Our motion for a “necessity defense” in our upcoming federal trial for praying the rosary has apparently been denied.
A federal magistrate judge has denied a motion for a “necessity defense†for five people in the Catholic Worker Movement charged with obstructing the U.S. District courthouse when they prayed there for an end to the war in Iraq.
The group had argued that it was necessary to violate the law to prevent a greater evil.
We haven’t received official notice of this yet; I’ll update this post when we do.
Update: “Religion Clause” has a blog post and what seems to be the PDF of the decision, filed a week ago. Meanwhile, nothing’s come in the mail yet.
Second update: Apparently the T&G reporter got word of this through an electronic court filings service they use. And apparently the court is not going to mail us a copy of this ruling.
Scott Schaeffer-Duffy and I explored some of the legal issues in a podcast this morning. You can download the mp3 or see other formats.
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If you’d like to support this effort, you can meet with the defendants today (July 29, 2008) at the weekly peace vigil in Worcester’s Lincoln Square, 3:30-4:30pm. We hope you can attend our trial, September 23, 2008 at the federal courthouse in Worcester.