State v. Taylor

On March 13, 2018, a Washington District Court issued its written findings of fact and conclusions of law allowing a defendant who participated in a protest blocking a freight train to protest the transport of coal and oil to present a necessity defense at his trial. The defendant testified that he believed his actions were “acts of civil disobedience” that he believed “were necessary to avoid or minimize the imminent danger to the Earth due to climate change and the serious and imminent risk of danger to safety of Spokane citizens in the downtown area where [the rail company] transports volatile oil.” Three expert witnesses testified or submitted a declaration on the defendant’s behalf—a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment, a professor of conflict resolution who teaches courses on nonviolent civil resistance, and a “recognized international analyst in nuclear waste storage and transportation and industrial chemical use, transportation and accident prevention, and emergency planning and homeland security.” The court concluded that the defendant satisfied his burden of proof with respect to the necessity defense’s four prongs: he “believed that his actions were necessary to avoid or minimize the immediate harms of global change to the Earth”; he presented evidence that the harm sought to be avoided was greater than the harm he and other protestors created; he did not bring about the harm he sought to prevent; and he believed he had exhausted all legal alternatives and that no other reasonable alternative existed.