Order in the court:

...This is a common practice of judges, a principal means of controlling juries...

...and.he revoked bail for all, even though they were, appealing the case...

...You're trying to get in the back door what you can't get in the front...

...Some pro-lifers who have engaged in sit-ins at abortion clinics have been acquitted under this principle, since they were trying to save lives...

...The only problem, as the defendants kept trying to say, is that jurors also have a responsibility to their own consciences and to the law...

...If there is a second time around for the Plowshares Eight, it would be nice if they could have a judge like that...

...If judges in every state are "bound thereby," why couldn't Judge Salus listen - and allow the jury to listen - to arguments based on these treaties...

...During jury selection, the judge had asked all prospective jurors if they would follow his instructions on the law...

...Excusing the breaking of a law when this is done to prevent a greater evil is an example of the wisdom of the common law...

...Their actions, which were based on Old Testament suggestions about beating swords into plowshares, resulted in criminal charges ranging from burglary to conspiracy and criminal mischief...

...It also forbids "the attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended...

...But some were surprised when, two days after the sentencing, a higher court permitted the Plowshares Eight to post bail...

...The judge sentenced the Berrigan brothers, another priest (Carl Kabat) and a lawyer (John Schuchardt) to three to ten years in state prison...

...Four of them declined to do so...

...Yet the U.S...

...and 2) the "justification defense" of the Pennsylvania code, under which breaking a law may be excused when a person acted to avert a greater evil...

...He sentenced the other four - Molly Rush, Dean Hammer, Sister Anne Montgomery, and Elmer Maas - to shorter terms...

...That is what the law always means...

...Evidently international law was not to be allowed in any door of his courtroom...

...Constitution, Article VI, says quite clearly that treaties are part of "the supreme law of the land" and that "the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding...

...He suggested that the greater evil the Eight sought to prevent was not "imminent.'' Yet he had refused to let the defense call expert witnesses who could have testified to the imminent danger of nuclear war...

...The Eight would have a difficult time winning "acquittal even with a fair judge - not because their defense is poor, but because it is so unusual...

...No one who had watched Judge Salus preside over the Plowshares trial last winter was very surprised at the sentencing - or could be very surprised b, y anything he might say or do...

...They freely admit that they entered a General Electric plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, last September and hammered and poured blood on two Mark 12A nose cones...

...The Plowshares Eight were trying to do the same...

...Since there is little dispute about the facts of what the Plowshares Eight did, their only chance of acquittal rests on two arguments of law: 1) that nuclear weapons are forbidden by treaties to which the United States is a party - treaties which under our Constitution take precedence over state law...

...Judge Salus first said that he had no personal antagonism toward the group, who are known as the Plowshares Eight...

...The prosecutor, of course, objected to the Adams quote, and Salus sided with him...

...Several treaties to which the United States is a party seem to bar the use of nuclear weapons...

...Order in the court MARY MEEHAN JUDGE Samuel W. Salus II made several interesting statements on July 28th, when he sentenced Daniel Berrigan, Philip Berrigari, and six other pacifists to Pennsylvania state prisons for their destruction of nose cones designed to carry nuclear bombs...

...Sister Anne Montgomery quoted something John Adams wrote when America was still an English colony...

...the Soviet Union so they could protest over there and experience repression...

...if it is successful, another judge may have a chance to give them the fair trial that Salus denied them the first time ' around...

...But Judge instructed the jury that the justification defense did not apply...

...From the first day of jury selection last February, Judge Salus made it clear that he did not want to hear arguments based on international law...

...Flogging...

...If a judge gave instructions against a basic English constitutional principle, said Adams, the obligation of a juror was plain: "It is not only his right but his duty in that case to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court...

...Their appeal may take a year ormore...

...By this time, some spectators may have wondered what Salus would suggest if he did have personal antagonism toward a defendant...

...A Geneva Convention of 1949 forbids "violence to life and person" of non-combatants...

...An example would be trespassing in order to save a child trapped in a burning house...

...The Hague Convention of 1907, for example, forbids the use of "poison or poisoned weapons" and "arms, projectiles, or material calculated to.cause unnecessary suffering...

...His second choice, he said, would be to send them to...

...The "justification defense" is similar to the common-law "defense of necessity...

...Then he complained at length about them, suggesting that they were "malcontents," and about their supporters, suggesting that they were arrogant people who had given him unasked-for advice...

...Anyone who has watched a good judge run a trial knows that it is almost a work of art, requiring an even temperament, a deep sense of fairness, willingness to hear difficult issues, and trust in the good judgment of the jury...

...Hanging by the thumbs...

...If he could choose any punishment at all, the judge remarked, his first choice would be to send the Eight to a leper colony .and have them do personal service for the lepers...

...The Adams philosophy is like a forgotten legacy, waiting to be dusted off and used by juries against "hanging judges...

...Legend says that Andrew Jackson, when a young judge in Tennessee, used to instruct juries: "Do what js right between these parties...

...When defendant Elmer Maas tried to raise the issue in his testimony, the judge said, "No, no...