Climate fighter rejects a plea bargain

... the government really wanted me to take a plea bargain, because they felt like they needed me to come before the court with my head bowed and say, “I apologize for my actions,” and that sort of thing. Because an act of civil disobedience is inherently a small threat to government authority. It’s a small statement that we don’t recognize the government as the sole moral authority on what’s right and wrong, and that we answer to a higher law, a higher law of morality. So I think to re-establish that moral authority in the public eye, the government and prosecutors generally look for activists to take a plea bargain. And of course I had the opposite goals there. I wanted to encourage people to exercise our power as citizens and to continue questioning our government.