Judge Overturns Logging Protest Convictions

U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge has overturned the conviction of 12 activists for violating a federal closure order in their fight to halt logging in the Cove-Mallard area of the Nez Perce National Forest.

Lodge essentially agreed with the protesters that the 1995 closure order violated their First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly.

In response to the demonstrations, then-Forest Supervisor Michael King signed an order closing a portion of the sale area, including 150 feet on each side of the logging roads, to anyone without a permit to enter.

Environmentalists see the Cove-Mallard area as a corridor between the Gospel Hump and Frank Church wildernesses that creates the one of the nation’s largest roadless areas.

On Aug. 17, 1995, workers approaching the Jack Creek timber sale found the forest road blocked by debris and six activists either sitting atop wooden tripods or locked to objects buried in the roadway. After refusing a request by authorities that they leave the closed area, the protesters were arrested.

They were charged with using their bodies to impede access down the road and with violating the closure order since they were denied an access permit.

Magistrate Mikel Williams found them guilty on both counts and six others of aiding and abetting them, and the 12 appealed.

Lodge upheld the impeding convictions, but he overturned the conviction for violating the closure order on grounds that the Forest Service did not cite any specific standards that justified denying the activists a permit allowing entry into the timber sale area.

“Thus, the closure order vested unbridled discretion in the officials charged with regulating First Amendment activities, rendering the time, manner and place restriction invalid under the Constitution,” Lodge wrote. “Accordingly, the defendants’ convictions on count two must be reversed.”