Cheers! to Scott Warren—and to the Jury Who Acquitted Him and the Lawyers Who Defended Him

November 25, 2019 | revcom.us

 

On November 20, a jury in Tucson, Arizona, acquitted Scott Warren on two federal felony charges of “harboring undocumented immigrants.” Warren was facing a possible ten years in prison. For what? For providing water to people who faced excruciating death by dehydration.

For years, the U.S. government has made major crossings on the southern border into a war zone—forcing impoverished immigrants to try to walk through dangerous, deadly terrain in isolated areas. Scott Warren is a volunteer with the group No More Deaths, which has placed water bottles in the desert to provide life-saving sustenance to immigrants. The government tried Warren earlier this year on the two counts plus a third charge of conspiracy, and that trial ended in a hung jury. But with the Trump/Pence fascist regime waging an unrelenting assault upon all immigrants, prosecutors were determined to send a message that anyone who supports immigrants could face severe punishment, and launched a second trial on the same harboring charges, while dropping the conspiracy charge.

Warren’s lawyers argued that his motivation was to “prevent suffering and death.” The prosecutors claimed he deliberately protected two immigrants by helping them evade Border Patrol agents and instructing them on how to avoid a checkpoint. The judge forbade Warren or his attorneys from making any mention of Donald Trump and his vicious anti-immigrant assaults.

The jurors saw through the vicious façade of the government’s case, and it is to their great credit that they quickly came back with not guilty verdicts on all felony counts. Warren said to a crowd of reporters and joyous supporters outside the courtroom, “The government failed in its attempt to criminalize basic human kindness.”

Scott Warren acted to save immigrant lives. The U.S. government has created conditions that have killed thousands of these immigrants. It seeks to punish people who try to save them. Who are the real criminals?

 

Screenshot from video posted by No More Deaths showing border agent grinning while pouring out water left for migrants. No More Deaths reported “Border Patrol agents are destroying gallons of water intended for border crossers.... In data collected by No More Deaths from 2012 to 2015, we find that at least 3,586 gallon jugs of water were destroyed” in one desert corridor.