by Nancy Dooling, Published on Tuesday, January 24, 2006 by the Binghamton Press & Sun Bulletin (New York)
BINGHAMTON, New
York – At least 30 peace activists sang a hymn as protester Daniel
Burns was handcuffed Monday before beginning the six-month prison
sentence he received in federal court for throwing his own blood in a
military recruiting office.
 Daniel Burns of Ithaca enters the Federal Building in downtown |
Burns, a former Binghamton resident, was the first of the self-named
St. Patrick’s Four to be sentenced for their March 2003 protest in
Tompkins County. Peter De Mott of Ithaca will be sentenced today;
fellow Ithaca residents Clare Grady and Teresa Grady are to be
sentenced later this week. All were in court Monday.
Ignoring
orders from security guards to clear the court, the supporters clapped,
then thronged around the 45-year-old Burns to sing the Sir Arthur
Sullivan hymn Courage, Brother as Burns was led away by U.S. marshals.
The federal Bureau of Prisons will determine in what prison Burns will
serve his term.
In
addition to six months behind bars, Burns will have to pay a portion of
the $958 cost to clean the blood from the walls, floor and doors of the
military recruiting office in Lansing, which was the site of the March
17, 2003, protest where blood was splashed, Judge Thomas J. McAvoy said.
A
jury found all four guilty of damaging government property, a
misdemeanor, but acquitted them of a felony conspiracy charge. Burns,
De Mott and Clare Grady also were found guilty of trespassing, a
misdemeanor.
Burns
was fined $250 by the judge for contempt of court. Burns refused to
answer a prosecutor’s question during his September trial about who
drew the blood from his arm.
Burns wasn’t being punished for protesting, the judge said, but for the way he protested.
“The
court doesn’t question your motivation,” McAvoy told Burns. “I know you
didn’t go there with an evil purpose in mind. What you did was violate
the laws of the U.S.”
And
what Burns also did was put a recruiting officer in fear when blood got
on the man’s hand, the judge said. McAvoy could have given Burns up to
a year in prison, but the judge said no amount of jail time would stop
Burns and his co-defendants from future potential criminal acts.
“Nothing. No ‘thing’ that I say to you is going to change your mind,” McAvoy said.
As
the judge pronounced Burns’ sentence, a mostly silent courtroom burst
into life. “No more war,” a supporter chanted several times.
Burns defended his acts, criticizing the government for illegal wiretaps and the war with Iraq.
“I believe my conduct was honorable,” Burns said.
The
judge also refused to change the wording of Burns’ pre-sentence report.
Burns asked McAvoy to change the words “splashed” and “threw” blood to
“poured.”
Assistant
U.S. Attorney Miroslav Lovric had urged that Burns get the maximum
sentence. He said Burns and the other three protesters had no respect
for the law. He said Burns, Clare Grady and Teresa Grady violated
American law when they went to Cuba last month to protest the
government’s holding of detainees at the U.S. Naval station at
Guantanamo Bay.
Lovric
said the trio did not get permission to travel to Cuba ( a legal
requirement ( and that the U.S. State Department is investigating their
visit.
“It’s
not a major, major crime,” Lovric said. “It’s the attitude: ‘We can do
anything we want as long as it justifies our goals.’ “
Teresa Grady will be sentenced Friday. She criticized McAvoy afterward for the sentence he gave Burns.
“The judge didn’t uphold the Constitution,” she said of McAvoy, a 20-year veteran of the federal bench.
Outside,
the street was quiet after the sentencing, although a few poster boards
had been set in the snow like paper tombstones. “Not Dissenters, But
Lawbreakers,” read one. “St. Pats 4, American Taliban,” read another.
© 2006 Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin