Nun to Continue Her Antimissile Activism Out of Prison
From Associated Press
March 4, 2005
DENVER — A nun who spent the last 18 months in prison for defacing a
missile site in a peace protest is scheduled to be released today, but
she may face another confrontation with prosecutors for refusing to pay
$3,000 in restitution.
Jackie Marie Hudson, 70, was convicted in April 2003 of obstructing
national defense and damaging government property. She and two other
nuns had poured blood on a Minuteman III silo in northern Colorado in
October 2002, hit nearby railroad tracks with a hammer and then sat
down to await arrest.
In a letter posted on a website devoted
to nonviolence and religious activism, Hudson wrote that she refuses
"to pay money to this morally bereft government which presently spends
over one billion dollars a day to slaughter or in planning the
slaughter of millions of innocent persons."
Her lawyer,
Walter Gerash, said Hudson and her supporters wanted U.S. District
Judge Robert E. Blackburn to allow them to make alternative restitution
in the form of money and time donated to various causes.
"I
think he will" accept the alternative, Gerash said. "She has no money.
She's a nun. She's not obligated to raise money to pay."
