Fwd: June 6, 2022 - Appeals court upholds 8-year sentence of Des Moines activist in Dakota Access Pipeline sabotage

[Catholic Worker]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Frank Cordaro <frank....@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Jun 6, 2022 at 7:37 PM
Subject: June 6, 2022 - Appeals court upholds 8-year sentence of Des Moines activist in Dakota Access Pipeline sabotage
To: Catholic Worker <catholicw...@gmail.com>

Appeals court upholds 8-year sentence of Des Moines activist in Dakota
Access Pipeline sabotage
https://news.yahoo.com/appeals-court-upholds-8-sentence-214425300.html

A Des Moines environmental activist imprisoned for sabotaging
construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline has failed to convince an
appellate court it should cut her eight-year sentence because a lower
court erred in applying a terrorism enhancement.

Jessica Reznicek, an activist connected to the Catholic Worker
Movement, and fellow Iowan Ruby Montoya repeatedly vandalized
construction sites connected to the 1,172-mile pipeline in 2016 and
2017, setting a bulldozer on fire and using oxy-acetylene torches to
damage pipeline valves across Iowa. The total cost of the damage is
not known, but in one incident in Buena Vista County alone it was
estimated at $2.5 million.

The two women took credit for the attacks and were both charged in
2019 with multiple felonies. Reznicek pleaded guilty to a single
charge of conspiracy to damage an energy facility and in June 2021 was
sentenced to eight years in prison. She appealed that sentence, but on
Monday, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a short,
unsigned opinion that her sentence will stand.

Previously: Women who 'sabotaged' Dakota Access Pipeline charged
almost 3 years after damages first reported

An attorney representing Reznicek, who is serving her sentence at a
low-security federal correction institute in Waseca, Minnesota,
declined to comment.

Jessica Reznicek is arrested July 24, 2017 in Des Moines after
claiming responsibility for acts of sabotage against the Dakota Access
Pipeline and pulling letters off the Iowa Utilities Board sign. The
Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday upheld her eight-year
prison sentence for the pipeline vandalism.

The appeal focused on the decision by Iowa U.S. District Judge Rebecca
Goodgame Ebinger to apply a terrorism sentencing enhancement,
applicable to crimes "calculated to influence or affect the conduct of
government" by intimidation, coercion, or retaliation. That
enhancement increased Reznicek's original recommended sentencing range
37 to 46 months, to 210 to 240 months — a maximum of 20 years —
although the final sentence from Ebinger was less than half that.

Monday's decision does not address Reznicek's argument that, because
she was opposing a private development and damaging private property,
the terrorism enhancement was inapplicable. Instead, the appellate
court notes that "any error was harmless" because Ebinger stated on
the record that she would have imposed the same sentence with or
without the terrorism enhancement.

Previously: First month of Summit carbon capture pipeline comments
exceed those on Dakota Access. Here's what's next.

The ruling comes amid opposition to proposed carbon capture pipelines
that would run across Iowa, carrying liquefied carbon dioxide from
ethanol plants and other agricultural industries to sequestration
sites in North Dakota and Illinois. Ebinger said at the time of the
sentencing that the sentence needed to be harsh to deter others from
acting out.

The Des Moines Register has reached out to Energy Transfer Partners,
primary owners of the pipeline, for comment.

'Laudable, misguided' motivations

Efforts by Reznicek, Montoya and others to oppose the Dakota Access
Pipeline were ultimately unsuccessful. The underground pipeline runs
from The Bakken shale oil fields in North Dakota to a terminal in
Illinois, crossing Iowa diagonally from just south of Sioux Falls,
South Dakota, to Keokuk and passing through northeast Polk County. It
began operating in June 2017.

In claiming credit for their attacks, the women said their "direct
action" was needed to protect natural resources and indigenous
people's sovereignty and to stand up against what they felt to be
unchecked and lawless corporate power.

"Our conclusion is that the system is broken and it is up to us as
individuals to take peaceful action and remedy it, and this we did,
out of necessity," Montoya said in a July 2017 news conference.

From 2017: Dakota Access protesters claim responsibility for pipeline sabotage

In sentencing Reznicek, Ebinger said she considered the motivation
behind the sabotage. Her sentence balanced what she called Reznicek's
"laudable, though ultimately misguided, motivations" and her
subsequent efforts at rehabilitation against the fact that Reznicek
encouraged others to join in her sabotage, damaged equipment in ways
that caused "a grave risk to others," and continued her vandalism over
a span of months.

Because of this, the appellate court rejected Reznicek's argument that
her sentence was "substantively unreasonable.' Ebinger considered the
applicable factors under federal sentencing law and the Eighth Circuit
found no "clear error of judgment" on her part, upholding the
sentence.

From 2020: Federal appeals court reverses order to shut down Dakota
Access pipeline

Activists 'frightened' by precedent

A group of Reznicek's friends and fellow activists have launched a
campaign to free her, gathering to date 15,000 signatures on a
petition to Congress and President Joe Biden. They are calling for
repeal of the terrorism law applied to her and a pardon or commutation
of her sentence.

Monte Pinger, a spokesman for the campaign, said in a statement that
they were "frightened" by what they see as a decision allowing judges
to impose terrorism enhancements "without accountability."

"This label automatically increased Jessica’s sentencing guidelines
fivefold, and the appeal court, without fully examining whether this
label was justified, decided to write it off as a 'harmless error,'"
Pinger said "Protecting the environment is not terrorism, and Jessica
should not be serving an eight-year prison sentence for trying to
protect the water from an illegally permitted pipeline.“

Monday's decision is not the end to litigation over the pipeline
attacks. Reznicek's co-defendant, Montoya, also reached a plea deal
with prosecutors, but has been fighting since August 2021 to withdraw
her plea and take the case to trial.

Montoya claims in court filings that her then-attorney, Lauren Regan,
unfairly pressured her to accept the plea deal by telling her that
prosecutors would penalize Reznicek if Montoya didn't plead guilty.
Prosecutors oppose Montoya's attempt to change her plea, and the
matter remains pending before the district judge.

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To learn more about her case, you can watch the campaign’s latest
video or visit supportjessicareznicek.com

Free Jessica Reznicek email add <freejessi...@gmail.com>

Free Jessica Reznicek Face Book page: https://www.facebook.com/freejessrez

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2022 Jessica Reznicek / FC & DMCW  postings
https://frankcordaro.wordpress.com/2022/05/14/2022-jessica-reznicek-postings/
2021 Jessica Reznicek / FC & DMCW  postings
https://frankcordaro.wordpress.com/2021/07/02/2021-jess-reznicek-postings/