Newspaper Watch: 'Lawful excuse' ruling twisted by Irish media

In the aftermath of the acquital of the Pitstop Ploughshares Five on charges of criminal damage to a US military plane in Shannon, a large number of commentators speculated about the precedent established by the ruling.

Matt Cooper, writing in the Sunday Times, described the defendants as "vandals" who "knew they were breaking the law". He presented the possibility that in future, "any defendant charged with a violent act who can argue successfully that the crime was committed to achieve a greater good can feel confident their case will get a decent hearing". He used the example of somebody being disturbed by a drunken neighbour and vandalising their car with the "lawful excuse" that it was done in order to prevent them from driving while drunk to illustrate how "far-fetched" the Ploughshares' defence had been.

Ian O'Doherty, writing in the Irish Independent, also described the Ploughshares Five as "vandals" and argued that "because their actions were deemed to have been committed in good conscience and committed for the common good", this precedent would allow anybody to "feel free" "to take a hammer to some hippie's car or van".

The Limerick Leader, in an editorial entitled "Wreckers' charter", warned that "the property of no-one is no-longer safe from anyone, assuming that the attacker's belief is honestly held".

In the Sunday Independent, Emer O'Kelly declared that "what happened at Shannon airport was a massive crime", while Eoghan Harris likened the decision to "giving a licence to lunatics" and asked whether he could now "kill a cop in the course of his anti-American activities and claim that his conscience compelled him to do it".

The one thing that all of these pieces had in common was that they were all irresponsible and erroneous rubbish. The most obvious error is the simple fact that when a court decides that somebody is innocent of a crime because they had a "lawful excuse" for their act, then there was no crime.

Typically, Harris's argument was even more erroneous than the rest, since the Ploughsares were charged under the Criminal Damage act of 1991, which allows the defence of "lawful excuse". No such defence is allowed for crimes against the person. The professional media had been largely absent from the court during the trial. One of the defendants went so far as to describe the situation as a "media blackout".

In the absence of the media, supporters of the Ploughshares published transcripts of the proceedings on indymedia.ie*. If the ranks of media commentators had considered the trial to be insufficently newsworthy to merit their attendance, they might at least have taken a few minutes to log on and check the evidence recorded there. If they had, they would have found the judge explaining the law clearly and concisely to the jury: "even if you are satisfied that they had honest belief (about which there appears to be no dispute), you must finally decide whether or not their action was reasonable". Instead, all of these commentators chose to advise their readers that they could commit acts which no jury would find reasonable as long as they had an "honest belief", acts which would therefore be criminal.

* Full disclosure: Chekov Feeney helps to run indymedia