[ttiurani]

For context, a statement from the legal experts who monitored the trial.

> It is our collective assessment that the jury verdict against Greenpeace in North Dakota reflects a deeply flawed trial with multiple due process violations that denied Greenpeace the ability to present anything close to a full defense.

https://www.trialmonitors.org/statement-of-independent-trial...

[JumpCrisscross]

As an outsider, why is this a credible institution over the jury and judge?

[docdeek]

I can't speak to the institution but the only public statements on their website relate to this particular trial. It could be this is the first ever trial they have monitored in this way; it might also be a group that will only ever monitor this one trial.

[JumpCrisscross]

I guess I was expecting a Matt Levine-style breakdown of why the trial was run improperly and why an appellate court would be expected to strike it down. Instead we have vague statements that could have come from an elected’s staff.

[amarant]

In other words Greenpeace is trying to muddy the waters and hide their guilt by painting themselves as the victims of injustice?

How very original..

[some_random]

Yeah we're dealing with a mud fight between two highly resourced adversaries who are practiced in bullshit underhanded tactics and influence operations.

[indubioprorubik]

Nah, its one source of funding. The oil giants pump there money in bonkers oppossition- one Greta Thunberg glueing herself to a public street does more damage to that cause then the whole of counter propaganda ever could. And it prevents the debate about resonable measures like free public transport.

[sbuttgereit]

Based on their "Meet the Committee" page, they look a bit more like they have a dog in this fight beyond simply adjudicating the case.

https://www.trialmonitors.org/meet-the-committee

Plenty of accomplished people there, but as a group "unbiased observers" isn't the first phrase that comes to mind.

[philwelch]

Surely you can’t be suggesting that a committee of environmental activists might be biased in favor of Greenpeace?

https://www.trialmonitors.org/meet-the-committee

[mistrial9]

related topic -- "Judge shopping" refers to the practice of litigants strategically filing lawsuits in court districts or divisions where they are likely to be assigned to a judge sympathetic to their cause, often exploiting structural quirks in the judiciary

[dmix]

Most state courts randomly assign you a judge so it's not that simple, in some cases you can target certain districts in certain states where there are less judges (like the Texas patent judge). This is a trial in North Dakota because that's where the protests happened. I doubt they had many options in a single jurisdiction. The fallback for this stuff is of course a circuit court appeal.

[singleshot_]

Care to explain how a circuit court might come to hear an appeal out of a state court of general jurisdiction?

[quotz]

Because sometimes corruption happens.

[some_random]

They're a bunch of lifetime activists who spun up an authoritative sounding NGO that has done literally nothing else, but yeah muh corruption.

[toomuchtodo]

Oil companies have been suppressing climate change research for decades to keep cooking the earth for profits. Is that not corruption? I suppose if you are economically exposed to these gains, don’t believe in climate change, and/or won’t be here for the bad times from this, the facts may not matter to your mental model. The facts remain that climate change is real and oil companies are doing their best to extract every bit of profit they can until we’re off of oil, regardless of the negative trajectories and outcomes from this.

https://www.ucs.org/resources/decades-deceit

[jcranmer]

Oil companies have a definite history of punching people and then suing them for running into their fist. But I should also point out that Greenpeace is the kind of shitty activist company that also does those kind of tactics, so an oil company suing Greenpeace leaves my priors as "I don't know which side is more likely right in this scenario."

[Maarten88]

> I don't know which side is more likely right in this scenario.

What are the motives? Follow the money? Who profits most might give an indication of who is more likely wrong.

[switchbak]

You know, it's possible for these oil companies to have done all this bad stuff, and for Greenpeace to be a pretty shitty organization. And for the person to have a different mindset than all the strawman assumptions you just made.

[some_random]

Oil companies have done worse than that, but we're not talking about them right now we're talking about Trial Monitors Dot Org, the real authoritative source on this trial that has done literally nothing else.

[terminalshort]

Oil companies haven't done a damn thing. We are the cause of global warming. Every time we pump gas into our car, buy anything that came from far away, or use any technology dependent on oil. Blaming oil companies is childish garbage people do to avoid recognizing their personal share of the responsibility.

[Maarten88]

You know the carbon footprint concept was literally created by BP marketing, to place the blame for climate change on society, and distract from all the evil stuff they did to promote more fossil fuel consumption and sabotage climate science.

The Climate Town channel on Youtube has lots of video's on this, such as this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J9LOqiXdpE

[msy]

Blaming oil companies for the extremely well documented history of suppression of research and action into the impact of climate change is not childish.

[IAmBroom]

You are literally avoiding the topic (Greenpeace intentionally created a misleading authoritative-looking entity) to say "Oil bad! Boo oil companies!".

The facts remain that Greenpeace did in fact attempt to slander (legal definition) the big oil corp.

Maybe you support "win at all costs" in this fight, but don't pretend one side is pure and honest.

[harimau777]

In America, just about anything is more cridble than our "justice" system.

[bilbo0s]

Well, let's not get into this left-right thing because that could go back and forth forever. Especially in the current environment.

eg - "As an outsider, why is [the jury and judge] a credible institution over the monitors?"

We should all just give the legal experts time to look over the records of what happened, and assess why. From there, a consensus will likely emerge as to what happened during and before the trial. And the justice or injustice of the matter will present itself.

But you can't have a judge say one thing and some other single expert say another, and from those pieces of information decide anything of an authoritative nature. Our institutions just don't have that type of credibility any longer. This is the consequence of credibility crises for any society's steward classes.

It was a long slide getting here, decades actually. But I think we are firmly now at the point of the "credibility collapse" portion of the "credibility crisis".

[renewiltord]

And a statement from legal experts monitoring this group https://pastebin.com/EEsEXbcz

Apparently, according to this source, trial monitors.org is a fake organization. There is some evidence that this is a credible accusation.

[DivingForGold]

Witness as GP transfers out any remaining assets through crypto (we got hacked !), declares bankruptcy, and comes back with a new name, and Big Oil gets HOSED.

. . . She apparently will not go to jail because she is old, and it would be “sentencing her to die within the state prison system.” And hey, while she is accused of moving millions of dollars and various properties she owns to third parties to avoid financial penalties -- this Green Peace story the same take as the "70M Boomer" title below . . .

[some_random]

Why should I care what they think? Seriously, I'm so tired of seeing XYZ totally real and credentialed expert non government organization pop up in weird appeals to authority. They couldn't even be bothered to monitor any other trials for this one, this looks to be the only thing they've ever done.

[bombcar]

My non-profit Analyzing the HN Posts (just created today) has verified that this is 100% real.

[FireBeyond]

Greenpeace should just do a Texas Two Step. Works for heavy industry.