by Susie Day Anyone with a loved one in prison carries around the silent, ceaseless terror that the person so loved will die alone, behind bars. Currently, 71-year-old Mutulu Shakur, a Black man imprisoned 36 years, lies in a hospital bed in a federal prison medical facility in Lexington, Kentucky. Ravaged by bone marrow cancer, fed by tubes, having lost 25% of his body weight, Shakur has been given weeks – at best, months – to live. His loved ones – family, friends, hundreds of supporters – are trying any and all legal means to get him out. Time and again, the US government and the courts refuse. Mutulu Shakur, born Jeral Williams in 1950, grew up in New York City. His mother was blind, and so he learned as a child to navigate, not just run-of-the-mill racism, but also the welfare system’s byzantine bigotry. When he joined the radical Black movements of the 1960s and ‘70s, he became Mutulu Shakur. He also became an activist, a community leader, and holistic healer credited with cofounding the Lincoln Detox People’s Program, which brought game-changing acupuncture treatment for drug addiction to the impoverished South Bronx. In 1988, with his codefendant Marilyn Buck, Shakur was convicted of conspiracy in several armed robberies, one of which resulted in the deaths of three people, and for the 1979 prison escape of the revolutionary, Assata Shakur. As a revolutionary himself, and as the stepfather of the late rapper Tupac Shakur, Mutulu Shakur is both famous and infamous. But neither Shakur’s notoriety, nor his community work, nor the crimes for which he was convicted should matter now. Mutulu Shakur is dying in prison. He is one of thousands of people – predominantly Black and Brown – who are seriously ill behind bars and asking for release. These are people – regardless of their alleged crimes – whose human right is to lie unshackled in a bed outside prison walls, to say goodbye to those they have loved in this life. Most of them are repeatedly denied compassionate release, or release on any terms. According to the Marshall Project, working with the New York Times, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), from 2013 to 2017, approved just 6 percent of the 5,400 applications it received for compassionate release, leaving 266 applicants to die in custody. Applications are often rejected on grounds that prisoners still pose a “risk to public safety” or that the nature of their crime remains too serious to justify release. These rejections, the report continues, “often override the opinions of those closest to the prisoners, like their doctors and wardens.” It’s no coincidence that both current and former staff at Shakur’s prison have spoken out for his release. In fact, the Marshall Project, using statistics to represent thousands of prisoners, describes exactly what is happening to Mutulu Shakur. So, when you read Shakur’s story here, know that, even with his extraordinary history and politics, Shakur is not exceptional. The essence of his fight to get out is true in prisons across the country. Dr. Barbara Zeller is one of Shakur’s medical advocates. She’s a New York internist with over 50 years of practice who, because of her medical work in the Bronx, has known Shakur since the mid-1970s. She now interprets Shakur’s prison medical records for his family and legal team. According to Zeller, Shakur’s medical care has been fairly competent – except: “his diagnosis came two years after he developed symptoms that could have been followed. Because of that delay, the cancer was far advanced.” Although Shakur’s multiple myeloma was diagnosed in 2019, Shakur had already begun suffering years before from diseases that often accompany life inside prison: type 2 diabetes, hypertension, glaucoma, hyperlipidemia, and the aftereffects of a stroke in 2013. Since his cancer diagnosis, he has gone through exhausting rounds of chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant, a relapse, more rounds of chemo, pneumonia, and at least two bouts of Covid. By spring of this year, the cancer had spread throughout Shakur’s skeletal system. “He’s in a lot of pain,” says Zeller, “extremely debilitated and too weak to take more chemotherapy. He’s facing the end of his life. Medical people feel that his staying in prison is elder abuse.” According to the terms of his sentence, Shakur was actually eligible for “mandatory parole” on February 10, 2016. But the US Parole Commission denied his release. Since 2016, Shakur has survived, not only catastrophically poor health, but also eight more parole denials and three rejections of compassionate release. During his parole hearings, Shakur has taken responsibility for his part in the loss of lives, and voiced deep and unmistakably sincere remorse. His legal team has also made attempts at federal clemency and release through the “good time” accredited to people like Shakur who were convicted under federal “old law” before 1987. Given this option, Shakur is eligible for 976 “good days,” which would – in theory – have let him out years ago. Nothing has worked. Legal connections between the Department of Justice (DOJ) and district courts are infinitely murky. On one hand, says the Marshall Project, the US Sentencing Commission deems release considerations best left to the courts, but: “judges can rule on compassionate release requests only if the Bureau of Prisons approves them first.” On the other hand, The Intercept quotes a BOP spokesperson who asserts: “At all times, the decision on whether to grant [release] … lies with the sentencing court.” [Italics, mine] In late 2020, the Honorable Charles S. Haight, Jr., who sentenced Shakur to 60 years in prison in 1988, ruled on Shakur’s latest request for compassionate release. Acknowledging the incurable cancer that had, at that point, reached Shakur’s “skull, his jaw, and his shoulders,” and the fact that Shakur’s life expectancy was then estimated at about two years, Haight concluded that release was impossible, given Shakur’s “criminal conduct, indefensibly undertaken for political reasons.” However, Haight allowed – straining every remaining quality of mercy – that if Shakur’s cancer were to take him “to the point of approaching death, he may apply again to the Court, for a release that … could be justified as ‘compassionate.’” This has inspired some of Shakur’s friends to interpret Haight’s ruling basically as, “Come back when you’re dead.” More motions have been filed on Shakur’s behalf, including a habeas corpus, which met with limited success until the DOJ shot it down in May of this year. Addressing Shakur personally, the DOJ cited “your commendable prison programming record” and “terminal cancer,” but denied release on the stupefying grounds of “the reasonable probability” that, if released, “you … still have the means and opportunity to influence others” and “could commit a Federal, State, or local crime.” Shakur’s codefendant Marilyn Buck also faced terminal cancer. In 2010, Buck was flown from a BOP medical facility in Carswell, TX to a New York City airport, where, weak and in pain, she greeted friends in a wheelchair. Unlike Shakur’s case, the BOP had given Buck a parole release date. With the understanding that her cancer would kill her before her designated release, Buck’s date was moved up, allowing her to die in the home of friends three weeks after getting out. If, at this point, you were to notice a racial bias in the carceral system, Marilyn Buck – a staunch antiracist – would be the first to agree with you. Attorney Nkechi Taifa, who knew and loved Buck, is on Shakur’s defense team. “Even though we’re all together in this struggle,” Taifa said, “there’s still vast disparities of race. All the white people in Shakur’s cases have been released on parole or clemency. But Mutulu Shakur, a Black man, languishes in prison.” Shakur’s case now returns to Judge Haight, who is currently reading last-minute motions from the DOJ and Shakur’s defense team. He will likely rule again in early August. Meanwhile, Shakur’s “Appeal and Request for Reconsideration” is at the U.S. Parole Commission, which has already denied an earlier appeal. One member of Shakur’s legal team conjectures that, even if Haight were to decide for  Shakur’s release, the Parole Commission could well overrule his decision. What does any of this mean for justice in the United States? Hannah Arendt’s depiction of Adolf Eichmann, the petty bureaucratic condemned for mass murder, comes close: His conscience was indeed set at rest when he saw the zeal and eagerness with which “good society” everywhere reacted as he did. He did not need to “close his ears to the voice of conscience,” as the judgment has it, not because he had none, but because his conscience spoke with a “respectable voice,” with the voice of respectable society around him. Arendt’s portrait is relevant now, not in condemning Charles Haight or any particular person at the DOJ, but for the ease with which racially maneuvered death sentences like Shakur’s weave themselves into the bureaucracy of “respectable” American culture, quietly and unnoticed. Actually, some people have noticed. On July 20, a delegation of supporters appeared at the Department of Justice building in Washington, DC to deliver an open letter, signed by nearly 200 clergy people. Titled “Faith Leaders for Mutulu Shakur,” the letter calls “unconditionally” for Shakur’s immediate release. Noting the DOJ’s own “PATTERN risk assessment tool,” which puts Shakur in the lowest possible recidivism risk category, the letter begins, “As faith leaders, we believe in redemption and salvation – tenets that could not be more appropriately understood than in [this] case ….” A press conference outside the Justice building was attended by a range of people: clergy; healers and organizers who worked with Shakur back in the day; young Movement 4 Black Lives activists who were newborns when Shakur went to prison… I’m there, too. I want to witness the open expression of the right of any human being to die outside prison – even as hope, hour by hour, seems to fade. But back in the Bronx, Barbara Zeller has other thoughts. “Mutulu, he’s such a fighter,” says Zeller. “He tells his health providers to do anything they can to keep him alive because he is absolutely, deep-down convinced he will see freedom.” Maybe you could say that, hour by hour, at the end of his life, Mutulu Shakur is living out his last work of activism.   Susie Day has written about prison issues since 1988, when she began reporting on the cases of people charged with political protest acts, one of them, Marilyn Buck. Her book, The Brother You Choose: Paul Coates and Eddie Conway Talk About Life, Politics, and The Revolution, was published by Haymarket Books in 2020.

Download PDTW/Dan Baker flyer

The United $tates of AmeriKKKa is a white supremacist terrorist organization. Their government strives for a monopoly on violence to defend their profits, acquired through the prison industrial plantation and wage slavery. They capture political opponents, even if they don’t break laws, making examples out of political prisoners in a campaign of terror and subjugation. Anyone who stands up for human rights, women’s liberation, animals or the environment is a potential, if not eventual political prisoner. This government no longer represents the interests of the people of North America, or the world and they never did. It is vital that we, a global community, train to fight and win our freedom.

I’m known as a militant personality, I’ve been training and fighting my whole life, and I still get my ass kicked when I fight big people. If we want liberation, lives worth living, we need to be strong, healthy and coordinated as a family that defends itself from extinction and humiliation at the hands of violent fascists, racists and dogmatic fanatics. They are working daily to out shoot you, run you down and beat you to death. Whoever works harder will win that fight. Join ABCF-OC on September 18th 2022 to train together and help support Political Prisoners. We need you!

Send letters or questions to:
Dan Baker #25765-509
FCI MEMPHIS
PO BOX 34550
MEMPHIS TN 38184

• 

What: Pushing Down the Walls
When: September 18, 2022
Where: Por Siempre, 390 E Holt Avenue, Pomona, CA 91767.
With: Live performances by The Keeper (LA HxC for fans of Botch, Cursed Trap Them, etc) Sister Schools (San Diego Hip Hop) and DrewThatRaps (IE Hip Hop). Spin kick your friends or bob your head accordingly. PM Press will also have a table. Come swoop up some books while you sweat and mingle with the comrades. Is your project/collective interested in tabling? Hit us up!

The funds raised will support the ABCF Warchest, a program that provides financial assistance to long term political prisoners.
https://twitter.com/abcfoc
https://abcfoc.bigcartel.com
https://www.instagram.com/pushingdownthewalls/

A notorious Trump lackey targeted Lore in June 2020 to be a scapegoat for the demonstrations that empowered Philadelphians against constant police brutality. Lore is known for providing essential, life-sustaining services to the most vulnerable Philadelphians as a care worker. She supports community members who live with HIV and chronic illnesses to access medical and critical care, often at her own expense. She provides regular outcalls to elders and clients who cannot leave their homes as a professional massage therapist. She is the irreplaceable rock of support to her family. Over the last two years, Lore has become a vital source for health information and care to the women hidden in the Bureau of Prisons’ Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia.

Join us online as we answer the call from her family and friends to send letters or postcards of support, share all your hope, well wishes, and your good news. Her support site also includes instructions on how to send photos and books .

If you are unable to make it, please drop Lore a line at:

Lore-Elisabeth Blumenthal
#70002-066
FDC Philadelphia
PO Box 562
Philadelphia, PA 19105

We will also be sending birthday cards to U.S.-held political prisoners with birthdays in August: Daniel Hale (the 1st), Eric King (the 2nd), Bill Dunne (the 3rd), Hanif Bey (the 16th) and Ronald Reed (the 31st).

Prison doctors have given Mutulu Shukur, activist and Tupac Shakur’s stepfather, up to six months to live, according to his attorney.

Mutulu Shakur sits in the Manhattan Correction Center in N.Y., on Nov. 6, 1987.
July 21, 2022, By Char Adams, NBC.

Organizers have launched a movement to release Tupac Shakur’s stepfather from a decades long prison sentence as he faces a rare form of blood cancer that his doctors say is incurable. 

Mutulu Shakur, an activist and holistic health care advocate, has been behind bars for more than 35 years and now, at 71, has several health issues, most notably stage-3 multiple myeloma, a  blood cancer that can affect the bones and kidneys. 

Shakur has endured drastic weight loss due to his illnesses and treatments; has had Covid at least twice; and has relied on IV feeding tubes on and off since May, his attorney, Brad Thomson, said. Thomson said doctors with the Federal Bureau of Prisons gave Shakur less than six months to live in May, noting that his cancer treatment had stopped working. 

“His health situation is extremely dire right now. He’s very much on an end-of-life trajectory. We’re looking at a matter of months at the most but, realistically, it could be a matter of days or weeks,” Thomson told NBC News. “At this point, the issue is getting him released so he can say goodbye to his loved ones, his family, his children, and grandchildren. To be surrounded by loved ones, so he can die in dignity, peace and comfort outside of prison.”

Shakur was diagnosed with myeloma in 2019, Thomson said, and his legal team requested his “compassionate release” in May 2020. U.S. District Judge Charles Haight Jr. in November 2020 denied Shakur’s request, holding that his crimes were too serious, and his health had not deteriorated enough to warrant release. 

“Should it develop that Shakur’s condition deteriorates further, to the point of approaching death, he may apply again to the Court, for a release that in those circumstances could be justified as ‘compassionate,’” Haight said in the ruling obtained by NBC News. 

A spokesperson for Haight, who also presided over the 1988 case that landed Shakur in jail for bank robbery and other crimes, told NBC News that a new request for Shakur’s release is pending and the judge is waiting for guidance from the U.S. attorney’s office  before making a decision. Shakur is being held at a federal medical center in Lexington, a prison in Kentucky for incarcerated people who require care. 

Shakur is serving a 60-year sentence stemming from a 1988 conviction for conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO Act, bank robbery, armed bank robbery and bank robbery murder. He was convicted of leading a group of revolutionaries in a string of armed robberies in New York and Connecticut, including one that left three people dead. He was also convicted of helping JoAnne Chesimard, aka Assata Shakur, escape from a New Jersey prison in 1979, according to The Associated Press and Thomson. 

However, Shakur and his supporters say that the acts were political, not criminal, in nature. Jomo Muhammad, an organizer with the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement working to free Shakur, as well as Shakur’s friends and family, said his incarceration is linked to his Black liberation efforts and his work with revolutionary Black nationalist groups in the 1960s, including the Revolutionary Action Movement and the Republic of New Afrika.

Muhammad said Shakur is being used as an example because of his activism. At the time of his 1986 arrest he was doing his own independent investigation of COINTELPRO, an FBI campaign to discredit radical groups including Black liberation movements that were deemed illegal, Muhammad said.

“Fifty years later, the United States government continues to hold a grudge,” Muhammad said. “You can make the argument that he is, in fact, a political prisoner.”

Along with being a respected activist, Shakur is called a “doctor” among his family and supporters. He is praised for his work bringing holistic health care to Black communities in the Bronx in the 1970s. He informally studied acupuncture and joined with several other activists, in groups like the Black Panthers and the Young Lords, to take over part of Bronx’s Lincoln Hospital and run the Lincoln Detox Center, a community  center that used acupuncture to address drug dependence and provided political education that produced several community activists, according to The Washington Post. 

A group of faith leaders and Shakur’s supporters gathered on Wednesday in front of the U.S. Department of Justice in a rally urging the U.S. Parole Commission, Bureau of Prisons, and Justice Department to free Shakur. Supporters said at the rally that Shakur is confined to a wheelchair and his brain function has deteriorated so much that he barely recognized his son during a visit two months ago.

“They claim he is a danger to public safety, a danger to society, and that he has the capacity to influence people. They don’t speak to the fact that he is a 71-year-old elder. They don’t speak to the fact that he has been incarcerated for 36 years,” Nkechi Taifa, founder of the Taifa Group, a social justice-centered consulting firm, said of the federal agencies. 

A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons declined to comment on Shakur’s health, but said in an emailed statement: “The BOP has no direct authority to grant a reduction in an inmate’s sentence as a compassionate release measure. At all times, the decision on whether to grant such a motion — whether brought on behalf of the Director of the BOP, or the inmate themselves — lies with the sentencing court.” The spokesperson added that the bureau can recommend a person’s release. They have not done so for Shakur. 

Shakur has been denied release several times over the years, Thomson said, though because of “various time credits,” he is set for mandatory release in December 2024. But Thomson, doctors and Shakur’s supporters say it’s unlikely he’ll live that long. Shakur was eligible for release in a 2016 mandatory parole hearing but was denied. 

Thomson said that Haight’s assertion that the severity of Shakur’s crimes are what has delayed his release should not hold water because Shakur’s co-defendant Marilyn Buck, who was convicted of the same charges, was granted compassionate release in July 2010. She died of uterine cancer just weeks later.

“That’s exactly the situation that Dr. Shakur is facing now. We’re asking for that same relief,” Thomson said. “Everyone who was charged in that conspiracy, and overlapping conspiracies, all of those people have been released from federal custody.” 

Shakur’s latest request for release is expected to see a resolution in the coming weeks. Although they are hopeful, Muhammad said he and Shakur’s advocates would be devastated if Shakur dies in prison.

“This is a clear injustice. Regardless of what he’s done in the past, which he’s taken responsibility for, he should be free,” Muhammad said. “We will continue to fight. There’s a lot of justice that needs to happen. A lot of freeing and healing of people, which is what Doc’s work was about. We would mourn our beloved elder and we’d do what he instructed us to do, which is to carry on straight ahead.” 

New books added to political prisoner Dan Baker’s wishlist including a whole bunch of cyber-punk requested by Dan.
His wishlist is at http://tiny.cc/psgpuz

New articles by Dan:
Prisoner Awareness
To All White Anarchists
Hope For Tallahassee

Write Daniel:
Daniel Baker, 25765-509
FCI Memphis
P.O, Box 34550
Memphis, TN 38184

Update on legal appeal
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in Daniel’s appeal the week of September 12, 2022.

Background:
https://prisonersolidarity.com/prisoner/dan-baker https://theintercept.com/2021/10/16/daniel-baker-anarchist-capitol-riot/

from the Green + Red podcast

In May 2020, we saw millions hit the streets over the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. It’s been argued to be the largest protests in history. The government moved in immediately to repress those taking the streets against the police and racial violence.

Listen in here:

We saw intense protest, resistance, violent repression by police and other forces and media attention in Minneapolis, Louisville, Portland and Kenosha WI. But also in places less known like Grand Rapids Michigan and Champaign IL. More than 350 people were arrested on federal charges while city and state level arrests topped 14,000 between May-Nov 2020.

In our latest episode, we talk with Sarah with Uprisings Support. We talk about the ongoing legal struggles of people arrested and facing serious charges from the 2020 uprisings and how Uprising Support continues to support those in jail and awaiting trial.

James River Anarchist Black Cross presents
Monthly Political Prisoner Letter Writing
Tuesday, July 19, 6-8pm
Lamplighter- 116 S Addison Street, Richmond, VA 23220

For July we will be focusing our solidarity on Indigenous prisoners Oso Blanco and Leonard Peltier.

Supplies provided! Info via [email protected]

A federal court sentenced Jessica Reznicek to eight years in prison for taking nonviolent direct action to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. Her story is a sign of Big Oil’s desperation, according to one of her lawyers, Bill Quigley.

BY FRANCES MADESON
Real News Network
JULY 6, 2022

It takes a strong, steady hand and seven long minutes to burn a nickel-sized hole into the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) with an oxy-acetylene welding torch. And yet, water protector Jessica Reznicek accomplished this feat on multiple occasions, up and down the pipeline, in Iowa and South Dakota during the spring of 2017. These punctures comprised just some of her deliberate acts of sabotage meant to delay DAPL’s completion and forestall the flow of oil under crucial, endangered Midwestern waterways. Drinking water for millions of North Americans has been put at risk by a pipeline that has still never received the proper permits and that, completely unrelated to Reznicek’s direct action efforts to disable the pipeline, leaked at least five times in the first six months of 2017. 

For water protectors who live with the acute daily awareness that pipeline leaks are a known and common risk, a burning question persists: When will the masses of people move out of their comfort zones to protect clean drinking water and stand up for protectors like Reznicek who are fighting an asymmetrical battle against powerful oil oligarchs? When DAPL operator Energy Transfer spills a couple million gallons of thick black ooze (known as “drilling mud”) on a pristine wetland and is fined $40 million by the Federal Energy Regulation Commission, none of the corporate executives lose their liberty in a federal prison for a single day, though the environmental impacts of their reckless practices will linger for generations. Five years after taking action to prevent such long-lasting destruction, however, Jessica Reznicek is serving out an excessively long prison sentence. It takes a stout, steadfast constitution to contend with the consequences that Reznicek has faced for her nonviolent civil disobedience—consequences meted out by a federal judicial system that, to put it mildly, doesn’t always play or adjudicate fairly.

For water protectors who live with the acute daily awareness that pipeline leaks are a known and common risk, a burning question persists: When will the masses of people move out of their comfort zones to protect clean drinking water and stand up for protectors like Reznicek who are fighting an asymmetrical battle against powerful oil oligarchs?

Reznicek pled guilty to a single charge of “conspiracy to damage an energy facility,” but was nevertheless slapped with an absurdly onerous sentence: three years incarcerated, three years of federal supervision afterward, and an obligation to pay pipeline operator Energy Transfer $3.2 million in restitution. Thanks to a provision in the Patriot Act, however, things got worse for Reznicek. Southern District of Iowa Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger was able to apply a “domestic terrorism enhancement” to her sentence, turning three years of prison into eight and branding Reznicek a terrorist for life. None of this seemed right or just, neither to herself nor to future protestors who would be saddled with a terrible legal precedent, so Reznicek appealed.

The appeal was denied. 

On June 6, a three-judge panel in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an unsigned decision that reads like a one-two sucker punch. First, the decision failed to address the appeal’s main question: namely, did Judge Ebinger properly apply or misapply the “domestic terrorism enhancement”? Second, it upheld the 8-year sentence anyway. 

The day after the decision was handed down, the Department of Homeland Security issued its latest warning about domestic terrorism, in which it noted that “The United States remains in a heightened threat environment” and that DHS expects said environment to become more “dynamic” between now and November. It would be reasonable to assume that most of these domestic terrorist threats will continue to come from the far right, yet DHS’s list of potential targets of domestic terrorist attacks notably specifies “critical infrastructure”—which includes fossil fuel pipelines—along with racial and religious minorities. The ink was not yet dry on the decision regarding Reznicek’s case before DHS was normalizing the supposed equivalency between puncturing a pipeline or disabling a bulldozer and mass shootings like the one carried out by white supremacist Payton Gendron at a Tops grocery store in Buffalo, New York, in May. 

As an amicus brief filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in support of Reznicek’s appeal notes, there is murk around the various legal definitions of domestic terrorism and the safeguards guiding their use in the United States. But as the appellate brief made clear, simply damaging oil and gas infrastructure operated by a private corporation, while still a crime, is not an act of terrorism: “Reznicek’s offense did not qualify as a federal crime of terrorism because it was not calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, and was not retaliation against government conduct.” As anyone can hear in the oral arguments held on May 13, the judges sounded skeptical about whether Reznicek’s actions crossed the threshold, based on these criteria, to qualify them as acts of terrorism. Nevertheless, they opted to remain silent on the issue in their decision, letting Ebinger’s enhanced sentence stand. 

Thanks to a provision in the Patriot Act, however, things got worse for Reznicek. Southern District of Iowa Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger was able to apply a “domestic terrorism enhancement” to her sentence, turning three years of prison into eight and branding Reznicek a terrorist for life.

As the ACLU notes on their website, Section 802 of the USA Patriot Act defines domestic terrorism thusly: 

“A person engages in domestic terrorism if they do an act ‘dangerous to human life’ that is a violation of the criminal laws of a state or the United States, if the act appears to be intended to: (i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.” 

Jessica Reznicek did damage private property and publicly accepted responsibility for her actions, but she took great care to make sure no human life was put at risk. There are plenty of laws stipulating punishments for damaging property, but damaging property on its own is not terrorism. 

It’s worth noting that the United States would likely not have had the opportunity to prosecute Reznicek if she hadn’t come forward. She was never caught in the act, nor was she tied to the sabotage by skillful detective and forensics work carried out by any law enforcement agency or private security force: she’d eluded them all. But on July 24, 2017, she and Ruby Montoya, a fellow climate activist and member of the Catholic Worker Movement, alerted the public to their joint acts by holding a press conference and issuing a claim of responsibility. In it, they detailed what they did, how they did it, and explained what had moved them to step so boldly outside the bounds of the law:

We acted from our hearts and never threatened human life nor personal property. What we did do was fight a private corporation that has run rampantly across our country seizing land and polluting our nation’s water supply. You may not agree with our tactics, but you can clearly see the necessity of them in light of the broken federal government and the corporations they protect. We do not anticipate a fair trial…

They were right not to anticipate a fair trial. But Reznicek’s sentence goes beyond mere unfairness; it is a clear, heavy-handed attempt to discourage protestors from taking any action that could be construed, however obliquely, as terrorism. In general terms, Reznicek’s legal and support team view Ebinger’s harsh sentence and the ensuing aftermath as the bidding of an oil and gas industry that, until its dying breath, will resort to whatever measures it needs to to make sure nobody gets in their way. Since the initial sentencing, her legal team has been circulating a petition, which expresses a guiding sentiment: “What happens to Jessica, happens to all of us.” Now, members of that legal team are weighing their best options for making another attempt to overturn this dangerous precedent and obtain a more proportionate sentence. These options include: asking for a rehearing by the entire 8th Circuit, composed of 11 judges (not just the three who failed to clarify the law in their ruling); directing an appeal to the US Supreme Court; and/or seeking clemency from President Biden. 

“We acted from our hearts and never threatened human life nor personal property. What we did do was fight a private corporation that has run rampantly across our country seizing land and polluting our nation’s water supply. You may not agree with our tactics, but you can clearly see the necessity of them in light of the broken federal government and the corporations they protect.”

JESSICA REZNICEK AND RUBY MONTOYA, CLIMATE ACTIVISTS AND MEMBERS OF THE CATHOLIC WORKER MOVEMENT

Bill Quigley, renowned civil rights attorney and one of Reznicek’s lawyers, likens Reznicek’s acts to those of 19th-century abolitionists who broke the law to free slaves. Regardless of what the court does or says, Quigley believes history will honor her for her selfless courage. Though he takes his cues from his client, he is determined to fight this attempt by the state to curtail protest until there’s no more fight to be had. On behalf of The Real News, I spoke with Quigley about the high-stakes battle to disestablish this terrible legal precedent and to overturn Reznicek’s unjust prison sentence. 

Quigley also represents water protectors who protested DAPL’s construction in Louisiana, the L’eau est la Vie Bayou Bridge defendants, all of whom were charged with felony trespassing under the state’s “critical infrastructure” bill passed in 2018. While Quigley succeeded in getting all charges dropped for the Louisiana defendants, the felonies hung over their heads for two years, which amounted to a punishment by process. 

My talk with Quigley tracks events from the moment Judge Ebinger handed down her perturbing sentence last year to June 3, 2022, just three days before the most recent decision was handed down.

Frances Madeson: Bill, I shouldn’t be surprised. I was in the Bismarck, North Dakota, courtroom when #NoDAPL water protector Red Fawn Foster was sentenced to 57 months and remanded to Bureau of Prison custody. The FBI had sicced an informant on her, who’d seduced her into becoming lovers; it was his gun they’d found in her jacket. There is no low they won’t stoop to when it comes to #NoDAPL water protectors. It is bitterly anathema to think that a water protector’s name could be linked for posterity to this attack on protest. 

Take us, please, behind the scenes—to the moment you were all sent down the “domestic terrorism” rabbit hole. 

Bill Quigley: Honestly, it didn’t become real to me personally until the judge started talking about it at the sentencing. It had been something that was in the paperwork, we’d put some materials in the brief about why it wasn’t appropriate (one of many points in a long document), and the government had made a casual reference to it. But I never ever believed that Jessica’s actions constituted terrorism, and I never believed that any judge would think that her actions did. As the judge was seriously talking about it, I was really shocked and stunned, and extremely disappointed. 

At one point, the judge actually did say that, in the regular course [of] this kind of case, the [sentencing] guidelines were somewhere around 36 to 40 months, which is about what we had hoped for. Not “hoped for,” but expected. We hoped for less than that, honestly. And when [the judge] talked about that, I thought, “That’s where we’re going”; but then she went on from there and I thought, “Really? You see this as an attempt to intimidate the government? Really, to intimidate the United States government?” [My reaction] was just unbelief.

“I never ever believed that Jessica’s actions constituted terrorism, and I never believed that any judge would think that her actions did. As the judge was seriously talking about it, I was really shocked and stunned, and extremely disappointed.”

BILL QUIGLEY, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY AND ONE OF JESSICA REZNICEK’S LAWYERS

I was one of the two lawyers for Jessica in the courtroom at the time. There were quite a few people that had come to support her, and she was shocked, I was shocked, they were shocked. But then here was the thing: The judge was saying, “You qualify for terrorism, so I’m going to essentially double your sentence, but I’m also gonna let you stay out without a bond until you have to report to prison in another couple of months,” and it’s like… would you do that with a terrorist? You wouldn’t let a terrorist stay out on their own recognizance and report on their own volition to the prison. The disconnect between the word “terrorism” and the actions, and the treatment of her by the court, just didn’t add up.

Jessica had told the court that the plan was that they intended to stop the pipeline—there’s no doubt about it. They tried to stop the continued construction of the pipeline, property was damaged, and they were somewhat successful. But they went to great lengths to make sure that no person got hurt.

In the United States, for the last several years, there have been thousands of people arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience, and of those thousands, certainly dozens, if not hundreds, have actually done some damage to property. The idea that damage to property plus protest could equate to terrorism—it’s something that went like lightning through the entire protest community across the country.

“In the United States, for the last several years, there have been thousands of people arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience, and of those thousands, certainly dozens, if not hundreds, have actually done some damage to property. The idea that damage to property plus protest could equate to terrorism—it’s something that went like lightning through the entire protest community across the country.”

BILL QUIGLEY, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY AND ONE OF JESSICA REZNICEK’S LAWYERS

People have advocated bring[ing] terrorism charges against Black Lives Matter protesters, against environmental protesters, anti-nuclear protesters, and the like. But to me that was always just hyperbole, and not something to be taken that seriously. But [Reznicek’s case] shows, I think, that we had underestimated the power of the United States government to try to crush any sort of civil disobedience, even if it was nonviolent.

Immediately upon leaving the courtroom we gathered in a circle outside the courthouse and talked about this. Jessica felt, and it was very clear at that point, that we were really going to work on this terrorism enhancement. If she had been given two or three years, I’m not sure if she even would’ve wanted to appeal, but with this idea of eight years, and the signal that it sends to other protesters around the country, she was very much open to appeal.

Frances Madeson: One of the outstanding aspects of your appeal was the collective strength and power of the four amici curiae briefs (friend of the court briefs) from the Climate Defense Project, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Water Protector Legal Collective and National Lawyers Guild, and Catholic Social Action. How did that strategy evolve? 

Bill Quigley: We started putting together a team of people to talk about the appeal. The team was me, the federal public defender, and a special person that was doing appeals for them, and we talked to lawyers and legal groups around the country. I started talking about the importance of its impact not just on Jessica, but all the other protesters, and that’s where the idea of the amicus briefs emerged.

It’s something that’s done very rarely. There are thousands of appeals, and most of the time it’s one person appealing one thing, or one corporation, but it’s pretty rare to get a large number of people and legal organizations to join in and talk about how important the case is. One of them, the Catholic lawyers’ brief—they reached out to us out of the blue and said, “We’re a bunch of Catholic lawyers in Kentucky and we think it’s important for the court to realize just how prominent this idea of respect for the Earth is in Catholic social teaching,’ and they wanted to do an amicus brief, and Jessica said yes.

Frances Madeson: Maybe it wasn’t the most polished of the four briefs, but in some ways I felt it was the most passionate. Perhaps because I read it on the day therevelations around the hidden graves at Indian boarding schools in the US came to light, but some of its verbiage seemed to gesture toward amends to Indigenous people for past harms the Church had caused them. I was also struck by how seriously it took the need to vigorously defend the Catholic Workers from an association with terrorism.

“People have advocated bring[ing] terrorism charges against Black Lives Matter protesters, against environmental protesters, anti-nuclear protesters, and the like. But to me that was always just hyperbole, and not something to be taken that seriously. But [Reznicek’s case] shows, I think, that we had underestimated the power of the United States government to try to crush any sort of civil disobedience, even if it was nonviolent.”

BILL QUIGLEY, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY AND ONE OF JESSICA REZNICEK’S LAWYERS

Bill Quigley: There are legitimate concerns about terrorism, and terrorism is unfortunately a fact of life in our world these days. But the concept of terrorism is being badly abused in this case. I’m sure the people who originally inhabited the land before the English, French, and Spanish took it over considered what happened to them terrorism. It’s a concept that’s bandied about lately, and the court really runs the risk of diluting the concept if you just apply it to everyone you don’t agree with politically.

And CCR’s brief had other points in terms of international context, and we felt that all of the briefs [together] would help the court understand that this is just much more than an individual sentencing issue. Not everybody thinks or agrees that amicus briefs are helpful; some people think that in special criminal cases the best thing to do is keep quiet and focus on the technicalities and don’t try to show their ripple effects and that sort of thing. But Jessica very much wanted to respond to the concerns of her supporters, and to publicize these parts of it as well. 

If she has to serve eight years in prison, she’s going to do that, and she’s going to do that as well as anybody can do it. She’s already spent a fair amount of time in there—in the summer it’ll be a year. But the hope is that the amicus briefs will educate the court and the public to the larger importance of this beyond the significance of how many years Jessica Reznicek spends in prison.

Frances Madeson: The courts being political institutions, were [the briefs also meant] to demonstrate a countervailing force to the fossil fuel industry?

Bill Quigley: Yes. Whenever you go for an appeal, the chances of winning are low. By the time you get to the court of appeals in the federal system, you have a less than 50-50 chance to win. The government gets the close calls. So [the briefs are partly] to show that this is not just a private pipeline corporation at issue, but the government is trying to do something that is very scary not just to Jessica Reznicek, but to lots of other people as well.

“There are legitimate concerns about terrorism, and terrorism is unfortunately a fact of life in our world these days. But the concept of terrorism is being badly abused in this case… It’s a concept that’s bandied about lately, and the court really runs the risk of diluting the concept if you just apply it to everyone you don’t agree with politically.”

BILL QUIGLEY, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY AND ONE OF JESSICA REZNICEK’S LAWYERS

Frances Madeson: Like so many others, I follow her progress on Free Jessica Reznicek and on social media, but sometimes it can be hard to tell how she’s doing.

Bill Quigley: Jessica is a very gregarious person and a very positive person and she has made a lot of friends in prison. At the same time, prison is set up to harm the spirit, and the prison has been locked down with COVID—and she has had COVID. Lockdowns are particularly tough because you don’t get to go outside, you don’t get to do any sort of recreation. 

She has made it very clear to me and others that she respects the way that her prison is operated, and its place in the Bureau of Prisons, and she’s doing everything she can. She’s enrolled in college courses, she has a job there (she’s helping to train animals to assist people with disabilities), and she is taking every opportunity to maximize the purposefulness of her time there.

She’s overwhelmed by the numbers of letters and cards that she’s getting, and she just literally cannot respond to everyone who is in touch with her. But she does appreciate it. 

I think there is growing support for her across the country, but also internationally. There have been articles published in Germany and many other countries about what’s going on here, and she has been getting tons of support from people who are really concerned about the future of our planet. And not everybody is saying she shouldn’t have gone to prison; but what they are saying is that it is ridiculous to send somebody to prison for eight years for doing that stuff, and to label her a terrorist for doing it.

The other part about it that’s pretty unusual is the amount of support she’s getting from these Catholic sisters that are up there. She tries to be in contact with one of them as a spiritual advisor every week, and they exchange letters regularly. She is working really hard to try and keep her spirits up and make this time as productive as possible. But on occasion it’s overwhelming, hurtful, and depressing, especially over this last winter when it was really cold, dark, and they couldn’t go outside, and they were locked down, and they weren’t allowed to mix much inside the prison. That was really hard. Some long-time political prisoners have said that last winter was the hardest time they had ever spent in prison because of the isolation and the COVID.

Frances Madeson: How is she coping with being labeled a domestic terrorist?

Bill Quigley: Jessica was never charged with terrorism, she never pled guilty to terrorism, and now, after everything is all over, she’s being labeled a terrorist. It’s just in the terrain of Animal Farm; it doesn’t really make sense, but if people keep repeating it often enough…

I have noticed that people say she should pay a price for destroying property, and she’s going to pay a price. There are laws to punish people for destroying pipelines and property—she pled guilty to those. But she was never even charged with terrorism, and the idea that they come up with it at the 11th hour—it’s just very unfair, and it’s a real overkill by the government, and what I would call hyper- criminalization.

She was ready to take the consequences, she took the consequences, and then on top of it they add a whole other layer of consequences, which is just not fair and not logical. And it has a chilling effect [on] what other people understand about the limits of protest.

“Jessica is a very gregarious person and a very positive person and she has made a lot of friends in prison. At the same time, prison is set up to harm the spirit, and the prison has been locked down with COVID—and she has had COVID.”

BILL QUIGLEY, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY AND ONE OF JESSICA REZNICEK’S LAWYERS

There is a conscious effort across the United States to hyper-criminalize people who interfere with pipelines because pipelines are so controversial right now. People are protesting them so broadly—from nuns, to Native Americans, to climate activists, to business people, elected officials—everybody. Because these are sort of the dying days of the pipeline industry, and they know it, and they’re trying to get as many pipelines in the ground in as many states as they can. They’re going to be stopped and they know that, so they’ve made a conscious effort to hyper-criminalize protesting them. 

It’s a scary time for people who protest, and not everybody is going to sit down and figure out in advance what they are going to do and how they’re going to do it. But it’s clear that the government is really trying to clamp down hard on protesters who do anything other than stand with a sign on the sidewalk. Oil and gas and the government will do whatever they are allowed to do. They’re not gonna stop, they’re going to try and be more aggressive in other ways. If they can do this to [Jessica], and the court sanctions it, what does that mean for all the other people?

In order to stop them, we have to push back, and pushing back means taking public stances. It means working the legislature, fighting in the courts; it means lots of things.

The CCR brief was really important in showing the international context and where this stuff comes from, and [it] lays out why it’s important to not let the courts cheapen the idea of what terrorism actually is—and, especially, to not let the courts use it as a bludgeon against people who are doing nonviolent civil disobedience.

They would not have done this 20 years ago. If they get away with this [now], we really have to wonder: Where are they going to go next?

July 11, 2022

My name is Fidencio Aldama Pérez. I am part of the Yaqui tribe. I was taught to respect other people, without forgetting something very important: THE STRUGGLE FOR OUR TERRITORY.

I am someone who doesn’t attack, but defends what has been left to us by our ancestors.

It was instilled in me to fight for our roots, for our customs and traditions, so that the Yaqui nation doesn’t disappear.

I took an oath when I was appointed guardian of the Yaqui tribe, to watch over the people and to lend my service under any circumstance. I committed to fulfill that obligation with loyalty.

I lived in Loma de Guamúchil for 20 years, always offering my service to the community, carrying on our customs and traditions, being a quiet, respectful, loving, kind person, always willing to serve.

I moved to Loma de Bácum when I got married. There I continued offering my support to the community, serving as part of the traditional guard, responding to emergencies such as taking people to their hospital visits -pregnant women for example -or helping out in whatever type of medical emergency. I have also served in other ways, such as in the traditional festivities.

As a guardian of the Yaqui tribe, I’ve always done my best to do the right thing, watching over the community, surveilling the limits of the town for problems of animal theft or the entrance of unknown people into the territory. In the case that these people disobey, they are presented in front of the traditional authorities.

The Yaqui Tribe has its internal laws in which outsiders cannot intervene. State and Federal forces do not have jurisdiction in our community.

Before October 21, 2016, there had been consultations with the Yaqui community of Loma de Bácum about the construction of a gas pipeline. Various meetings had been organized.

The eight towns of the Yaqui tribe got together in the town of Loma de Bácum, and there some agreements were reached.

The people affiliated with gas pipeline saw that the eight towns were organizing and that the tribe was gaining strength. For that reason, they decided to bribe and divide the people, paying people off, even seeking to impose authorities who would accept the gas pipeline in Yaqui territory. However, the people of Loma de Bácum were not convinced. Upon not acquiring the totality of signatures from the eight Yaqui towns, those affiliated with the gas pipeline decided to launch an attack on Loma de Bácum.

Yet, Loma de Bácum had already taken up action in the matter, initiating a legal process against the pipeline. The company, IEnova, continued to disobey and disrespect the people of Loma de Bácum, wanting to push the gas pipeline through Yaqui territory at any cost. However, these different anomalies and violations resulted in a legal victory for Loma de Bácum, halting the construction of the pipeline to this day.

ATTACK ON OCTOBER 21, 2016

On that day something unforgettable happen, the struggle for Yaqui territory. Yet something terrible also happened, the loss of a loved one from the town of Loma de Bácum, a young person named Cruz Buitimea Piña who belonged to the group that attacked the community that day.

They accused me of killing him. I was detained and taken to prison in the CERESO of Ciudad Obregon.

There are many irregularities and anomalies in the case file. For example, the weapon that I was carrying that day as part of the traditional guard was a .45 and the bullet that killed Cruz Buitimea Piña was from a .22. Despite that clear difference, the judge did not take this evidence as valid, convicting me of murder. Yet, the opposite is true. I am INNOCENT.

I continue being on good behavior, obeying the rules of this prison. I play sports like soccer, and I maintain myself by making wooden frames. I am also studying. I was given the opportunity to finish my high school diploma, so I am trying to make good use of my time.

I send my greetings to all the people who have supported me during all this time that has passed, five years now going on six.

I also want to tell all those who fight for their territories to never surrender.

Thank you, I send you my best regards.

On this horrible holiday weekend, please buy anarchist and political prisoner Daniel Baker a book or two. He is doing a 46 month sentence at FCI Memphis in the federal Bureau of Prisons for threatening white supremacists online.

His wishlist is at http://tiny.cc/psgpuz

Check out Dan’s new article “Anarchists Under Attack on a Global Scale” at mongoosedistro.com/2022/06/29/anarchists-under-attack-on-a-global-scale-by-dan-baker/

Write Daniel:
Daniel Baker, 25765-509
FCI MEMPHIS
P.O, BOX 34550
MEMPHIS, TN 38184

Update on legal appeal
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in Daniel’s appeal the week of September 12, 2022.

Background:
prisonersolidarity.com/prisoner/dan-bakertheintercept.com/2021/10/16/daniel-baker-anarchist-capitol-riot/