Greenpeace’s orientary trial in a millions of dollars with an energy transmission through a protest for Dakota access pipeline did not ban the defense.
Lawyers Greenpeace said they had been filed in the Supreme Court of North Dakota in the petition. They asked the court on Thursday to move the trial from Morton County, claiming that the jury was not impartial. Everyday life there was disturbed almost a year, 2016 and 2017, protesters who headed to the Standing Rock Indian Reserve, south of the county line.
Protests against the construction of pipelines, which since 2017 has been carrying oil from northern Dakota to several countries to Illinois, have attracted international attention, attracted thousands of people and sometimes led to violent conflicts.
The company that built a pipeline, energy transfer, first filed a lawsuit against Greenpeace in 2019. The lawsuit accuses the environmental group of playing a key role in protests that delayed the construction of pipelines, as well as attacks on workers and equipment and energy transfer.
Greenpeace, one of the world’s most famous environmental groups, says that she has played only a smaller role in protests, in support of Indian activists and that the organization promotes nonviolence.
Greenpeace lawyers said that the jury selection procedure showed that the County Court made a mistake, which denied his previous proposals to move the trial to the larger city of Fargo. “Because the jury selection is over, it is now clearer than ever before Greenpeace will not be given a fair and impartial trial in the county where protests have emerged,” they wrote in the proposal.
If Greenpeace lost a lawsuit, the verdict could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars and force it to extinguish operations in the United States.
The proposal also pointed to newspapers, which have been sent to the inhabitants of Morton County in recent months, containing negative articles on protests. Three subjects of Greenpeace appointed in a lawsuit were told in their request to the Supreme Court of the State to believe that newspapers “could have originated from the prosecutor or from someone closely related to them.”
The transmission of energy did not immediately respond to the request for comment on whether it was connected with a newspaper.
From Sunday afternoon, the court did not respond to a petition. The trial should last five weeks.
The testimony began on Wednesday in the courtroom in Mandan, ND, just over the Missouri River from Bismarck, the capital. The protests took place about 45 minutes in the south.
The case is heard by Judge James D. Gion, who is usually based in the neighboring County Stark. The Morton district judges broke out, noting that they were “familiar with the prosecutor/defendant and believe that in the best interests of justice they should be disqualified,” according to court documents.
Energy transfer began to call witnesses on Wednesday.
Joey Mahmoud, who was Vice President of Energy Transfer, who was monitored by Dakota Access, testified that the pipeline served a key purpose in bringing oil from the Bakken North North Dakota field in the refinery in the Middle West and beyond. The construction of the pipeline came in the midst of a historical flourishing in oil with the course of the area that helped to become the world’s largest oil producer.
Protests against the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and his allies escalated in the spring of 2016, testified. Tribal leaders said the project went through the funeral sites and another holy land and that its construction would threaten to supply the water of the tribe.
The company opposed that it hired experts to explore the route and claimed that these claims were not supported. He also said pipelines are a safer way to transport oil or railway oil.
Energy transfer lawyers also invited the county sheriff to the booth and showed videos of former Greenpeace employees. A large part of their testing is focused on the use of “locked boxes” – the protesters of the device can be used to lock each other or objects such as fence or equipment – which Greenpeace sent to protests.
The Sheriff of the Morton County, Kyle Kirchmeier, testified that the implementation of the law had to be arguing to respond to the influx of protesters and the escalation of the conflict. He had to ask for an emergency declaration from the state and train officers in tactics such as preventing a lock frame, he said.
Harmony Lambert, a former Greenpeace employee, said in her presentation that she traveled to Standing Rock in 2016 and also worked with an indigenous activist group. E -Mail’s showed that she sent her colleagues Greenpeace at the time with details about her activities, including training of people in blockade techniques and a donation of about 20 lock frames.
The petition of media organizations, including the New York Times, awaits the Supreme Court of the State to flow on the network. Another petition for an internet approach, from a group of left lawyers who traveled to North Dakota to watch the procedure, was rejected. This group included the first amendment lawyer Martin Garbus and Steven Donziger, who spent decades by suing oil companies and then serving in prison for disrespecting the court.
