State v. Klapstein

In a split decision, the Minnesota Court of Appeals dismissed the State of Minnesota’s appeal of a trial court decision allowing defendants who participated in a “valve turner” protest to present a necessity defense. Two defendants who used bolt-cutters to enter an oil pipeline valve station and to cut a chain securing a valve device and one defendant who filmed the activities were charged with felony criminal damage to property, aiding and abetting felony criminal damage to property, gross misdemeanor trespassing, and aiding and abetting gross misdemeanor trespassing, A fourth defendant who accompanied the other three defendants and contacted the pipeline operator to notify it of their actions was charged with conspiracy to commit felony criminal damage to property and aiding and abetting felony criminal damage to property. The appellate court said the State had not made the necessary showing that the trial court’s ruling would have a critical impact on the prosecutors’ case “in the absence of other yet-unmade rulings” regarding what testimony and evidence would be permitted, what objections the State would make, and what the trial court’s rulings would be. One judge dissented, saying that permitting any evidence regarding global warming and the defendants’ belief that the federal government’s response to global warming had been ineffective “would have a critical impact on the outcome of the trial.” The dissenting judge also wrote that the evidence the defendants wished to present did not relate to the necessity defense as interpreted under Minnesota law because the defendants could not establish the three essential elements of the defense: that there was no legal alternative to their actions, that the harm was imminent, and that there was a direct, causal connection between their actions and the prevention of global warming.

A Minnesota trial court granted four environmental activists’ motion to present a necessity defense. The defendants—two of whom acknowledged they had attempted to shut down tar sands crude oil pipelines by turning shut-off valves on the pipelines—were charged with criminal damage to property of critical public facilities, utilities, and pipelines; trespass on such facilities; and/or aiding and abetting criminal damage to property and/or trespass. The court noted that Minnesota’s standard for the necessity defense was “high” and would require the defendants to show that “the harm that would have resulted from obeying the law would have significantly exceeded the harm actually caused by breaking the law, there was no legal alternative to breaking the law, the defendant was in danger of imminent physical harm, and there was a direct causal connection between breaking the law and preventing the harm.” The court indicated that its grant of the motion to present evidence on the necessity defense was “not unlimited” and that it expected any evidence “to be focused, direct, and presented in a non-cumulative manner.”