I know that verdicts are sometimes overturned by a judge on appeal -- but for the trial judge to set aside a guilty verdict rendered in his/her own courtroom is unusual.

It has just happened in Alaska, in a particularly interesting case.

A Ketchikan judge on Monday set aside guilty verdicts returned by a jury against the activist group Greenpeace and the captain of its boat for violating state environmental regulations during a 2004 visit to Alaska.

District Court Judge Kevin Miller provided little reason for his unusual order acquitting the Greenpeace defendants except that, in his judgment, the evidence did not support the guilty verdicts.

"The decision to remove these verdicts from the province of the jury is one that this court does not take lightly," Miller wrote.

Miller presided over the jury trial and was responding to a post-verdict request by the defense to consider a reversal of the convictions.

Assistant attorney general James Fayette, reached in New York while on vacation, said: "I've been a prosecutor in Anchorage for 12 years and I've never seen this. ... I've never heard of it happening."

Now I've heard of it happening before,but not often. Usually it is in a much more technical case than one of this sort, and involves much more complicated issues. It is also much more likely to happen in a civil case. But it seems to me that there isn't much to dispute here.

A Ketchikan jury found Greenpeace Inc. and Arctic Sunrise Capt. Arne Sorensen guilty in May of violating Alaska oil pollution prevention laws during a July 2004 trip the activist group made to Southeast Alaska to conduct an anti-logging campaign in the Tongass National Forest.

Under state law, a non-tank vessel larger than 400 gross tons must file an oil spill response plan application with the state, including a certificate of financial responsibility and an oil spill contingency plan.

The jury on May 9 convicted Greenpeace on two counts of operating a ship without oil spill contingency plans on July 12 and July 14, 2004. The jury found the organization not guilty of operating without a certificate of financial responsibility for cleaning potential spills.

The jury found Sorensen guilty of two counts of operating without contingency plans on both dates. He also was found guilty of not having the financial responsibility certificate on July 12 but not guilty of operating without the certificate on July 14.

William Beekman, the ship's agent, also was charged with operating without either document. The jury acquitted him of both charges.

Now hold on here. Either the documents in question were filed or they were not. Period. Either the vessel was operated without them or not. Sounds rather cut and dried. What would have been missing?

I think this matter needs to be appealed -- and the judge needs to be scrutinized.

Posted by: Greg at 10:41 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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