READ: #LentTogether: The Cost of Discipleship in Community

Cry out, don’t hold back.

Lift up your voice like a trumpet.

Announce to my people their rebellion, 

To the nation their sins.

Yet, day after day, the rulers and countless people invoke my name,

as if they practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God.

They delight to invoke my name to bless their violent deeds.

They use my name to bless their wars and their weapons.

We practice good religion, they say.

We pray and serve our country well.

We keep good law and order.

Look, you serve your own interests, not mine says Yahweh.

You follow your religion of nationalism, materialism and militarism.

You are slaves to selfishness.

You know not my ways.

You don’t know how to fast—your rituals are empty.

You assert an authority you say is rooted in morality—based on justice and truth.

You hypocrites!

Your morality is rooted in worshiping idols—gods of metal, money, power, greed.

You are desecrating and destroying the earth!

You worship false gods, not me!

Is not this the fast that I choose—the real act of worship that I desire:

to undo the bindings of the yoke, to renounce empire, 

to resist all violence, racism, sexism, discrimination and killing,

to let the oppressed go free, to disarm and abolish nuclear weapons, killer drones and all weapons and guns,

to end all injustice,

to revere all life and to safeguard your holy creation!

Is it not to share your resources with the poor, to offer hospitality to the homeless, to welcome the refugees and immigrants, to clothe the naked, and to provide quality housing, health care, food, education and meaningful work for everyone?

Is it not to make sure that the dignity of each person is respected and to recognize that all human beings are sisters and brothers, children of God?

Is it not to eliminate poverty and abolish war so that people can live in justice and peace?

Then and only then shall your light break forth like the dawn and your healing shall spring up quickly.

Then you shall call and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and the Lord will say,

Here I am.

If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, the demonization and scape-goating of your adversaries,

if you offer food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,

if you establish justice for the oppressed and proclaim liberty to the captives,

then your light shall rise in the darkness and your despair be transformed into hope.

The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.

Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt, you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; 

you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

Since this weekly vigil began in 1987, our purpose has been to invite the estimated 23,000 workers employed at this center of warmaking to uphold God’s command “thou shalt not kill,” to choose God’s way of nonviolence, to revere all life and creation, and to abolish war, torture, and all weapons of war. We also ask them to work toward eradicating systemic violence and oppression and to transform the Pentagon into a center that serves life, not death. The other day, a three-star general walked by our vigil and acknowledged my greeting. I could not help but wonder what that general would be involved with on that particular day.

Here’s what painfully clear: The bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have turned the Doomsday Clock to two minutes before midnight, due to the twin dangers of climate change and nuclear war. The U.S. war machine is in high gear, and its nuclear forces are on hair trigger alert.

The U.S. continues to destabilize and, most recently, President Trump threatened to wage war against Iran. A new Space Force has been created to control and dominate space. U.S. and NATO Missile Defense systems ring Russia and China, increasing already heightened tensions. The upgrade and development of new nuclear weapons proceed as part of a several decade $1 trillion program. This includes the W76-2 Trident nuclear warhead, which is designed to carry a relatively small destructive payload of five kilotons, far less than the 100 kiloton thermonuclear warheads with which Trident missiles are currently armed. This reduction fulfills the Trump administration’s quest for nuclear-war-fighting “flexibility.”

The U.S. withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal and the INF Treaty with Russia, ordered by an unpredictable president, has further exacerbated the nuclear peril. Additionally, the U.S. remains the world’s preeminent arms dealer. Killer drones continue to be deployed wherever the U.S. sees fit to terrorize and assassinate so-called enemy combatants.

The U.S. also continues to support the illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, as well as the Saudi war against Yemen, all of which have claimed untold lives. U.S. military intervention continues in Iraq, and Afghanistan and it now seeks to overthrow the present Venezuelan government. These criminal interventions have caused the death, suffering, and trauma of millions. And the U.S. maintains more than 800 military bases worldwide which serve as outposts to enforce and protect U.S. corporate and strategic interests and to threaten and contain rival adversaries, especially Russia and China. The U.S. will spend over $225 million this year alone on AFRICOM to carry out its military operations in Africa.

The Trump Administration’s proposed 2020 budget request for the military and national security is a staggering $750 billion. To put this in perspective, the U.S. spends more on its military budget than China, Saudi Arabia, India, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and Germany combined.

How can such massive expenditures be justified at a time when so many nationally and globally suffer and die due to unmet critical human needs? The Poor Peoples’ Campaign estimates that there are some 140 million people in the U.S. who are poor and low income, over 300,000 of whom live in Washington, D.C. During our weekly “Feast for the Street” not far from the White House, we, at the DDCW, share a meal each Thursday with some of the nearly 7,000 who are homeless in the nation’s capital.

These exorbitant military outlays, while vital social programs continue to be cut and underfunded, constitute a direct theft from the poor. In the face of such an affront to God and the poor, where is the public outcry? Dr. King declared in his April 4, 1967 “Beyond Vietnam” speech: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Dr. King further asserted that “we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.” We need to exorcise and resist that obsession with death which possesses our nation and accept Dr. King’s prescription for revolutionary change!

Numerous people of faith and conscience continue laboring to bring about this revolutionary change and social transformation. One such group is the Kings Bay Plowshares.

On April 4, 2018, to mark the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination, seven peacemakers — Elizabeth McAlister, Fr. Steve Kelly SJ, Carmen Trotta, Clare Grady, Martha Hennessy, (Dorothy Day’s granddaughter), Mark Colville, and Patrick O’Neill — were inspired by their faith to engage in a plowshares action at the Kings Bay Naval Base in St. Mary, GA. The base is the Navy’s Atlantic Ocean port for six Trident submarines which have the capacity to cause the devastation of 3,600 Hiroshima-scale attacks.

Carrying hammers and small baby bottles containing their own blood, they sought to symbolically disarm weapons of mass destruction. In their action statement the Kings Bay Plowshares declared:

“We come in peace on this sorrowful anniversary of the martyrdom of a great prophet, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Fifty years ago today, April 4, 1968, Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee as a reaction to his efforts to address ‘the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism.’ We come to Kings Bay to answer the call of the prophet Isaiah (2:4) to ‘beat swords into plowshares’ by disarming the world’s deadliest nuclear weapon, the Trident submarine…”

The peacemakers went to three sites on the base: the administration building, the D5 Missile monument installation, and the nuclear weapons storage bunkers. They used crime scene tape, hammers, and hung banners. They also brought an indictment charging the U.S. government for crimes against peace. They are charged with conspiracy, destruction of property on a naval installation, depredation of government property and trespass – charges carrying up to 25 years in federal prison. Liz McAlister and Fr. Steve Kelly have been jailed for over one year now. Mark Colville has also been jailed most of the last year while the other four are out on bail.

On August 7th, the seven will appear before U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Wood in Brunswick, GA to offer oral arguments regarding why they should be allowed to use the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in their defense. In April, a U.S. Magistrate denied defense motions to dismiss the charges based on the evidence presented concerning RFRA. Following this hearing a trial date will be set.

On Labor Day, 1989, I participated in the Thames River Plowshares action directed at the 10th Trident submarine. As I was on top of this weapon of mass murder which can end life on our planet, praying and reading from scripture before being arrested and jailed, I experienced a miraculous transformation. My conviction then, as it is now, is that if we have the faith and will to believe that disarmament and a nonviolent world is possible, and act on that belief, transformation can occur.

The Pentagon and the military-industrial complex can be transformed into life-giving enterprises. The nuclear nations, led by the U.S., can join with the 23 nations that have already ratified the UN Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons. All weapons of war, and war itself can be forever abolished!

Rev. Dr. King said: “We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. We still have a choice today, nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.”

The reign of God is at hand! Inspired and empowered by the Holy Spirit during this holy season of Pentecost, now is the time to make God’s reign of love, justice, and peace a reality. For “with God all things are possible!” (Matthew 19:2).

“The No to state uttered by the unarmed Christ is vindicated in His resurrection.  Of this, the world can never be a witness…This is our glory. From Peter and Paul to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Romero. Christians have known something which the “nations” as such can never know or teach—how to live and how to die. We are witnesses to the resurrection. We practice resurrection. We risk resurrection.”  — Daniel Berrigan (Testimony: The Word Made Fresh)

April 30th marks the second anniversary of the death of Daniel Berrigan, SJ, the renowned prophetic priest, peacemaker, writer and poet. Dan was an important friend and mentor to me and countless others. His spirit lives on in the hearts of all he touched throughout his 94 years. And his writings and poems continue to instruct and challenge.

During this holy season of Easter, I have been pondering Dan’s words in his profound and deeply challenging essay, “An Ethic of Resurrection,” from Testimony. How do we understand resurrection in a time of pervasive systemic racism, violence, oppression, inequality, perpetual war, rampant political instability, corporate domination, and the ever present threats of nuclear extinction and climate chaos?

When I read Dan’s words, this is how I interpret them and apply it to our present context: To be witnesses to the resurrection we must utter our “No'” to state-sanctioned violence, racism, oppression, injustice, and all that endangers life and creation. We must utter an unequivocal “No” to ALL that divides, demeans, and destroys. We must act in the hope of the resurrection — a hope that is rooted in the  conviction that Jesus has forever overcome the forces of sin and death. Thus, our ‘Yes’ to this belief compels us to resist the forces of death and evil in our world, to risk the cross and practice resurrection.

Dan Berrigan showed us how to be a witness to the resurrection. Clearly, his “No” and “Yes” were rooted in his faith in the crucified and risen Jesus. Dan’s exemplary life witness is a powerful testimony to resurrection hope.

READ: Remembering Father Dan Berrigan

It is this hope that compelled him to risk traveling to a war zone in North Vietnam in 1968 and to be involved in two prophetic watershed peace actions: the Catonsville Nine Action and the Plowshares Eight witness.

Dan, along with his brother Phil and six other peacemakers, carried out the first of what have come to be known as “plowshares” actions. The Plowshares Eight action took place on September 9, 1980, at the General Electric Nuclear Re-entry Division in King of Prussia, Pa. The eight hammered on two nose cones of the Mark 12 A nuclear warhead, poured blood on documents, and offered prayers for peace. They were arrested and initially charged with more than 10 felony and misdemeanor counts.

In their action statement, the Plowshares Eight declared: “In confronting GE we choose to obey God’s law of life, rather than a corporate summons to death. Our beating of swords into plowshares is a way to enflesh this biblical call. In our action, we draw on a deep-rooted faith in Christ, who changed the course of human history through his willingness to suffer rather than to kill. We are filled with hope for our world and for our children as we join this act of resistance.”

They were convicted by a jury of burglary, conspiracy, and criminal mischief and sentenced to prison terms of five to 10 years. This sentence was appealed and in litigation until 1990. They were resentenced and paroled for up to 23 1/2 months in consideration of time already served in prison.

The Plowshares Eight action has inspired more than 100 similar actions to date, two of which, in 1982 and 1989, both directed at the Trident ballistic missile submarine, I was honored to be a part of.

The most recent of these occurred on April 4, 2018, when seven Catholic peacemakers entered the King’s Bay Naval Base in St. Mary, Georgia. The base opened in 1979 as the Navy’s Atlantic Ocean port for six Trident submarines which have the capacity to cause the devastation of 3,600 Hiroshima-scale attacks.

They chose to act on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., who devoted his life to addressing the giant triplets of militarism, racism, and materialism. Carrying hammers and small baby bottles containing their own blood, they sought to disarm weapons of mass destruction. The seven are currently being charged with two felony counts and a misdemeanor and are being held without bond at the Camden County jail.

In their action statement, the Kings Bay Plowshares declared: “We come to Kings Bay to answer the call of the prophet Isaiah (2:4) to “beat swords into plowshares” by disarming the world’s deadliest nuclear weapon, the Trident submarine… Nuclear weapons eviscerate the rule of law, enforce white supremacy, perpetuate endless war and environmental destruction and ensure impunity for all manner of crimes against humanity… A just and peaceful world is possible when we join prayers with action. Swords into Plowshares!”

From jail, Elizabeth McAlister — Dan’s sister-in-law — explained the action in this way:

“Modest hopes is the title of one of the more than 50 books by my late brother-in-law Daniel Berrigan (RIP and Presente!) It might be fair to say that we came to Kings Bay Submarine base animated by the absurd conviction that we could make some impact on slowing, if not ending, the mad rush to the devastation of our magnificent planet. And this is no extreme overstatement. The six Trident submarines that consider Kings Bay their homeport carry enough destructive power to destroy all life on Earth. What difference can seven aging activists make?                                                                     

We come with hammers to imprint the pristine coat of the weapon…We come with blood (our own) to mark the weapons’ purpose as the spilling of blood and yes, we come with bolt cutters to violate the fences that protect the weapons that spell death to all life. But above all, we come with our voices and our lives. We raise our voices in a cry to dismantle the weapons—all of them as we risk life and limb and our future hope to make this plea: dismantle the weapons.”

I have no doubt how Dan would view the Kings Bay Plowshares witness. He writes:

“We have yet to experience resurrection, which I translate: the hope that hopes on…A blasphemy against this hope is named deterrence, or Trident submarines, or star wars, or preemptive strike, or simply, any nuclear weapon…

That is why we speak again and again of 1980 and all the plowshares actions since, how some continue to labor to break the demonic clutch on our souls of the ethic of Mars, of wars and rumors of wars, inevitable wars, just wars, necessary wars, victorious wars, and say our no in acts of hope. For us, all of these repeated arrests, the interminable jailings, the life of our small communities, the discipline of nonviolence, these have embodied an ethic of resurrection.”

I am deeply moved by the courageous action of the Kings Bay Plowshares. Their prophetic witness is a clear testament to the truth of the gospel and the hope of Easter.

Let us do all we can to support the Kings Bay Plowshares, and their families and communities, as they continue their hope-filled witness in jail and as they face the courts.

Like Dan, they believe that the powers and principalities and the forces of death will never have the last word.

Living in a time of perpetual war, climate chaos, escalating nuclear threat, economic inequality, pervasive poverty, racial violence, mistreatment of immigrants, mass shootings, rampant sexism, mass incarceration, and political instability, how can I and all followers of Jesus make the Word flesh? Reflecting and praying about this question and how we can be faithful to the gospel, I offer this Advent meditation and prayer.

Disarm Our Hearts
In the beginning was the Word
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
Jesus was in the beginning with God,
All things came to be through Him. (John 1: 1-3)

Jesus, light of the human race,
light overcoming darkness,
it is You who we seek during this Advent time.

For You are the Incarnation,
the Word made flesh
who dwells among us.

It is You, Jesus, our Savior, that we will follow,
and no other earthly principality or power.
May Your spirit of love and nonviolence fill our hearts and the hearts of people everywhere
as we strive to renounce all killing and make God’s reign of justice and peace a reality in our world.

Jesus, Son of God, Human One, Healer, Peacemaker, Redeemer, our only hope,
help us to disarm our hearts and our world of violence, racial hatred, and fear.
Empower us to abolish war, all weapons—from nuclear weapons to killer drones to handguns—
revere our environment, and safeguard all creation. Help us to respect the dignity of each person, welcome the immigrant and refugees, end sexism, reject torture, and transform structures and policies that
cause and perpetuate poverty, oppression, discrimination, and social injustice.

Help us, dear Jesus, during this holy Advent season,
to make Your Word flesh,
to rid ourselves and our world of all that wounds, divides, and destroys,
and become channels of your peace, justice, mercy, and reconciling love.
For nothing is impossible with God.

Come Lord Jesus!

Amen.

In January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists turned its “Doomsday Clock,” meant to convey how close we are to destroying civilization with dangerous technologies of our own making, to two and a half minutes before midnight to reflect the current dangers posed by nuclear weapons and climate change. “The probability of global catastrophe is very high,” The Bulletin Science and Security Board warned, “and the actions needed to reduce the risks of disaster must be taken very soon.” Thus, the urgency of the moment requires the absolute necessity for nuclear weapons to be abolished.

Nuclear weapons are immoral, illegal, anti-God, anti-life, anti-creation and have no right to exist.

Fr. Richard McSorley, SJ, the renowned peacemaker and teacher of Gospel nonviolence, wrote: “It’s a Sin to Build A Nuclear Weapon!” Pope Francis is very clear: The total elimination of nuclear weapons is “both a challenge and a moral and humanitarian imperative” of our time. And the atomic bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, known as Hibakusha, plead to the world: “Humankind can’t coexist with nuclear weapons.”

READ: What Will It Take to Ban the Bomb?

With the advent of the Nuclear Age, Albert Einstein declared: “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our mode of thinking and we, thus, drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” Einstein, who had been instrumental in persuading President Roosevelt to build the atomic bomb, knew history had been forever changed. He realized that, for the first time ever, humans possessed the capability to destroy the world. He warned that we could avoid that outcome only if we drastically changed our way of thinking and banned nuclear weapons.

Thankfully, increasing numbers of countries have heeded Einstein’s advice, and that of many others, and have now acted to ban these weapons. On July 7, at the conclusion of a special “UN Conference To Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons,” 122 countries voted in favor of a historic treaty to legally prohibit nuclear weapons. This treaty bans nuclear weapons and establishes a framework for the elimination of nuclear weapons programs — including warheads, materials, delivery systems and facilities.

This is a most encouraging and hopeful sign. However, the U.S. and other countries that bear nuclear arms, and as well as those nations that either come under their protection or host weapons on their soil, boycotted the negotiations and have thus far refused to endorse this treaty.

And now we have an unpredictable president who is committed to upgrading the nuclear stockpile and who, at a moment’s notice, can order a nuclear attack.

Today the U.S. possesses nearly 7,000 nuclear weapons, many of which are on hair-trigger alert, and it proposes to spend around $1 trillion over the next 30 years to modernize its existing nuclear arsenal. This money is in addition to the estimated $10 trillion the U.S. has already spent on its nuclear weapons program over the last 75 years. The exorbitant amounts of money and resources that have been, and continue to be, misused on nuclear weapons and other war preparations constitutes a direct theft from the poor.

It is hypocritical for the U.S., the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons and the leading nuclear superpower which refuses to disarm, to call on any other country, including North Korea, to give up their nuclear weapons. The U.S. can never request that another country disarm until it first apologizes and atones for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, endorses the treaty on the “Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,” and totally dismantles its nuclear arsenal. Only then can the U.S. legitimately ask other nuclear nations to disarm.

RELATED: A Native Perspective on War, Terrorism, and the MOAB Bomb

In 1987, I wrote the following in the book that I coedited called Swords Into Plowshares:

“Spawned by a deep-seated violence that since the beginning of recorded history has possessed the human heart, nuclear weapons have in fact become and idol in which many people place their trust. The words of the prophet Isaiah describe well our situation: ‘The people follow foreign customs. Their land is full of silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures…there is no end to their chariots [weapons]. Their land is full of idols and they worship idols made by their own hands.’” (Isaiah 2:6-8)

In short, the nuclear idol is a product of a society that has placed its complete trust in military power and material security, rather than in God.

What would Jesus have us do? His commands are clear: You cannot serve both God and mammon. Love one another. Love your enemies. You shall not kill. Put away the sword!

And the prophets Isaiah and Micah proclaim: “And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war no more.” (Isa. 2:1-4)

Thomas Merton declared that the most urgent necessity of our time is to not only prevent the destruction of the human race by nuclear war, but to refuse our consent to this greatest of crimes.

On September 4, 1989, I was blessed to be part of a symbolic act of disarmament to nonviolently resist this “greatest of crimes.” Through God’s amazing grace, six peacemakers and I sought to enact God’s dream for the human family by literally beating nuclear swords into plowshares in New London, Connecticut.

We were able to swim and canoe to the docked U.S.S. Pennsylvania, the 10th Trident nuclear submarine, a weapons system that could destroy much, if not all, of God’s creation. We then proceeded to carry out a “plowshares” action on the Trident, which the Pentagon has described as the “ultimate first-strike weapon.” After hammering and pouring blood on the hull, three of us were able to climb onto the submarine. After reading aloud chapter 15 of John’s gospel, I prayed on top of the Trident for the abolition of all nuclear weapons.

From aboard this most destructive weapon, I believed then, and I believe now, that if human beings have the faith to believe that disarmament is possible, and act on that faith, it can occur. We, along with other plowshares activists and many other peacemakers, know this can happen because we were actually able to begin the process of true disarmament! To date there have been over 100 plowshares actions, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., mindful of the extreme perils posed by the nuclear threat, warned the world in 1967: “The choice today is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or non-existence.”

In light of the ongoing nuclear posturing between the U.S. and North Korea, existing conflicts between other nuclear nations, and the continuing danger of nuclear proliferation, will the U.S. and the other nuclear nations choose nonviolence or nonexistence?

Every possible nonviolent action and political and diplomatic measure must be taken now to eradicate the nuclear threat, abolish war, and create a nonviolent world. The very future of human survival and our planet’s existence is at stake.

Judge Salerno, thank you for being patient with us in presenting our case.

I stand before you as a murder victim family member. My younger brother, Paul, was murdered in Hartford, CT, in 1999 by a mentally ill homeless man named Dennis Soutar. The best way I know how to honor my brother is to work for the prevention of violence, not to replicate it. That is why I am in this courtroom today.

The government has tried to show that the action of those of us arrested at the U.S. Supreme Court on January 17, 2017, constitutes a crime.

The government has failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that we 12 engaged in a criminal offense.

We 12 did not go to the U.S. Supreme Court to engage in unlawful conduct or to bring public notice to a party, organization, or movement. It’s not a crime to be part of a group that opposes state-sanctioned killing. Some of us on trial belong to certain groups, as was testified to, and others don’t. We are not all part of one group. On January 17, we converged at the Supreme Court as individuals from different walks of life to convey with many others a message: state-sponsored homicide is unjust, immoral, and must end!

We went to the Supreme Court to peacefully exercise our First Amendment rights and to witness for life. The banner we unfurled on the court steps does not bear the name of any party, organization, or movement but simply states: “STOP EXECUTIONS!” Stop Executions is not a movement. This statement demonstrates a cry of the people for life, not death.

The government has presented no evidence that the business of the Supreme Court was impeded on January 17.  Officer Williams testified that nobody was impeded from going into or out of the building.

Judge Salerno, we ask you to carefully consider the testimony of Officer Williams on how the Title 40 statute is applied. Officer Williams testified that arrests are typically made on the plaza if there is violence or a disruption of the court. There’s no evidence that the 12 of us were violent or disruptive of the Court. Officer Williams testified that the group did not represent a threat. Therefore, if our group did not represent a threat, then why were we arrested? It seems very clear that the Supreme Court police, based on their political beliefs, determine who should be arrested on the Supreme Court plaza. Based on the testimony of Officer Williams, we were arrested for trying to stop the death penalty. We submit that our arrest was selective and arbitrary.

The evidence the defense has put forth clearly shows that it was never our intention to commit a crime or break the law, but rather to uphold the essence of the law which is rooted in justice and saving and protecting life.

Judge Salerno, you have heard testimony from four defendants, my friends Randy Gardner, SueZann Bosler, Derrick Jamison and Sam Sheppard, who have experienced immeasurable suffering as a result of violence and the death penalty. It is because of their suffering that they were compelled to act at the Supreme Court on January 17.

You have heard from Derrick Jamison, the 119th death row exoneree, as to why he was at the U.S. Supreme Court on January 17. Derrick spent 20 years on death row in Ohio for a crime he did not commit. He had six different execution dates. He testified that during his time on death row 18 men, whom he knew well, were executed. It is a miracle that Derrick is alive and with us today. Derrick’s testimony underscores how flawed and broken the legal system is and how possible it is for innocent people to be executed. Since 1973, 159 people sentenced to death have ultimately been exonerated because of evidence showing their innocence.

Our society and criminal justice system needs to reclaim its humanity and tell Derrick and other exonerees how sorry it is for the unspeakable injustice they experienced and pledge its commitment to make sure this never happens to anyone else. I pray that each one of us in this courtroom today will make this pledge.

Judge Salerno, given what these four defendants have experienced, the Supreme Court police should have welcomed them onto the Supreme Court plaza, not arrested them.

And finally you heard testimony from Rob Lee, the attorney who helped represent the now executed Ricky Gray and who is now trying to save the life of William Morva, a mentally ill man who Virginia plans to execute on July 6. Mr. Lee established the fact that there was a petition for a stay of execution before the Supreme Court to save Ricky Gray’s life at the time of our action and that we defendants were acting on January 17 to try, along with others, to save Ricky Gray’s life.

How can it be a crime to nonviolently try and stop a murder? And so Ricky Gray is now added to the list of the 1,455 people executed in the U.S. since the reinstatement of the death penalty 40 years ago. Judge Salerno, if someone has forewarning that a killing of an individual is about to occur, clearly that individual has a moral and legal right to do whatever they can to nonviolently try to prevent it.

Many of us, including myself, who were present at the Supreme Court on Jan. 17, signed petitions to save Ricky Gray’s life. Knowing that time was short and that his execution was imminent, we had to take immediate action to save his life. And so our action, in a way, was a visible living amicus brief, calling on the Supreme Court justices to stop the execution.

We 12 acted to stop a crime and to prevent state-sanctioned killing. Specifically, we acted to try and stop the imminent killing of Ricky Gray who was executed by the state of Virginia after being denied an appeal by the U.S. Supreme Court several hours after our release from custody on January 18. Once again, the U.S. Supreme Court permitted a state, this time the state of Virginia, to carry out an act of premeditated killing.

When will the killing end? Why does the government, 31 states, and the U.S. Supreme Court sanction the killing of people who kill to show that killing is wrong? Some 140 countries, including the European Union, and 19 states in the U.S., no longer practice the death penalty. On January 17, we 12, along with many others, went to the Supreme Court, the highest Court in the land, to call on the Court and the nation to stop executions.

We submit that our actions were legally and morally justified and necessary. Judge Salerno, we 12 stand in a long nonviolent tradition — from biblical times to now — of people of faith and conscience who have nonviolently acted to uphold God’s law of “thou shall not kill” and the law of love and justice in resistance to injustice, violence, and killing. In the U.S., we now have a national holiday honoring one of the greatest nonviolent prophets in history, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was arrested numerous times for acts of civil disobedience. Our action at the U.S. Supreme Court occurred the day following King’s national holiday. When we were on the Supreme Court steps, we were very mindful of Dr. King who, as an opponent of the death penalty, declared: “Capital punishment is society’s final assertion that it will not forgive.”

There is a direct causal connection between the nonviolent actions Dr. King and other civil rights activists took and how those actions resulted in the ending of unjust and illegal segregation laws in the U.S. Without countless civil rights workers being arrested and jailed, there never would have been an end to legal apartheid in the U.S. As murder victim family members, a death row exoneree, a family member of the executed, and death penalty abolitionists, we 12 believe like the civil rights workers who have gone before us that our actions and other such similar acts will result one day in bringing about an end to the barbaric practice of capital punishment in our society.

Judge Salerno, despite the government’s assertion that we should be found guilty, I submit that we have committed no crime. We were, in fact, engaging in act of crime prevention! Thus, we should never have been arrested and jailed in the first place. We 12 acted out of conscience to stop the state from killing and to save a life. We appeal to you today to act on your conscience and in the name of justice. Judge Salerno, we need your help and the help of prosecutors Mr. Korba and Ms. Pelker to end state-sanctioned killing. Please join us in this effort. On behalf of all the defendants, we appeal to this court to find us not guilty.