The Greenpeace case

 Inside Climate News - This week, a jury in North Dakota found Greenpeace liable for more than $660 million in damages to Energy Transfer, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. It was a monumental verdict that many civil society groups and First Amendment lawyers have warned could chill free speech,

The case stems from the protests that erupted near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in 2016, when Indigenous activists and environmentalists gathered to oppose construction of the pipeline, which crossed the Missouri River close to the reservation. Standing Rock leaders warned that a spill could contaminate their water supply and that construction would disturb sacred lands, and said they had not been properly consulted....

The jury ruled against Greenpeace on numerous counts, however, finding it liable for trespass, conspiracy, defamation and other offenses. The case named three Greenpeace entities as defendants, two in the United States and its international umbrella organization.

A group of human rights and environmental lawyers formed to monitor the trial, concerned that it would not be conducted fairly. After the verdict was announced, the group said it found “problems that included a jury that was patently biased in favor of Energy Transfer, with many members working in the fossil fuel industry; a judge who lacked the requisite experience and legal knowledge to rule properly on the complex First Amendment and other evidentiary issues at the center of the case; and incendiary and prejudicial statements by lawyers for Energy Transfer that tried to criminalize Greenpeace and by extension the entire climate movement by attacking constitutionally-protected advocacy.”

Greenpeace said it will appeal.