax”, by Robert Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 22, 1990.
[77] “Scores of Protests, Hundreds of Arrests, Thousands of Demonstrators, Millions Made Aware of Timber Abuse”, by Sid Dominitz, EcoNews, September 1990.
[78] “Learning from the Lorax”, by Robert Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 22, 1990.
[79] See for example, “Jury Selection Begins in ‘Redwood Summer’ Trial”, by Lisa Shaw, Eureka Times-Standard, July 17, 1990; “Jury Selection Slows ‘Redwood Summer’ Trial”, by Lisa Shaw, Eureka Times-Standard, July 20, 1990; “Jurors Selected for ‘Summer’ Trial”, uncredited, Eureka Times-Standard, August 1, 1990.
[80] “Lorax Learning”, by Lisa Henry, Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 29, 1990. Emphasis in the original.
[81] “Lorax Learning”, by Lisa Henry, Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 29, 1990.
[82] “Rob Anderson’s Reply”, by Robert Anderson, Anderson Valley Advertiser, August 29, 1990.
[83] [NEED JUDGE’S NAME!] “‘Redwood Summer’ Charges Dismissed”, by Lisa Shaw, Eureka Times-Standard, September 5, 1990; “Eureka Judge Drops Charges Against Logging Demonstrators”, by John Adams, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, September 5, 1990; “Charges Dropped Against Anti-logging Protesters”, AP Wire, Ukiah Daily Journal, September 5, 1990.
[84] “4 ‘Summer’ Activists Must Pay Lawyers $17,000”, by Lisa Shaw, Eureka Times-Standard, September 15, 1990; and “County to Protesters: Foot the Bill; 10 Arrested During ‘Summer’ Rally to Pay Back $17,000”, by Bleys W. Rose, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, September 18, 1990.
[85] “Simspon Spews, D.A. Eschews”, EcoNews, September 1990.
[86] “Log Export Ban?”, EcoNews, June 1990; and “6,000 Jobs Saved”, EcoNews, September 1990.
[87] “Curb on Timber Exports Signed into Law by Bush”, by Scott Sonner, Associated Press, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, August 21, 1990.
[88] “Duke Vetoes Timber Export Bill—Cites Threat to Economy”, by Steve Hart, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, September 28, 1990.