Some thoughts from No Coal No Gas Community members Leif Taranta and Julie Macuga in response to their recent court hearing.
On July 12, we attended court in Concord, NH for a plea hearing. This hearing was a result of our January 8th action, when we were charged with trespass and disorderly conduct for climbing and chaining ourselves to the smokestack of Merrimack Station. You can watch a video recap of our action here!
Make it stand out
We had been offered a plea deal by the prosecution of a $1000 fine each, with a $250 penalty assessment and an additional $200 each suspended for two years. We were daunted by the prospect of giving this much money to an incredibly unjust legal system, especially since we do not have a ton of money! We also hoped to resolve our cases quickly given that we have multiple open cases and expected even worse sentences were we to go to trial. We also didn’t want to be subject to bail conditions for years, as they make organizing increasingly difficult.
In the end, we decided that we would try to use our situation to raise money to support other folks facing the criminal legal system, as well. We were inspired to do this because of an interaction we had at our previous hearing, when we met the lawyer of a man who was stuck in jail for 3 days because of an awful miscommunication over $115 that he was having trouble paying for a violation of bail conditions that had since been deemed unnecessary. We listened to the absurdity of this situation, and then we got the $115 from campaign resources! One of our court supporters drove to the jail, bailed him out, and helped him get a taxi home. This was one happy outcome after witnessing so much brutality in the courts. So many times over the past years, we’ve felt outraged and powerless watching the criminal legal system destroy people’s lives. We’ve watched prosecutors make fun of defendants who were struggling with addiction, witnessed single mothers forced to haggle with a judge over which day they would report to jail based on a lack of childcare, seen friends held in custody for months without a trial or sentencing. And on top of all this classism, we’ve had judge after “progressive” judge imply that we are somehow “better criminals”- by saying things like “you all aren’t like everyone else I see in court.”
It’s true that we aren’t like most other people in the courthouse. Unlike most people in the criminal legal system, we had made a plan that involved getting arrested, and we were supported in that. We have a degree of privilege where we made the conscious choice to engage with this system, while so many people wake up with the police at their door through no fault of their own. So it’s true that we have a different story from most people we meet in court, but the idea that we are the “good, righteous criminals” while everyone else is a “bad criminal” is absurd. The real “crime” here is the injustice system itself—a system that keeps people trapped away from their families as a punishment for poverty, for addiction, for miscommunications. The two of us believe there should be no such thing as police, no such thing as courts as we know them, and no such thing as fines or jail.
We decided to take a plea deal so we could focus on other organizing that feels more meaningful to us than engaging with this particular case in this particular system. We knew that even though we couldn’t afford to pay our fines ourselves, our community would have our backs. But we also wanted to be able to share the resources we have access to! That’s why we fundraised for our court fees with a commitment to donate 20% of what we received (plus any extra) to the NH Bail Fund, which “frees people who are stuck in jail before being tried for any crime.” We hope in the future that we will be able to share more, but that’s part of what mutual aid is—meeting our needs now enough so that we can share with others both now and into the future.
After a lot of fundraising help from friends and No Coal No Gas, we raised $3002 overall! This generous support means that we were able to send $601 to the bail fund. If you are reading this and would like to donate more to support their work, please do! You can donate directly here.
Even though we took a plea deal for our trespassing charges, we wanted to make it clear to the court that we don’t feel guilty about our actions. With help from our amazing movement lawyer, Dan Donaddio, we were able to negotiate for a “no contest plea.” We also decided to use our allocutions to tell the court what we really think. Julie spoke about hearing judges and prosecutors continually insist we use the so-called proper channels: “Write to your legislator. Vote. Write public comments. Start a petition.” She recalled her extensive experience using the “proper channels” and how their failure led her to direct action. Leif used their statement to challenge the court’s conception of justice, pointing out the judge and prosecutor’s complicity in deciding to prosecute poor people and nonviolent activists over the very real harms of the Merrimack Generating Station. If you’d like, you can watch our allocutions below.
In the end, we are so grateful for everyone’s support both in our original action and throughout the court process. We want to encourage everyone to continue to support the NH bail fund, as well as local police and prison abolitionist work! Thank you so much!
-Leif and Julie
