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For context, a statement from the legal experts who monitored the trial. > It is our collective assessment that the jury verdict against Greenpeace in North Da
by ttiurani 7mo ago
For context, a statement from the legal experts who monitored the trial.
> It is our collective assessment that the jury verdict against Greenpeace in North Dakota reflects a deeply flawed trial with multiple due process violations that denied Greenpeace the ability to present anything close to a full defense.
https://www.trialmonitors.org/statement-of-independent-trial-monitors-on-verdict-in-greenpeace-trial https://www.trialmonitors.org/statement-of-independent-trial...
- DivingForGold 7mo agoWitness as GP transfers out any remaining assets through crypto (we got hacked !), declares bankruptcy, and comes back with a new name, and Big Oil gets HOSED. . . . She apparently will not go to jail because she is old, and it would be “sentencing her to die within the state prison system.” And hey, while she is accused of moving millions of dollars and various properties she owns to third parties to avoid financial penalties -- this Green Peace story the same take as the "70M Boomer" title below . . .
- JumpCrisscross 7mo agoAs an outsider, why is this a credible institution over the jury and judge?
- docdeek 7mo agoI can't speak to the institution but the only public statements on their website relate to this particular trial. It could be this is the first ever trial they have monitored in this way; it might also be a group that will only ever monitor this one trial.
- amarant 7mo agoIn other words Greenpeace is trying to muddy the waters and hide their guilt by painting themselves as the victims of injustice? How very original..
- some_random 7mo agoYeah we're dealing with a mud fight between two highly resourced adversaries who are practiced in bullshit underhanded tactics and influence operations.
- indubioprorubik 7mo agoNah, its one source of funding. The oil giants pump there money in bonkers oppossition- one Greta Thunberg glueing herself to a public street does more damage to that cause then the whole of counter propaganda ever could. And it prevents the debate about resonable measures like free public transport.
- JumpCrisscross 7mo agoI guess I was expecting a Matt Levine-style breakdown of why the trial was run improperly and why an appellate court would be expected to strike it down. Instead we have vague statements that could have come from an elected’s staff.
- mistrial9 7mo agorelated topic -- "Judge shopping" refers to the practice of litigants strategically filing lawsuits in court districts or divisions where they are likely to be assigned to a judge sympathetic to their cause, often exploiting structural quirks in the judiciary
- dmix 7mo agoMost state courts randomly assign you a judge so it's not that simple, in some cases you can target certain districts in certain states where there are less judges (like the Texas patent judge). This is a trial in North Dakota because that's where the protests happened. I doubt they had many options in a single jurisdiction. The fallback for this stuff is of course a circuit court appeal.
- singleshot_ 7mo agoCare to explain how a circuit court might come to hear an appeal out of a state court of general jurisdiction?
- bilbo0s 7mo agoWell, let's not get into this left-right thing because that could go back and forth forever. Especially in the current environment. eg - "As an outsider, why is [the jury and judge] a credible institution over the monitors?" We should all just give the legal experts time to look over the records of what happened, and assess why. From there, a consensus will likely emerge as to what happened during and before the trial. And the justice or injustice of the matter will present itself. But you can't have a judge say one thing and some other single expert say another, and from those pieces of information decide anything of an authoritative nature. Our institutions just don't have that type of credibility any longer. This is the consequence of credibility crises for any society's steward classes. It was a long slide getting here, decades actually. But I think we are firmly now at the point of the "credibility collapse" portion of the "credibility crisis".
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- quotz 7mo agoBecause sometimes corruption happens.
- some_random 7mo agoThey're a bunch of lifetime activists who spun up an authoritative sounding NGO that has done literally nothing else, but yeah muh corruption.
- toomuchtodo 7mo agoOil companies have been suppressing climate change research for decades to keep cooking the earth for profits. Is that not corruption? I suppose if you are economically exposed to these gains, don’t believe in climate change, and/or won’t be here for the bad times from this, the facts may not matter to your mental model. The facts remain that climate change is real and oil companies are doing their best to extract every bit of profit they can until we’re off of oil, regardless of the negative trajectories and outcomes from this. https://www.ucs.org/resources/decades-deceit https://www.ucs.org/resources/decades-deceit
- some_random 7mo agoOil companies have done worse than that, but we're not talking about them right now we're talking about Trial Monitors Dot Org, the real authoritative source on this trial that has done literally nothing else.
- switchbak 7mo agoYou know, it's possible for these oil companies to have done all this bad stuff, and for Greenpeace to be a pretty shitty organization. And for the person to have a different mindset than all the strawman assumptions you just made.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
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- harimau777 7mo agoIn America, just about anything is more cridble than our "justice" system.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- sbuttgereit 7mo agoBased on their "Meet the Committee" page, they look a bit more like they have a dog in this fight beyond simply adjudicating the case. https://www.trialmonitors.org/meet-the-committee https://www.trialmonitors.org/meet-the-committee Plenty of accomplished people there, but as a group "unbiased observers" isn't the first phrase that comes to mind.
- philwelch 7mo agoSurely you can’t be suggesting that a committee of environmental activists might be biased in favor of Greenpeace? https://www.trialmonitors.org/meet-the-committee https://www.trialmonitors.org/meet-the-committee
- some_random 7mo agoWhy should I care what they think? Seriously, I'm so tired of seeing XYZ totally real and credentialed expert non government organization pop up in weird appeals to authority. They couldn't even be bothered to monitor any other trials for this one, this looks to be the only thing they've ever done.
- bombcar 7mo agoMy non-profit Analyzing the HN Posts (just created today) has verified that this is 100% real.
- ufmace 7mo ago[flagged]
- swiftcoder 7mo ago> they're like 90% left-wing activists I'm not sure that's an accurate description. Are "Human Rights" inherently left-wing? Is environmental protection inherently left-wing? Is political corruption inherently right wing? This is of legal experts each with 30+ years of experience in the fields with which this trial is concerned (environmentalism, corruption, humans rights abuses).
- ufmace 7mo agoPerhaps anti-oil activists would have been a better term. That seems more plainly true to me. They might or might not have had more valid cases in their respective pasts. But it doesn't seem right to me to term themselves "trial monitors" when they seem pretty plainly biased for one side of the trial. It would be more okay if they had some pro-oil attorneys on their board too, or called themselves "Greenpeace Defenders" or something. I know, it's hardly the first or the most egregious case of deceptive naming out there. But it's still worth calling out in my opinion, especially when it it still, at the time of this writing, on the top of the HN thread about this, described as if they were unbiased legal experts.
- swiftcoder 7mo ago> But it doesn't seem right to me to term themselves "trial monitors" when they seem pretty plainly biased for one side of the trial We don't say that "human rights monitors" need to draft a few brutal dictators in order to provide a balanced take on genocide... I'm not sure why "trial monitors" would suggest such a lack of bias either. Monitoring organisations are explicitly setup to ensure that a minority group under threat from a superior power are getting a fair shake.
- xrd 7mo agoI've been really fascinated by Donziger for a while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Donziger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Donziger It's a great story that documents the shifting winds of legal systems across continents. My takeaway: there is zero consistency or absolute truth in any legal system. "Human rights campaigners called Chevron's actions an example of a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP)" "Chevron requested that the case be tried in Ecuador and, in 2002, the US court dismissed the plaintiffs case based on forum non conveniens and ruled that Ecuador had jurisdiction. The US court exacted a promise from Chevron that it would accept the decision of the Ecuadorian courts." "A provincial Ecuadorean court found Chevron guilty in 2011 and awarded the plaintiffs $18 billion in damages. The decision was affirmed by three appellate courts including Ecuador's highest court, the National Court of Justice, although the damages were reduced to $9.5 billion." But now, *Ecuador must pay Chevron* for damages: "In 2018, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled that the $9.5 billion judgment in Ecuador was marked by fraud and corruption and "should not be recognised or enforced by the courts of other States." The amount Ecuador must pay to Chevron to compensate for damages is yet to be determined. The panel also stated that the corruption was limited to one judge, not the entire Ecuadorean legal system."
- FireBeyond 7mo agoGreenpeace should just do a Texas Two Step. Works for heavy industry.
- renewiltord 7mo agoAnd a statement from legal experts monitoring this group https://pastebin.com/EEsEXbcz https://pastebin.com/EEsEXbcz Apparently, according to this source, trial monitors.org is a fake organization. There is some evidence that this is a credible accusation.