CARTER AND 14 OTHERS ACQUITTED IN CIA CASE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403640045-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 45
• Publication Date: April 16, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403640045-9
ARTICLE APPEAR
ON PAGE 14
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
16 April 1987
Carter and 14 others
acquitted in CIA case
STAT
By Susan Levine
Inquirer Starr Writer
NORTHAMPTON, Mass. - Am r-
-VP ter, Abbie Hoffman and the r3 others
'lAtsre acquitted yesterday of all
charges stemming from a 1986 cam-
pus demonstration against the CIA, a
verdict that a defense attorney said
"legitimizes nonviolent student pro-
test."
After three hours of deliberation,
the jury of four women and two men
returned a verdict that was greeted
by cheers in the packed courtroom
in state Superior Court.
Attorney Leonard Weinglass, a vet-
eran defender of actions involving
civil disobedience, said that the out-
come "de-legitimizes the illegal ac-
tions of the CIA."
A smiling Carter, the daughter of
former President Jimmy Carter, used
the victory to blast her father's suc-
cessor.
"This shows that the people don't
have to take all the stuff forced down
their throats on television by Rea-
gan," she said.
Charged with misdemeanor counts
of trespassing and disorderly con-
duct, which carried jail terms of up
to six months, Carter and the other
defendants did not deny that they
had occupied a building and blocked
buses after a protest in November at
the University of Massachusetts at
Amherst.
Rather, they contended in the
eight.day trial that their actions in
opposing CIA recruiting on campus
were justified because they were try-
ing to stop far worse national and
international crimes committed by
the agency in Central America.
Using this unusual "necessity de-
fense" as the cornerstone of their
case, they marched a parade of for-
mer government officials, ex-CIA
agents and a now-estranged Nicara-
guan rebel leader past the jury.
The defense witnesses included
former U.S. Attorney General Ram-
sey Clark, former CIA agents Ralph
McGehee and John Stockwell, and
Daniel Ellsberg, whom Weinglass de-
fended after the release of the Penta.
gon Papers nearly two decades ago.
They testified that the CIA had
consistently violated U.S. law, the
Geneva Convention and the U.N.
charter by plotting assassinations
and the overthrow of governments
through covert operations.
The defendants' determined ef-
forts to "Put the CIA on Trial" were
accompanied by a continuing side-
show outside the courthouse.
Blue-jean-clad pickets urged mo-
torists to honk if they opposed the
agency's policies, and the frequent
celebrity news conferences, full of
idealism and vigor, often seemed
more reminiscent of Hoffman's 1960s
past.
The trial opened with a bomb
threat. An Uncle Sam started appear.
ing daily in the town square with a
tattered American flag.
Yesterday, it all proved successful.
"How sweet it is!" Hoffman told a
crowd of supporters. "This is just the
beginning!"
Those on trial included 12 people
who were charged with trespass
when they refused to leave the uni-
versity's Munson Hall following a
daylong protest Nov. 24. State police
dressed in riot gear finally carried
many out of the building.
The other three defendants, in-
cluding Carter, 19, a student at
Brown University in Rhode Island,
were charged with disorderly con-
duct. They had linked arms and sat
in front of the buses assembled to
carry the protesters away.
In the high-ceilinged courtroom
where Calvin Coolidge once argued
points of law, prosecutor Diane Fer-
nald argued the case as a simple
criminal incident absent of interna.
tional or political issues.
In closing arguments to the jury
yesterday, she said the students
could not be excused for breaking
the law. They must be held account-
able for their behavior, she said,
"just as [they] are asking the CIA to
be accountable."
Fernald denied that the protest
met the criteria for the necessity
defense, which requires that a "clear
and present" danger must have pro-
voked the students' action. They
must have reasonably expected that
they could remedy that danger, she
said, and must have had no alterna-
tive to their illegal act.
"Your verdict, if it is guilty, will
not indicate your position on the
CIA, it will not indicate your position
on foreign policy," Fernald said.
. But Hoffman, who represented
himself, told the jury, "It isn't the
defendants that have operated out-
side the law. It's the CIA."
He said the demonstration was nec-
essary because grass-roots democra-
cy was dwindling in the United
States.
"I hear it from, my own kids," said
Hoffman, 50. "They say, 'Dad, you're
so quaint to have hope.' "
But whether the jury agreed with
the necessity defense remained un-
clear. Its acquital may have been
based on a decision that the defend-
ants had a legal right to be in the
university building and thus had not
trespassed.
The jurors, whose oldest member
was a 77-year-old retired union rail-
road worker, refused to comment as
they were escorted through a back
door of the courthouse. -
"We expressed our opinion in our
verdict," one said.
Weinglass, who said the university
had sought a showdown on the case,
predicted that increasing numbers
of students now will resort to civil
disobedience on campuses.
"It will encourage further nonvio-lent student protests," he said.
At the Central Intelligence Agency
spokeswoman Kathy Pherson sal
the agency would have no direc
comment on the verdict.
But she said. "People should be
aware that the CIA is an intelligence
agency and not a policymaker. We
don't make the policies. People have
the right to make their protest.
That's what it's all about."
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403640045-9