Peace Activist Gets 5 Years for Contempt
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BALTIMORE — Peace activist Philip Berrigan has been sentenced to five years in prison for contempt after he accused a judge of Nazi-like court procedures and refused to apologize for the remark.
The former priest was in court Thursday to support eight activists who are on trial for trespassing during a Dec. 5 demonstration at a physics laboratory.
Berrigan, 68, spoke out when Howard County District Court Judge James N. Vaughan refused to allow the defendants to talk about weapons research they claim is carried out at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, said Elizabeth McAlister, Berrigan’s wife and one of the defendants.
Berrigan likened the judge’s handling of the cases to procedures used in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and declared the court “a disgrace,” she said. Berrigan refused Vaughan’s demand to apologize.
Contacted at home Thursday night, Vaughan would not comment.
Some of the eight defendants were found guilty of trespassing, and a trial for others will be heard at a later date.
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