From the Archive
What the Court Would Have Heard
In June 2015, members of Witness Against Torture went on trial for disrupting the Senate with an anti-torture message in January of the same year. They all had their cases dismissed. If the trial had moved forward, however, here are the opening and closing statements the court would have heard.
Opening Statement
Good morning, your honor, I am Josephine Setzler, defendant pro se.
Your honor, you have before you eight citizens who entered the gallery of the Senate chamber on January 12th. We traveled from several states around this country, during a week of activities with a group called Witness Against Torture, to learn more about the conduct of our government. We visited the Senate chamber that afternoon with the intent to inform our Senators about matters vital to the business of the Senate. We were led out, however, in handcuffs, and charged with disorderly conduct in a public building. The relevant section of the D.C. code charges that the conduct was done “with the intent and effect of impeding or disrupting the orderly conduct of business.” The statute states clearly that both intent and effect are relevant to this charge. We will address both while making our case before this court.
I turn first to the matter of intent. The Senate is a legislative forum, not a court of law or an executive board. In a legislative forum, the public should have input, and we tried to give input that day. We came with the intent to communicate with our Senators who are elected to represent us. We came to exercise our First Amendment right to petition and to seek redress from our government.
Among us are parents, grandparents, citizens from several walks of life including teachers, health workers, and clergy, people whose life experience compelled them to come to Washington to participate in the work of our democracy by informing their legislators on a matter of some urgency. One of us is the wife of a torture survivor and she knows from personal experience how corrosive torture is for the victim, his family, and their relationships with the larger society. Another of us is a member of the clergy and a teacher. Her work gave her an urgent sense that she must aid the Senators in their duty to hold torture perpetrators accountable.
Your honor, the government will call our discourse in the Senate a disruption, but we will beg to differ. We will testify that we did not seek to cause a disruption. No, a disruption would have interfered with our true intent, that is, to communicate information vital to the conduct of the Senate’s responsibilities.
Rather than disrupt, our actions were meant to assist the conduct of the Senate’s business. Just a month before our visit to the Senate, the Senate Intelligence Committee finally released the executive summary of their 6000-page report on CIA Torture. The Senate has not released the full report, nor has it called for the Department of Justice to prosecute the violations of law that the report discloses. Our words in the Senate chamber conveyed our concern that the U.S. Senate has ignored its own findings. It has neglected its legal and moral responsibility when it failed to call for government accountability for torture. The Senate ratified the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions, both of which require signatories to hold torturers accountable. Therefore, the Senate has a special responsibility in this matter. In fact, this matter is of such vital consequence that the public must be given leeway to express themselves. Their discourse must be brought out into the public arena, to the entire Senate as a body. The Senate floor is indeed the appropriate public arena for this discourse.
Our message was a fundamental one – easy to understand for anyone who ever completed a high school civics class– yet left sadly unaddressed by the Senate. We spoke these words to the Senate: “U.S. Torture. It’s official. Prosecute now.” When we spoke, the Senate stopped and heard. Such expression can hardly be termed a disruption. We ask the court: Was there not a better way that the Senate could have responded to our communication that day?
Your Honor, we will show that we came to the gallery that day to call on our senators to safeguard the fundamental rule of law in our democracy. We asked them to institute measures of accountability for U.S. torture perpetrated at Guantanamo and CIA black sites around the world. In fact, we have hopes that the Senate will call for accountability at the highest level of government, so that this crime against humanity will never again be used in our name. If indeed we are successful in bringing about our intent, then it will have been order, not disorder, which we brought to the Senate that day.
Your Honor, based upon our lack of specific intent to disrupt, I ask that you find all of the defendants not guilty.
Closing Statement
Good morning/afternoon Your Honor, members of the court, Mr/Ms (prosecutor) and friends/co-defendants. My name is Martha Hennessy, pro se defendant and I would like to give the closing statement on behalf of all the defendants.
You have heard our sincere testimony in this courtroom. You have heard about why we took the action that we did on January 12th, 2015. We face the charge of disorderly conduct. We hope that you have come to understand the intentions of our actions through hearing the humanity of our testimonies. It has not been easy for us to find the courage to act as we have, to lobby the Senate in this way, and we do so out of a sense of responsibility as citizens and community members. Our motive is to seek full disclosure by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence regarding the CIA Torture Report, released in April of 2014. We seek an investigation, and if necessary, prosecution of wrongdoing and of war crimes. Our intent in the Senate Chamber that day was to instruct and bring attention to the Senate, the public, and the country that laws were/are being broken and the dangers that stem from a lack of accountability on the part of the CIA and of our elected officials.
We are concerned about the rule of law and the legal and human rights and dignity of all people. We are attempting to exercise our citizen’s duties and engage as participants in our democracy by bringing attention to the Senate CIA Torture Report. The full report has not been released, there has not been an adequate hearing, and there have been no indictments despite the evidence that torture was committed by the CIA and possibly with the compliance of our government. The rule of law was clearly violated through the mistreatment and even deaths, of prisoners.
The evidence has shown that we did not use threatening or abusive language. It has also shown that we did not disrupt the Senate during an orderly session. The Chamber was empty but for two Senators. Our action has occurred after many years of lobbying and petitioning our government for redress of our legitimate grievances relating to indefinite detention and torture. We have petitioned our representatives, we have attempted to establish a dialogue with the Department of Justice, and we have confronted Congressional and Senatorial silence on this matter.
We have learned about the conditions of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay Prison and other “black sites” around the world, of how they were tortured with supervision from professionally licensed psychologists and medical doctors. We have learned that the CIA marginalized and ignored numerous internal critiques, criticisms, and objections concerning the operation and management of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program. We have learned that the interrogations of CIA detainees were brutal and far worse than the CIA represented to policymakers and others. We have learned that the CIA repeatedly provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice, impeding a proper legal analysis of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program.
We are forever changed by these reports of horrific violations of human rights and the violation of international laws. We must respond to this breech of law that has gone unaddressed by Congress, the Senate, and by the President. This violation of the law, this use of torture could be applied to any one of us. To citizens, to soldiers, to political dissidents, even private contractors who witness and report unlawful conduct in the so-called theatre of war.
Your Honor, we have tried to communicate these threats and concerns to an unresponsive Senate. Many prisoners have been mistreated and died under CIA detention. As ordinary citizens, we the defendants do have the power and duty to hold our government accountable, especially if war crimes are being committed. We would encourage you, Judge Howze, to think about how you could act as the conscience of the community in this situation, based on what you have heard in our testimony about why we took the action we did on January 12th, 2015. We the defendants ask that you weigh the greater threat of violations of international human rights laws and against this charge of disorderly conduct that was an actual attempt on our part to exercise our 1st amendment right of free speech. We are willing to speak out and risk arrest on minor charges in order to bring attention to much more serious violations of the law committed in our name by our government using our precious resourses. We hope you will also consider how the use of torture and deaths of prisoners while in the custody of the CIA has impacted our democracy and the world’s view of us.
We depend on you to be a finder of the facts in this case. We depend on your understanding, your exercise of reasonable judgment, and your willingness to follow your conscience when considering our motivations in the interest of justice and freedom of speech. Our intentions were to petition and bring our grievances to the government to demand the adherence to the rule of law. We leave it in your hands to determine what is a just outcome for all citizens regarding the use of torture and the fear of curtailing our constitutional rights, based on these facts.
I ask that you follow your conscience and the law and find us not guilty of unlawful conduct. Our intent was not to disrupt. Our intent was to inform and educate the senate and the public about the grave crimes including unlawful detention and torture committed in our name with our tax dollars in Guantanamo. Please find us not guilty.
Thank you.
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