CONVICTIONS SET ASIDE: District Court ruling says the evidence didn't back verdicts.
A Ketchikan judge on Monday set aside guilty verdicts returned by a jury against the activist group Greenpeace and the captain of its boat for violating state environmental regulations during a 2004 visit to Alaska.
District Court Judge Kevin Miller provided little reason for his unusual order acquitting the Greenpeace defendants except that, in his judgment, the evidence did not support the guilty verdicts.
"The decision to remove these verdicts from the province of the jury is one that this court does not take lightly," Miller wrote.
Miller presided over the jury trial and was responding to a post-verdict request by the defense to consider a reversal of the convictions.
Assistant attorney general James Fayette, reached in New York while on vacation, said: "I've been a prosecutor in Anchorage for 12 years and I've never seen this. ... I've never heard of it happening."
A Ketchikan jury found Greenpeace Inc. and Arctic Sunrise Capt. Arne Sorensen guilty in May of violating Alaska oil pollution prevention laws during a July 2004 trip the activist group made to Southeast Alaska to conduct an anti-logging campaign in the Tongass National Forest.
Under state law, a non-tank vessel larger than 400 gross tons must file an oil spill response plan application with the state, including a certificate of financial responsibility and an oil spill contingency plan.
The jury on May 9 convicted Greenpeace on two counts of operating a ship without oil spill contingency plans on July 12 and July 14, 2004. The jury found the organization not guilty of operating without a certificate of financial responsibility for cleaning potential spills.
The jury found Sorensen guilty of two counts of operating without contingency plans on both dates. He also was found guilty of not having the financial responsibility certificate on July 12 but not guilty of operating without the certificate on July 14.
William Beekman, the ship's agent, also was charged with operating without either document. The jury acquitted him of both charges.
Before the judge's decision Monday, Greenpeace faced up to $400,000 in fines; Sorensen faced up to $30,000 and a possible three years in jail.
"We respect the judge's decision, although we are disappointed and disagree with it," Fayette said. He said he was still looking into whether he could and would appeal the decision.
Lawyers for Greenpeace and Sorensen could not be reached Monday evening.
Daily News reporter Megan Holland can be reached at mrholland@adn.com. The Associated Press contributed to this story.
