Alice Cherry, CDP Co-Founder and Staff Attorney, was interviewed on Portland-based radio station KBOO last week, as part of a segment called Left and the Law. Alice discussed the climate necessity defense, upcoming cases, and the recent Ninth Circuit opinion in the youth lawsuit against the federal government, Juliana v. United States. You can listen to...
Climate Defense Project co-founder and staff attorney Ted Hamilton gave a talk on the climate necessity defense on January 21 at Yale Law School. The lecture was part of the Law, Ethics, and Animals Program; you can view a video here.
On behalf of 122 law professors, CDP filed today a friend-of-court brief in support of George Taylor, a reverend and member of Veterans for Peace who was involved in a protest against the transport of crude oil by trains in downtown Spokane, WA. Mr. Taylor is appealing the reversal of a trial court ruling granting his...
Fort Benton, MT — Leonard Higgins and his attorneys are appealing his conviction for a protest that shut down the flow of Canadian tar sands oil into the United States. The appeal focuses on the court’s denial of Mr. Higgins’ right to present a complete defense. Prior to trial, in a violation of Mr. Higgins’ constitutional...
CDP Co-Founder and Staff Attorney Alice Cherry was recognized in the 2019 Straubel Leadership Awards.
Common Dreams has a story on our major win at the Washington Supreme Court, where we helped Valve Turner Ken Ward establish a crucial precedent for the climate necessity defense. Read our press release on the decision. CDP co-founder and staff attorney Alice Cherry was quoted in the Common Dreams piece: Alice Cherry of the Climate Defense...
The Washington Supreme Court has declined to review a ruling by the state’s Court of Appeals upholding the right of CDP client Ken Ward to present a necessity defense at trial. The Court of Appeals ruling, issued in April of this year, had overturned a previous decision by the trial court to bar all evidence...
CDP’s Kelsey Skaggs is quoted in a Civil Eats article on the alarming rise in deadly attacks against environmental defenders across the world: Climate change activists have been labeled as terrorists, said lawyer Kelsey Skaggs with the Climate Defense Project. She pointed to how the company behind the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners used the term “eco-terrorists”—which was...
Author Joey Cherney is a 2019 Summer Law Clerk for CDP. He was a union organizer from 2014-2017 with Service Employees International Union. He was also a research assistant for the Clean Slate Project at the Harvard Labor and Worklife Program, a two-year initiative to reimagine labor law and strengthen worker rights. As movements for...
A Lansing, Michigan prosecutor has unexpectedly dropped charges against 13 protesters who were poised to argue the climate necessity defense at a trial initially scheduled for this month.
