St. Patricks Four to be Sentenced This Week!

by Update Sat Jan 28, 2006 20:38

http://www.binghamtonpmc.org/newswire/display/1766/index.php

by Update Sat Jan 28, 2006 09:17

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060128/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_leveraging_wives

by Katie-Quinn Jacobs Fri Jan 27, 2006 23:08

Teresa Grady, 40, will be receiving a special human rights award tomorrow, Jan 28, in Ithaca, NY, but won’t be able to attend the ceremony in person -- she was taken into custody today to serve four months in federal prison. Grady is one the St. Patrick’s Four and was sentenced for her participation in a symbolic act of non-violent civil disobedience at a military recruiting station outside of Ithaca on March 17, 2003, two days before the invasion of Iraq. Grady was also fined $150 for a contempt of court charge and ordered to pay a quarter of the $958 restitution.

The Tompkins County Human Rights Commission has awarded Grady and her fellow activists, Danny Burns, Peter DeMott and Clare Grady the human rights award jointly. Burns, DeMott and Clare Grady were all taken into custody earlier this week after sentencing at the federal court building in Binghamton, NY. Last September, a jury acquitted the Four of a federal conspiracy charge, but found them guilty of federal misdemeanors.

Grady addressed the court today by taking issue with Judge Thomas J. McAvoy’s pre-trial decision to ban references to international law and Article 6, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution from the courtroom. The Four have said that Judge McAvoy’s decision prevented the jury from hearing their full defense, which was based on necessity and justification.

“This court and the jury were intended to be a check and balance to tyrannical government. You instead have sentenced our nation, its young in particular, to continue trammeling international laws which our own nation has fought for, helped to create, and upholds in the woefully neglected constitution! Leaving us a nation fearful to do anything about the Great crimes of our government, from which our souls both collectively and individually are sorely aching. Not to mention the victims of its violations,” Grady said.

In a statement reminiscent of Martin Luther King, Grady told the judge, “I will always act believing in the goodness of all people and the gravitation of people's conscience towards rightness, justice and truth. This courtroom has been no exception in this application. Please go forward with your good conscience and employ the dusty laws, which sit unused in the books. They are crying to be used in the name of justice! The victims of war will applaud you. They are the victims of torture, the victims who are our service people and their families…”

Federal prosecutor, Miroslav Lovric, recommended that the judge impose a sentence based on the high end of the federal sentencing guidelines on Grady, since she “has no intention of learning from this experience about committing these kinds of acts.”

Regarding her time in federal prison, Grady had this to say: “…no measure of punishment could change the rightness of the act of March 17th 2003 to call people to conversion of heart and mind away from a great national tragedy. My heart is at peace, in that my actions were in concert with the millions of people of our nation who protested this war.”

At the packed courthouse this morning, Grady was joined by her mother, Teresa J. Grady, and numerous supporters, including Binghamton Deputy Mayor Tarik Abdelazim. After the sentencing, the gallery honored Grady with a standing ovation and thunderous applause. Before exiting through the door into custody, she turned to the crowd, raised her hand high and made the sign of peace.

Grady’s complete statement and the statements of the other St. Patrick’s Four activists sentenced this week are posted on their website: www.stpatricksfour.org.

Bio: Katie Quinn-Jacobs is a freelance writer living in Ithaca, NY. For more information on the St. Patrick’s Four, see www.stpatricksfour.org
Original Location:

by Update Fri Jan 27, 2006 22:04 Ithaca, New York, USA

In Binghamton federal court today (January 27, 2006), Teresa Grady was sentenced to serve four months in federal prison for each of her two misdemeanor counts, the sentences are to run concurrently. She was fined $150 for a contempt of court charge brought against her during the jury trial and ordered to pay one-fourth of the $958 restitution. A special assessment fee of $35 was also imposed.

by SP4 Fri Jan 27, 2006 15:44 Ithaca, New York, USA

http://stpatricksfour.org/?q=node/381

by SP4 Fri Jan 27, 2006 15:41 Ithaca, New York, USA

*SUPPORTING THE PRISONERS ON THE INSIDE
Due to sudden and unanounced prison movements. It is best if you send a letter of solidarity or postcard to either
Daniel Burns
Clare Grady
Teresa Grady
or Peter De Mott
c/- PO Box 293, Ithaca, NY, 14851, USA
...your letter will be redirected to the prisoner from there.

*SUPPORTING THEIR FAMILIES ON THE OUTSIDE
Over the years Danny, Clare, Teresa and Peter have stood up for many whose voices are not heard. Now it's our turn to stand up for them.

Friends of the Four are conducting a pledge drive to help support the families of the Four while their loved ones are imprisoned. If a number of us each put in just a few dollars per month we can make a difference.

Please register your pledge by sending a note to Dave Quinn-Jacobs. Mention the amount you intend to send per month (or in total), and if you would like your donation to remain anonymous. A list of the financial supporters and a grand total pledged will be posted periodically.

For your actual donation, please send it to:

PO Box 293, Ithaca, NY, 14851 USA

Make checks paybale to the Ithaca Catholic Worker. Please put "St Patrick's Four" or "SP4" in the memo for the check.

or use Paypal:

by Update Fri Jan 27, 2006 12:39

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/26/151256

by Ciaron - Ploughshares Fri Jan 27, 2006 12:13

I spoke to Teresa Grady last night on the eve of her sentencing. She was heading back from New York City to Binghamton after doing interviews with CNN & "Democracy Now". Teresa is in good spirits and sends her best wishes to all the folks she met in Dublin during the Pit Stop Ploughshares trial in March. Teresa's sister Clare & brother-in-law Peter are presently in custody after being sentenced earlier in the week. Along with co-defendant Danny Burns the four are all parents, so the need for solidarity to sustain the scene outside is there. Her 3 co-defendants were moved from a local county jail after CNN tried to gain access to them following sentencing. It is unclear where they are now.

Teresa emphasised the need for continued nonviolent resistance to the ongoing war. She had recently viewed a documentary on the U.S. attack on Fallujah which confirmed to her the necessity of the resistance she undertook in March 2003 & the consequent jail time she faces today.

What can we do from Ireland?
I'll post an addresse for the 4 imprisoned defendants from which solidarity mail, postcards will be forwarded. (3 of these peace prisoners were in ireland during the March trial, so getting a card from here would be signifiant).

I'll also post details about how people can financial support the 4 families & kids on the outside. The best support we can give them is news of further nonviolnt resistance to this war.

by Update Thu Jan 26, 2006 20:24

Anti-War Protestor Sentenced to Six Months in Prison for Splashing Blood in Recruiting Center:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/24/nyregion/24protest.html?_r=1


Reprimand and No Prison Time for Soldier Held for Killing Iraqi

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/24/national/24sentence.html

by Margaret Thu Jan 26, 2006 20:21

Democracy Now today had a piece about a US army interrogator who killed an Iraqi man when he:
"put a sleeping bag over his head, wrapped him in an electrical cord, covered his mouth and sat on his chest. "

He was convicted of negligent homicide and fined $6,000 and has restricted movement imposed on him for 60 days - home, office and church.

They contrast this with the St.Patrick's Day Four who have all received prison sentences so far varying from 4-6 months for a peaceful protest in a military recruiting office in which no one was even hurt or injured. Teresa Grady, the last of the four due for sentencing tomorrow speaks to Amy Goodman.


http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/26/151256

(A full transcript of the show will be on the site later tonight or early in the morning.)

by SP4 Thu Jan 26, 2006 01:02 Binghamton, NY, USA

“As a mother who knows the preciousness of children, not just mine, but all children. I want the court to understand that before we walked into the recruiting station [March 17, 2003] a million people had already died in Iraq from U.S. imposed sanctions, half of them children,” said Clare Grady as she testified at her sentencing today in Binghamton federal court.

Grady was sentenced to six months of federal prison and ordered to pay her share of restitution for participating in a symbolic act of non-violent resistance at a military recruiting station outside Ithaca, NY on the eve of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Grady’s two daughters, Leah Sayvets, 16, and Teresa Rose Sayvets, 14, stood in the court gallery as their mother spoke, “We are raising our children to love God and one another. Not to kill or cooperate with killing. To know that law is here to uphold life and not the other way around. We would like to teach our children to act from their conscience, responsibly, and for the greater good.”

Last September, a federal jury found Clare Grady, Danny Burns, Teresa Grady and Peter DeMott, (known as the St. Patrick’s Four) not guilty of federal conspiracy charges, but guilty on the misdemeanor counts held against them. The federal case was the second time the Four had been tried for the same incident. Their state level trial ended in a mistrial when the jury could not come to a decision, splitting their vote nine to three in favor of the defendants. The federal prosecutor picked up the case after it was brought to their attention by former Tompkins County District Attorney, George Dentes.

During the federal trial last fall, Grady informed the jury about her travel to Iraq before the war in 2002. She had met with a group of Iraqi mothers during the trip and spoke with them through an interpreter. After the women described the hardships of living under U.S. sanctions, they asked Grady about her own children. When she showed them a picture of her two daughters, the Iraqi women kissed the each of the girls in the photo before handing it back to her. Grady then asked the jury to consider “the love that’s necessary to make that bridge.”

The encounter with the Iraqi women was what drove Grady to carry photographs of mothers and children to the recruiting station during the act of civil disobedience that ultimately brought her, almost three years later, into federal court in Binghamton, NY. When Grady attempted to enter the photos as evidence for the jury during her federal trial, the judge denied her submission. But today in court, Judge McAvoy accepted a packet of 102 photographs with the names and ages of New York State military who had died in Iraq from Grady.

Judge Thomas J. McAvoy stated this morning that he feared anarchy would ensue if others followed Grady’s example. Prior to pronouncing the court’s sentence on her the judge emphasized his duty to protect the public from Grady’s unlawful actions.

Grady said, “I go to jail as part of the public discourse about the war in Iraq.”

Paul Sayvets, Clare Grady’s husband, was joined by dozens of his wife’s supporters today. Before being handcuffed, Grady blew kisses to the crowd of family and friends assembled in the courtroom.

Katie Quinn-Jacobs is a freelance writer living in Ithaca, NY. For more information on the St. Patrick’s Four,

by SP4 Wed Jan 25, 2006 10:19

Peter has been sentenced to 8 months, four to be served in Federal Prison and four a Binghamton halfway house, due to a family illness. Peter's brother Fr. Steve DeMott, Maryknoll Missioner, is battling terminal brain cancer and his brother Chuck has stage 3b lung cancer. Steve was in the court room this morning with his brother Peter for the sentencing.

by SP4 Tue Jan 24, 2006 23:03

For his participation in a civil disobedience action to protest the Iraq war, Peter DeMott was sentenced in Binghamton NY, to 4 months in a community confinement center (halfway house) followed by 4 months in federal prison, $250 fine for contempt of court and partial payment of the restitution for damages.
More details to come.

by SP4 Tue Jan 24, 2006 19:26 Binghamton, NY, USA

I would like to begin my remarks by observing a moment of silence to honor the dead of the war in Iraq, the 2300 or so United States military and coalition personnel who have died as well as the tens of thousands of Iraqis who have been slaughtered, ninety percent of them civilians, thirty or so percent of that number innocent children.

I was present in this courtroom yesterday morning in solidarity with my friend Danny Burns. While here I heard Mr. Lovric characterize Danny, Clare, Teresa and myself as arrogant, as people entirely lacking any respect for the law, and yet, perhaps even more reprehensible to Mr. Lovric’s way of thinking, completely devoid of any sense of remorse or contrition for what we have done.

And what have we done? What acts have brought us to this court? Out of what context did they arise?

In the months leading up to the war on Iraq hundreds of thousands of people, in fact millions of people in different cities and towns around the world turned out to protest against this war. Some of the largest anti war protests in human history took place to voice opposition to what everyone knew would be a bloodbath of gruesome proportions. Our act of civil disobedience was not the only one of its kind. Many others came from their communities of concern to say “NO!” to the war.

On March 17th, Saint Patrick’s Day of 2003, two days before the United States launched its illegal, unjust war of aggression on Iraq Danny, Clare, Teresa and i went to our local Army and Marine Corps recruiting station and after carefully and prayerfully pouring a small amount of our own blood in the lobby, we knelt in prayer and read the following statement:

“Killing Cannot Be With Christ”-St. Patrick
“Our apologies, dear friends, for the fracture of good order.” As our nation prepares to escalate a war on the people of Iraq by sending hundreds of thousands of US soldiers to invade, we pour our blood on the walls of this military recruiting center. We mark this recruiting office with our own blood to remind ourselves and others of the cost in human life of our government's war making.

Killing is wrong. Preparations for killing are wrong. The work done by the Pentagon with the connivance of this military recruiting station ends with the shedding of blood, and God tells us to turn away from it. Blood is the symbol of life. All life is holy. All people are created in the image and likeness of God. All people are family and everyone is loved by God.

Dr. Martin Luther King reminds us that “we are called to speak for the weak, the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers [and sisters]”.

We come here today with pictures of Iraqi people-mothers, children, those who have been the victims of US bombardment and sanctions for the past twelve years. We come here with love in our hearts for the young US service people, also victims of warmaking.

We find hope in these dark times when sisters and brothers around the world resist the spirit of hatred and violence, lift up prayers for peace-together with works of peace.


Our peaceful, nonviolent protest helps to make up part of the rich history of civil disobedience which has been a central element of the American democratic process from its very beginning. On December 16, 1773 American colonists boarded ships in Boston harbor and destroyed large quantities of tea to voice their oppostion to injustices perpetrated by the English Parliament. During the nineteenth century right up to the Civil War people of conscience helped African slaves escape from bondage, in some cases smuggling them into Canada all in direct violation of the laws of that benighted era when slavery was legal, proper and part of the status quo. In 1920 with the ratification of the Nineteenth Ammendment to the Constitution women in this country finally secured the right to vote but only after many of them engaged in civil disobedience protesting the injustice of suffrage denied by chaining themselves to the fence in front of the White House among other principled and impassioned actions. Throughout the l950’s and 60’s Martin Luther King, Jr. led many justice seeking people to violate the laws which protected and enforced segregation and effectively relegated African-Americans to the status of second class citizens. These few examples could be amplified considerably to show that civil disobedience has helped to change unjust laws and practices in our country and has played a significant role in the realization of a more just and equitable society.

Many of those who have advocated and practiced civil disobedience have been arrested and incarcerated including Henry David Thoreau who had this to say on the subject: “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly (And I submit that the United States government has done and is doing exactly that even as we speak, not only imprisons people unjustly but barbarically tortures as well) the true place for a just person is also a prison. The proper place to-day, the only place which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own act, as they have already put themselves out by their principles.”

I look forward to the day when President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell and their associates stand trial and are held accountable for the crime of the genocidal war on Iraq, a war begun by the current president’s father and prosecuted further by the Clinton administration with its sanctions and its bombings. The war on Iraq is THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY, and both President Bush, President Clinton and those who have aided and abetted them have gotten away with murder.

Every war carries with it the seeds of the war that inevitably follows it. Jesus tells us that those who choose to live by the sword will themselves die by the sword. Through this war our country invites its own destruction. Through our country’s use of weapons of mass destruction we are assuring and finalizing our own demise and our own doom. Thousands of tons of depleted uranium munitions have been used to prosecute the war on Iraq and have resulted in the contamination not only of the air, soil and water of that region but also of our own service personnel. These young people return home with a host of medical problems, some of them procreating severely deformed and handicappped offspring as a result of their exposure to depleted uranium. Meanwhile the cancer rates among the Iraqi population greatly exceed those considered normal for that area.

The fact that our government has wantonly and blatantly contaminated and irradiated the Iraqi landscape with highly toxic carcinogens should shock and alarm each and every one of us. I know first hand (as do probably many people in this courtroom) from having lost my father and my sister Mary to cancer and from having two brothers who currently battle some of the worst kinds of cancer how devastating this illness can be, and yet the war spreads and promotes cancer on a massive scale. What greater possible crime against humanity?

Danny, Clare, Teresa and I took our action, not from a place of arrogance, but from a place of humility. Humility comes from the Latin word humus meaning earth or soil. Humility implies a recognition of one’s status as a creature and of one’s connection to and inter-relatedness with the web of life, with other human beings and with the earth. We identify with the victims of war making and we attempt, admittedly with clumsy grace, to speak on their behalf.

The law should promote life and the well being of everyone and should preserve and protect the earth and its creatures. In a democracy we need to be vigilant in insuring that our leaders not abuse the law. It is the responsibility of each and every one of us to nonviolently confront those who break the law with impunity which is what our leaders have done through their use of lies and deceptions and forgeries to promote and prosecute this war. It is Uncle Sam who puts himself above international law by consistently and systematically violating it whenever and wherever so doing helps achieve his purposes.

As I stand here awaiting sentencing I want to express my remorse. I feel a deep and profound remorse for having participated in the war in Vietnam. Some fifty-eight thousand Americans died in that war. Some TWO MILLION Vietnamese!! For what?
I feel remorse for not having obeyed Christ’s command to love your enemies, to love one another.

I would like to close my remarks by reading a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “There is nothing wrong with a traffic law which says you have to stop for a red light. But when a fire is raging, the fire truck goes right through the red light......Or, when a person is bleeding to death, the ambulance goes through those red lights at top speed...... Disinherited people all over the world are bleeding to death from deep social and economic wounds. They need brigades of ambulance drivers who will have to ignore the red lights of the present system until the emergency is solved.......Massive civil disobedience is a strategy for social change which is at least as forceful as an ambulance with its sirens on full.”

by SP4 Tue Jan 24, 2006 12:07

Today, my husband, Danny Burns was sentenced to six months in prison. He is in jail because on March 17th 2003, he joined millions of others in trying to prevent the war on Iraq. He tried to prevent the war because he knew it was illegal under international law and he knew that thousands of innocent lives would be lost.

During the sentencing, the prosecutor called Danny arrogant. Mr. Lovric said Danny was "the criminal's criminal" and that he had seen gang leaders show more remorse. Both the prosecutor and the judge were clearly riled up about what they believe is "utter disrespect for the law".

Respect for the law is a funny thing for the attorney general's office to be considering presently. What about the utter disrespect for law and justice shown by our governmentís leaders? Where is righteous outrage of these men when our country illegally invades another, when we torture men and boys in Guant·namo Bay Naval Detention Center, when we train Latin American soldiers to commit atrocities and undermine democracy in their countries, when we fail to provide disaster relief to victims of Hurricane Katrina? What about illegal surveillance of American citizens?

Another striking remark by the judge was when he said "when has breaking law ever changed anything." Apparently, the judge is unfamiliar with Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, the Boston Tea Party, the Greensboro Four, Susan B. Anthony and thousands of other people who undoubtedly sat through similar commentary from similar judges and then went on to victory a few years later.

Our children, even with Danny in jail, are so much more privileged than ninety nine percent of children in this world. Today as the children and I left the court house I found myself envisioning a world truly predicated on respect for the law. The basic laws of justice and humanity. Laws like: every child has the right to grow up free from war; every child has access to enough food, to loving community, to adequate housing and medical care. Laws like the universal declaration of human rights. Unfortunately, our country's utter disrespect for the law means that most of the world's children aren't able to experience life with these basic rights.

Even though I know it will be hard at times to have Danny away, it is our responsibility to put ourselves out there in an effort to create a world where these basic laws are respected. I am encouraged and inspired by the many brave, creative and fun ways that people around me are working to create a peaceful, just and sustainable future. During this six months, I am committing to stepping up, in small ways, my resistance to a culture and economy of war, injustice and unsustainability. I invite you to do the same- participate in nonviolent civil resistance, commit to eating 75% local food, organize a vigil, organize a mass bike ride, reduce car use, do community organizing for an end- demand change in the ways that are best for you.

Letters should be addressed:
Daniel J Burns
Broome County Correctional Facility
155 Lt VanWinkle Drive'
Binghamton NY 13905

by Mary Anne Tue Jan 24, 2006 08:57

Dear Friends, As the war in Iraq continues to rage, since Saturday, 10 more American soldiers have died and many more Iraqis. Today, our brother, Danny Burns, the first of the St. Patrick's Four, was taken to Broome Co. jail for 3 weeks until the Bureau of Prisons figure out where he will be ultimately sent to. After the verdict, Danny Burns wife, Jessica Stewart, and the other three defendants came out to speak to the press.

A statement from Jessica will be included in tomorrow's email.

Sentencing Wednesday, 9:30 am
Clare spoke of who is guilty of the crime? We are all culpable in this war. We all must find out how we are responsible to International Law and how the the US Constitution states that all treaties and protocols are the highest law of the land. We must learn what our part is in living in democracy of the people, by the people, and for the people. It is not only up to the courts. It is up to us to uphold the law. But we must educate ourselves as to what that means. Find out what that means.

Sentencing Friday, 11:30 am
Teresa repeated the refrain, the sentencing has already begun, with the pillage and the murder of Iraqi people. The sentencing has already begun, with the death of our own service men and women, and with our money, millions of dollars, spent on war and no services left for our people, especially those victims of Katrina. The sentencing has already with the torture and abuses of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. The sentencing has already begun when the judge doesn't allow International Law into the court. The District Attorney Miroslov Lovric spoke of Danny Burns as being arrogant and above the law. Of the local Tompkins County jury, 9 of the 12 common people of our community voted to acquit us on charges of damage to property. The only difference between the two trials was that the jurors of the first trial (in Tompkins Co.) were allowed to hear our understanding of International Law and how we were obliged to act and uphold the law. Judge McAvoy refused to uphold his obligation to the US Constitution, by his decision not to permit the jury in the Federal trial to hear about the Constitution as it holds International Law supreme law of the land.

Sentencing Tuesday, 9:30 am
Peter spoke of being a Vietnam Vet and how the war in Iraq is a repeat of Vietnam.
We are loosing the best and the brightest to this war. We lost 58,000 US soldiers to that war and hundreds of thousands came home wounded psychologically as well as physically. Millions of Vietnamese lost their lives during that war. Ten's of thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives, ninety percent of those are civilians, and of those, thirty percent are children. War is not the answer. War preparation and war making is not the answer.

by KQJ Mon Jan 23, 2006 23:25

Daniel Burns, 44, was sentenced to six months of federal prison in Binghamton federal court today by Judge Thomas J. McAvoy for each of his misdemeanor convictions last fall. The two six month terms are to be served concurrently. Burns was also fined $250 for a contempt of court charge and was ordered to pay his share of the $958 restitution for damages imposed by the court.

Burns is one of the four non-violent peace activists known as the St. Patrick’s Four. The convictions stem from Burns’ participation in a non-violent protest at a military recruiting station outside of Ithaca, NY on March 17th, 2003, where the four carefully poured their own blood on the posters, flag and walls of the recruiting station. Burns was the first of the St. Patrick’s Four to appear for sentencing in Binghamton, NY. Peter DeMott, Clare Grady and Teresa Grady will also be sentenced individually this week.

The contempt of court charge was placed against Burns during the federal trial on September, 22, 2005, when he attempted to bring the issues of international law and Article VI of the U.S. constitution relevant to his case to the jury’s attention, and then later in his testimony refused to identify the nurse who drew his blood prior to the action at the recruiting station. In court last September, Burns said, “I proudly, morally and honorably go into contempt on this issue.”

Burns and his fellow activists believe that Judge McAvoy‘s decision to exclude citing international law (to which the U.S. is a signatory) along with Article VI of the U.S. constitution from the courtroom hurt their case with the jury as they were key components of their defense. No mention of this decision was made by the judge today.

Judge McAvoy did make the surprising comment, when sentencing Burns, that he didn’t understand how people could think that by breaking the law they would change the laws in this country. Outside the courtroom speaking to the press, Mary Anne Grady Flores reminded the crowd that Rosa Parks did exactly that during the civil rights movement by refusing to give up her seat on a bus.

The federal prosecutor, Miroslav Lovric, spoke briefly prior to sentencing and pointed out that although Burns’ actions were not “the crime of the century,” Burns’ lack of contrition expressed a continued “disrespect for the law.” The moral imperative, which Burns and his colleagues expressed at the trial and continue to cite as a motivation for their actions, was never acknowledged by the prosecutor.

When Burns spoke this morning following the federal prosecutor, he questioned the credibility of the federal Justice Department that Lovric is an agent of. Burns pointed out that it is hypocritical of the Justice Department to be affronted by disrespect for the law when it has condoned the obstruction of the law itself. Burns cited the detention and torture of prisoners at the U.S. detention center in Guatanamo Bay, Cuba and the illegal surveillance of Americans as incidents of the Justice Department being complicit in the Bush administration’s obstruction of the U.S. law.

Daniel Burns walked into Binghamton federal court today with his wife Jessica Stewart and their two small children, Finian (3 years) and Francis (7 months). A group of approximately forty friends and family were also present to support Burns. When he was taken into custody supporters broke into song. Over the objections of the court attendants, they sang, “Courage brother, you do not walk alone. We will walk with you and sing your spirit home.”

by Update Mon Jan 23, 2006 17:14

Breaking News: Danny's Sentencing
Submitted by admin on Mon, 2006-01-23 11:47.

Danny Burns was sentenced today. He received a six month sentence for each of the two counts on which he was convicted, but they are to be served concurrently.

He was also fined $250 on the contempt of court charge and must pay a portion of a $958 restitution fee, along with the other three defendants.

Updates will be posted as they arrive.