Kelly

On November 2, 2009, appellants Father Stephen Kelly, Lynne Greenwald, Father William Bichsel, Susan Crane, and Sister Anne Montgomery—in an act of symbolic protest against nuclear weapons—cut their way through two fences and into a secure area of United States Naval Base KitsapBangor, near Seattle. All are longtime peace and disarmament activists. Two are Catholic priests, and one is an eighty-year-old Catholic nun. Two others are grandmothers.

Once inside, the group spread “simulated blood” on base fences and unfurled a banner reading, “Plowshares—Trident Illegal and Immoral.” (Although the government is tight-lipped about Kitsap-Bangor’s mission, appellants say the base houses submarines carrying nuclear-warhead-tipped Trident missiles.) Shortly afterwards, Marines detained the protestors. The United States later initiated this criminal prosecution.

A jury convicted appellants of conspiracy to trespass, to destroy property within the special territorial jurisdiction of the United States, and to injure property of the United States having a value exceeding $1,000, violating 18 U.S.C. § 371 . The jury also separately convicted appellants of the underlying trespass,…