Category Archives: treesit legal
Statement from RAMPS Tree-Sitter Sent to Jail Today
Becks Kolins took a plea deal this morning (10/04) in Raleigh County Magistrate Court. They were sentenced to twenty-four hours beginning this morning. This is what they wrote before being taken to jail: On July 20th, 1 year, 3 months, 15 days ago, I ascended a tree on the Bee Tree Permit of Coal River […]
Squirrel is Free!
Dear friends and allies in the fight against strip mining, Good news: I’m out of jail! I served my term of a week and was recently released from Southern Regional Jail. Thank you once again to all of you who supported me throughout that process. Because I had a whole community backing my action from […]
A bucket was better; A short piece on the crap system!
My deep gratitude goes out to all of you who have supported me in jail. To those who have been answering my phone calls; sending me books, letters, and pictures of cute kittens; putting money on my account to pay for commissary; praying, telling others and telling others to pray: Thank you. I’ve been so […]
Resistance Behind Bars
Today Catherine Ann went to Magistrate court in Beckley, WV and plead no contest to trespassing charges related to last summer’s tree sit. As a result she was required to report within an hour of the deal to Southern Regional jail where she is now serving seven days and she owes court costs of $160. […]
Fighting Alpha in Federal Court
On August 30th, Eli, Becks, Junior and I were served documents informing us that Alpha was suing. They were demanding, we learned, an injunction that would invoke stiff penalties if we were caught on Marfork property in the future, as well as compensatory and punitive damages–an unspecified amount of money–for the “irreparable damages” that we […]
Squirrel’s Pretrial
I was immensely disheartened to hear the magistrate’s flat-out denial of my lawyer’s request that our witnesses be allowed to testify on my behalf. During the past few weeks, I had been strengthened and moved by the willingness of so many people to make personal sacrifices to testify in my trial. Some of the witnesses […]
Junior Walk on his day in court
As it turns out the criminal justice system of West Virginia didn’t feel like I deserved to get thrown in the slammer for standing up for myself and my neighbors. I could tell that the magistrate I had to go in front of wanted to lock me up and throw away the key though, legally […]
Eli goes to court
I have already explained in video and through previous posts why I joined this fight for justice. I have not yet explained how I was also able to undertake this task through the bravery shown to me by the tree sitters in their mental and spiritual preparation. As Becks said in their most recent update: […]
Update from becks [college edition]
Yesterday afternoon I received notice from the Dean of Student Conduct at Skidmore College (where I am currently going to school) that I would need to meet in front of the Integrity Board to have my actions from the tree sit judged. The policy that I imagine I violated, which can be found here, says, […]
Alpha Postpones Hearing
Update–Today Alpha representatives attended the preliminary injunction hearing in Beckley. Even though none of the defendants were present, Alpha lawyers had the opportunity to demand either a temporary restraining order or an injunction. But instead of requesting an injunction right then and there, Alpha representatives asked that the hearing be postponed to give them more […]
