Nun to Continue Her Antimissile Activism Out of Prison
A nun who spent the last 18 months in prison for defacing a missile site in a peace protest is scheduled to be released today, but she may face another confrontation with prosecutors for refusing to pay $3,000 in restitution.
Jackie Marie Hudson, 70, was convicted in April 2003 of obstructing national defense and damaging government property. She and two other nuns had poured blood on a Minuteman III silo in northern Colorado in October 2002, hit nearby railroad tracks with a hammer and then sat down to await arrest.
In a letter posted on a website devoted to nonviolence and religious activism, Hudson wrote that she refuses “to pay money to this morally bereft government which presently spends over one billion dollars a day to slaughter or in planning the slaughter of millions of innocent persons.”
Her lawyer, Walter Gerash, said Hudson and her supporters wanted U.S. District Judge Robert E. Blackburn to allow them to make alternative restitution in the form of money and time donated to various causes.
“I think he will” accept the alternative, Gerash said. “She has no money. She’s a nun. She’s not obligated to raise money to pay.”
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
