Combo photo shows anti-nuclear weapons activists Sister Megan Rice, left; Michael Walli, center; and Greg Boertje-Obed in Knoxville.Catholic peace activists, including an 85-year-old nun, who painted slogans and splashed blood on a Tennessee bunker storing much of this country’s bomb-grade uranium want an appeals court to overturn their sabotage convictions.
At the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday, attorney Marc Shapiro argued that trespassing and property destruction charges could have been justified, but sabotage was an overreach.
At issue is whether the activists’ July 28, 2012, nonviolent protest injured the national defense by disrupting operations at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Sister Megan Rice, 66-year-old Michael Walli and 59-year-old Greg Boertje-Obed were able to cut through several fences and reach a high security area where they hung banners, prayed and hammered on the outside wall of the bunker to symbolize a Bible passage that refers to the end of war: “They will beat their swords into ploughshares.”
In court, Shapiro likened the activists’ case to a government overreach case ruling last month in the Supreme Court. Justices said a fisherman who dumped undersized grouper was wrongfully prosecuted for destroying evidence under a law targeting accounting fraud passed in the wake of the Enron scandal.