A ruling in a Morton County, North Dakota courtroom shows how people in our nation live in very different worlds and how much work we have ahead to find common understandings of fairness and decency.
A Morton County jury found eight Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protesters guilty of disorderly conduct, according to a story in the Bismarck Tribune. The court fined them between $1,250 and $1,685 each. Their crimes included such actions as “sitting on a gravel access road built by the company, pushing into law enforcement and standing in the road,” the story said.
Defense attorney Alex Reichert told the judge that a $1,000 fine was more than he’d seen imposed for this type of crime in his 20-year legal career. …
The fines came after a request from Ladd Erickson, a special prosecutor for Morton County, who contends the protesters wanted to inflict harm on the state, people and police.
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