{"id":7995,"date":"2009-11-15T09:48:39","date_gmt":"2009-11-15T14:48:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=7995"},"modified":"2009-11-15T09:52:48","modified_gmt":"2009-11-15T14:52:48","slug":"seventh-circuit-criminal-case-of-the-week-yes-eco-terrorists-are-real-terrorists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/11\/seventh-circuit-criminal-case-of-the-week-yes-eco-terrorists-are-real-terrorists\/","title":{"rendered":"Seventh Circuit Criminal Case of the Week: Yes, Eco-Terrorists Are Real Terrorists"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"seventh-circuit51\"On the night of\u00a0July\u00a020, 2000, Katherine Christianson, Bryan Rivera, and two companions\u00a0damaged or destroyed more than 500 trees at\u00a0a United States Forest Service facility.\u00a0 Was it a prank?\u00a0 A dare?\u00a0 A harvest for\u00a0the thneed industry<\/a>?\u00a0No, Christianson and Rivera were members of the eco-terrorist group Earth Liberation Front, and their target was the Forest Service’s genetic-engineering experiments on trees in Rhinelander, Wisconsin.\u00a0 ELF issued a press release the next day claiming responsibility for the attack and asserting that “the Forest Service, like industry, are [sic] capitalists driven by insane desire to make money and control life.”<\/p>\n

Eight years later, Christianson and Rivera pled guilty to destroying government property and were sentenced to two and three years of prison, respectively.\u00a0 On appeal, Rivera challenged the\u00a0district judge’s decision to apply the terrorism enhancement of the sentencing guidelines.\u00a0 He argued that he was not a terrorist because his motivation was “the hope of saving our earth from destruction.”\u00a0 The Seventh Circuit, however,\u00a0rejected his argument and affirmed the sentence in\u00a0United States v. Christianson<\/em> <\/a>(No. 09-1526) (Manion, J.).\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Following the application notes contained in the guidelines, the court relied on the definition of terrorism set forth in 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 2332b(g)(5)(B):\u00a0the commission of a listed\u00a0crime (including destruction of government property)\u00a0“calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct.”\u00a0 In light of that definition, it was not hard to conclude that Rivera qualified as a terrorist:<\/p>\n

Here, the purpose behind defendants’ actions was to further ELF’s political agenda: the end to industrial society. . . . Because the defendants do not look the part of our current conception of a terrorist does not separate them from that company.\u00a0 Indeed, it doesn’t matter why the defendants oppose capitalism and the United States government — if they use violence and intimidation to further their views, they are terrorists.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I agree there is little legal (or, I suppose, moral) basis to distinguish criminals who are\u00a0motivated by extremist environmental views from\u00a0criminals who are\u00a0motivated by extremist religious views.\u00a0 But I think it is an interesting question whether a passionate desire to reform society (on environmental, religious, or any other grounds) ought to be treated as an aggravating sentencing factor.<\/p>\n

Imagine a hypothethetical\u00a0variation on Christianson<\/em>: Although Rivera was motivated by a desire to change government policy on genetic engineering, Christianson was only in it for the thrill of sneaking into a government facility in the middle of the night and destroying something.\u00a0 Is it right that Rivera ought to be punished more severly than Christianson based on his motive?\u00a0 At least he was seeking the greater good and not acting in a purely self-interested manner — arguably, his motives are mitigating, not aggravating, relative to hers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the night of\u00a0July\u00a020, 2000, Katherine Christianson, Bryan Rivera, and two companions\u00a0damaged or destroyed more than 500 trees at\u00a0a United States Forest Service facility.\u00a0 Was it a prank?\u00a0 A dare?\u00a0 A harvest for\u00a0the thneed industry?\u00a0No, Christianson and Rivera were members of the eco-terrorist group Earth Liberation Front, and their target was the Forest Service’s genetic-engineering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,40,28,74,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-environmental-law","category-criminal-law-process","category-federal-sentencing","category-seventh-circuit","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7995\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}