10 Found Guilty of Charges in WINCON Nuclear Protest

A jury Tuesday rejected arguments that freedom of speech was at stake and found 10 anti-nuclear-war protesters guilty of blocking a public roadway, a misdemeanor, at a weapons conference in Costa Mesa last year.

Municipal Judge Christopher W. Strople sentenced nine of the defendants to a year’s probation and 40 hours of community service. He also prohibited them from going inside the Westin South Coast Plaza hotel, where they were arrested, for one year.

Probation Refused

The 10th defendant, Marion Pack, director of the Orange County Alliance for Survival, refused the offer of probation and will return to court Friday for further sentencing.

“It could have set a very dangerous precedent if we were acquitted,” Pack said after the jury’s verdict was announced.

The 10 could have been sentenced to a maximum of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for blocking the path of defense contractors en route to the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station during the Winter Conference of Aerospace and Electronics Systems (WINCON) in 1985.

During the five-day trial, defense attorney James Egar argued that the defendants did not intend to break the law but merely were exercising their right to speak against nuclear weapons. “They intended to communicate with the delegates rather than to obstruct,” Egar said.

But the 12-member jury agreed with the prosecuting attorney’s arguments that the only question was whether the 10 had violated the misdemeanor charge of obstructing a public roadway.

The prosecution presented a videotape showing several of the defendants being arrested while standing in the roadway and photographs of all 10 defendants with a Costa Mesa police officer, taken immediately after the arrests.

WINCON, which is closed to the public and press, brings together defense contractors and members of the military to discuss weapons systems.

All 10 defendants admitted stepping in front of buses carrying delegates to the conference from the hotel and argued that they were trying to stop the participants from building more nuclear weapons.

The Rev. Dennis Short, Chapman College chaplain, said in his testimony: “I went as a witness to my faith and to communicate with the people on that bus. The cornerstone of my faith is thou shalt not kill, and I believe those people were breaking that commandment.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Kelly W. MacEachern told jurors to exclude the political issues that may have caused the defendants to be at the demonstration and, instead, focus on their actions.

Motions to turn the proceedings into a trial on the morality of nuclear weapons were denied by Strople. He did not allow weapons experts to testify about nuclear war and denied a writ by Egar to argue a defense of necessity, meaning the defendants had been compelled to break the law because they believed the threat of nuclear war was imminent.

‘This Was Good Timing’

Several defendants said after the trial that the ordeal was worthwhile because it would give their cause publicity.

“With WINCON coming up again so soon, this was good timing,” Tim Cooper said. The 1986 conference is scheduled to begin Feb. 25.

Defendants also said their resolve has not been shaken.

“The threat has not disappeared,” Cooper said. “There is so much more work to be done. I’ll be out there again.”

With tears in her eyes, defendant Vivian Jojola said: “At least those 12 jurors will never be the same. They can no longer say, ‘I don’t have any opinions about nuclear weapons.’ ” During jury selection, all the jurors said they had no strong feelings regarding nuclear weapons.

The other defendants were Kenneth Bailor, Linda Banez, Elizabeth Crawford, Thomas Dobrzeniecki, Margreta Jorgenson and Catherine Ridder.