A letter-writing campaign is underway to support Bloomfield activist Ted Glick, who faces up to three years of prison time for unfurling two large green banners in the Hart Senate Office Building last September. The banners said “Green Jobs” and “Get to Work.
Glick, who is policy director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, has gone on hunger strikes to raise awareness about climate change. Last September, he took part in a non-violent protest at the Hart Senate Office Building the day the Senate returned from its summer recess. The protestors were asking the Senate to pass climate legislation that had already been passed by the House. Glick says he legally entered the building, showed ID and had the banners scanned by security before dropping them from the 7th floor balcony into the building’s atrium.
Video of the protest is included in a news report embedded in the jump.
Because Glick had two previous convictions, also in connection with protests, he was not offered a probation deal like the other protestor arrested at the scene. Instead, he was given a chance to plead guilty and take a 30-day jail sentence
“I have no regrets in any way,” says Glick. “There’s no way I would accept that anyone should go to jail for 30 days for hanging a banner.”
Glick was convicted in May of two misdemeanors — displaying a banner in a federal building and disorderly conduct — each of which carries a six-month jail sentence. But the U.S. Attorney’s Office has asked the judge to triple Glick’s sentence because he’s a repeat offender.
“That’s where the three years comes in,” says Glick.
Glick, 60, said he has been arrested 16 times and served prison time for most of 1971 for refusing to be inducted into the military.
“I’m anxious about when I think of being in jail for months again,” Glick says. But he says he’s also “prepared for whatever comes” and hopes that any jail time will bring attention to the cause.
But Glick and supporters have started a letter-writing campaign to ask the judge to go easy on him. Supporters are asked to write a polite letter to Judge Frederick H. Weisberg, DC Superior Court, 500 Indiana Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20001.
Glick says at least 150 people have already written in his support, including Danny Glover, Ed Asner, James Hansen and Wendell Berry.
30 days seems totally fair to me. If he doesn’t want that deal thats his choice.
I seriously doubt any judge will sentence him to three years. Displaying a banner in a federal building and disorderly conduct are both Class B misdemeanors, meaning they are punishable by up to six months in jail. But Class B misdemeanors, unlike most federal crimes, are not subject to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and judges, therefore, have full discretion to impose any sentence within the statutorily proscribed range. Even for a three-peat offender, I don’t think there is any judge that would (1) impose concurrent max sentences and (2) then triple them, based on the conduct at issue. The letter writing campaign, in my view, seems designed more to attract publicity than to bring attention to any serious injustice, any of which could have been avoided if Glick had accepted the imminently reasonable 30-day offer (there are, after all, some consequences to repeatedly violating federal law, or so I’m told.)
Look good and hard at that face. That is the face of a true hero, a man of the hour, a selfless, tireless advocate for the planet’s most vulnerable species, and our own Homo sapiens (not that we don’t deserve a slow, painful march to oblivion).
Citizens must rise up and fight the gross injustice being perpetrated on this man. No citizen of this great nation should be prosecuted for speaking up for the poor flora and fauna that are suffering from our oil and our carbon. President Obama should give out a Presidential pardon for each and every activist who breaks any law, so long as it is broken for the right cause, and as long as it inflicts pain and suffering to the enemies in our midst. (You know who they are.)
30 days for hanging a banner? ROC, I thought you were a fiscal conservative. Would you rather have Glick eating and sleeping on your dime for 30 days–anybody wanna take a stab at what that would cost– or doing public service? Hang a banner, destroy the Gulf of Mexico environs–and who get to do time?
Feh! Can’t do the time don’t do the crime.
Prison for something like this ?
The U.S. Attorney’s Office needs to stop doing drugs….
If they were still alive, I suppose you would say that to MLK, Rosa Parks, Gandhi, Paul Revere? You seem to have trouble distinguishing between civil disobedience and criminal behavior. Oh, that’s right, you’re right of center!
Another guy who should do time for hanging a banner on federal property is the moron who put the “Mission Accomplished” one up on the USS Licoln.
Well with Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi “doing the time” was part of the plan. And in fact they “did the time” because they had courage to back up their convictions. MLK was doing time when he wrote the eloquent “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. I don’t know if Gandhi did much writing in Jail. Perhaps he dashed out one of his fan letters to Adolph?
At any rate, Glick should wear his imprisonment as a badge. Back up his conviction with a little courage, as it were.
“The real road to happiness lies in going to jail and undergoing sufferings and privations there in the interest of one’s country and religion.” (Gandhi)
Have fun, Ted.
Given such supporters as ed ashole, and danny idiot, and crodouche they should throw the book at this enviro jerk.
RoC: Did you miss this part?
But he says he’s also “prepared for whatever comes” and hopes that any jail time will bring attention to the cause.
Three years in jail for hanging a banner? Seriously? Yet torturing and killing innocent animals gets a slap on the wrist? There’s something very seriously wrong here.
If there is any chance that whatsup ( If he can sober up before eleven)can even define “enviro”, I don’t know the price of a pint of piss.
ROC, suggesting Ted Glick show courage is beyond clueless, even coming from you.
Getting 3 years for what he did? Not going to happen.Going on a hunger strike, really who cares.Ted needs to find something more constructive to do. Like help feed the poor kids in Newark,Bloomfied, East Orange, and Montclair who are NOT going to be eating this summer because there out of school and will not get the lunch which in some cases is there only meal for the day. Come on over and help me out here Ted.
He has broken a law so he must pay a penalty. However I’d suggest that the penalty for this man is a misuse of jail and our tax dollars. I’d much rather see him clean up the streets, pay a large fine or some other kind of community service.
He’s a multiple repeat offender DagT. 30 days is reasonable.
I know that ROC but jail seems to be what he wants – martyr for the cause and such. I’d rather hit him very hard in his pocket book. And/or servile labor for the community would serve a better purpose IMO.
If the guy breaks the law and is willing to do the time, then let’s allow him the 15 minutes of fame. He will have earned it.
looks like it is time for another hunger strike
” I’d rather hit him very hard in his pocket book.”
Is that what we should aim for in our society? The poor go to jail when they protest and the ones that afford the “stiff fine” just pay?
He’s gotten enough press. If there were a $20,000 fine some allied group or benefactor would pay the fine. Would this result in his curtailing of his illegal trespass and protest activities? No.
They have the guy on HIS OWN tape committing the crime. If he pleas “innocent” and costs the state the expense of a trial then he should go away for three years.
Plead guilty, stop whining and do your 30 days I say.
Generally jail serves very little purpose for this kind of crime. You may be correct about funds from another source so then put him to work cleaning the streets. And I’d suggest the same for poor people
By your very low (even base, definitely appalling, as you often get when you try to be jocularly winsome) standards, walleroo, then even the Symbionese Liberation Army “earned” all the publicity it got.
Ted Glick displays real gall by his apparent unwillingness to pay the requisite legal penalty for his offense. I can also only assume then that the usual run of local “suspects” will attempt, however incoherently, to write letters on his raggedy behalf. As several penned posts above to similarly vain effect already indicate.
cathar!
Have you been vacationing?
“Prison for something like this ?
The U.S. Attorney’s Office needs to stop doing drugs….?
Actually, they need to start doing drugs…
ROC and company, what punishment do you recommend for BP and other corporate polluters who destroy our natural resources? You are most likely the same people who scream about over-regulated industry. I don’t get your priorities. Obviously Ted wouldn’t have to take such extreme measures if business and government conducted business in a manner that protected air, soil and water quality. You smugly suggest that Ted deserves punishment. This is the kind of crap Ted is trying to call attention to:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/washington/11royalty.html
Glick, so far as I know, didn’t murder or kidnap anybody or destroy property. He committed an only mildly militant act of protest. If, instead of whining that jail isn’t fair even though he broke the law, he took his punishment, with a stiff upper lip, for the cause, I would have more respect for him.
As it is, he is unwilling to accept responsibility for his actions. That I have no patience for.
“ROC and company, what punishment do you recommend for BP and other corporate polluters who destroy our natural resources?”
If they’ve broken a law, the maximum penalty the law provides for.
Also civil damages should not be capped or limited.
p.s
I Glick’s case, I’m for a minimum penalty of 30 days. Unless he decides to cost the taxpayer the expense of a trial and then the maximum 3 years.
Just heard – no jail time!