Montpelier student convicted in D.C. death penalty protest
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By Alan J. Keays Rutland Herald - Published: July 4, 2007
A college student from Vermont arrested earlier this year along with several other people for holding up a banner in protest of the death penalty outside the U.S. Supreme Court has been found guilty of violating a law prohibiting demonstrations on the steps of the court.
Rachel Lawler, a pre-law student at Woodbury College in Montpelier, stood trial Thursday with seven of her fellow death penalty protesters in a Washington D.C., courtroom. They were all arrested in January on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, holding a 30-foot banner reading, "Stop Executions."
"We were found guilty of one of the two statutes. There were originally two misdemeanor charges, one was for giving an oration, and the other was for holding a banner on the U.S. Supreme Court grounds," Lawler, 21, said Friday in a phone call from the nation's capital. "The oration charge was dismissed and the judge found us guilty for the banner charge."
Lawler said after the judge found the demonstrators guilty following the one-day trial, prosecutors asked for a sentence for each of the protectors of one year on probation, plus a stay-away order from the U.S. Supreme Court during that period.
"The judge decided instead to sentence us to time served. We all got the same sentence," Lawler said. "The judge didn't specifically say that he thought what we did was wrong, or that he thought we should be punished for it. He instead decided to cite former case law that basically put him in the position to find us guilty."
The protesters were held in jail for about 32 hours after their arrest earlier this year.
If convicted of the two charges against them, each protester faced up to 60 days in jail and a $5,000 maximum fine.
Lawler said the cases against the protesters were consolidated into one trial, and they each played a role in presenting their defense.
"I delivered the closing argument and the sentencing statement," Lawler said.
The protesters are members of the nationwide group, Abolitionist Action Committee. Other protesters came from South Carolina, Virginia, Kansas and North Carolina.
The protest took part in January on the 30th anniversary of the Gary Gilmore execution in Utah. That execution generated international media attention as the first execution in the United States after the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976.
Since Gilmore's execution, there have been more than 1,000 executions in the United States, according to the Abolitionist Action Committee.
Lawler, originally from Cheshire, Conn., is a founding member of Vermonters Against the Death Penalty, formed more than two years ago at the start of the death penalty trial of Donald Fell in federal court in Burlington.
Fell's case was the first death penalty trial in nearly 50 years in Vermont. Fell was ultimately convicted of capital crimes for abducting Terry King, 53, of North Clarendon, as she showed up for work at a downtown Rutland supermarket in November 2000.
After carjacking King, police said Fell and another man drove her to New York where she was beaten to death. Fell's alleged accomplice died in prison before standing trial. Police said the two men abducted King because they needed a vehicle as they were fleeing Rutland after killing Fell's mother and her friend.
Vermont does not have the death penalty, but since King's death involved crossing state lines federal prosecutors took jurisdiction and sought Fell's execution.
Fell is appealing his death sentence, with the first hearing in that appeal process held earlier this week before the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City.
Contact Alan J. Keays at alan.keays@rutlandherald.com.
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