Charges Dismissed In N.C. WARN Trial

Adversaries in a public and often bitter dispute over the proposal to increase waste storage at the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant, CP&L officials and critics of the company's plans were at odds about the reasons for the dismissals.

Wake County Assistant District Attorney Ned Mangum filed the dismissals of second-degree trespassing charges against Jim Warren, director of N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, Rev. Carrie Bolton of Alston Chapel United Holy Church in Pittsboro and Raleigh lawyer Lewis Pitts.

The three N.C. WARN members were arrested Oct. 17 at CP&L headquarters in Raleigh when they refused to vacate the area outside a public entrance to the building. Warren described the defendants' resistance as a "deliberate act of nonviolent civil disobedience."

According to dismissal notices issued to the defendants, it was unclear whether the defendants knew they were on CP&L property. CP&L attorneys and the assistant district attorney agreed not to follow through with criminal charges.

The dismissals were a victory for the defendants, said their attorney, Stuart Fisher of Glenn, Mills & Fisher P.A. in Durham. "We won because the facts supported my clients' case," he said.

But Fisher also said he believed the prosecution's dismissals of the charges reflected CP&L's reluctance to provide opponents of the company's waste expansion plans with a new public forum. "My position is that CP&L was afraid to prosecute," he said. "They didn't want to give my clients public forum. There was a TV camera there, and several news organizations were present. I think CP&L decided it just wasn't worth it."

Bolton said the defendants had planned to plead not guilty and to appeal if convicted. "We would have requested a jury trial," she said. "For that reason, I feel that from CP&L's standpoint it was not strategically advantageous to prosecute us."

A jury trial would only have allowed N.C. WARN to plead its case in front of a larger audience, she said.

Bolton also disputed the idea that the defendants did not know they were on CP&L property. "There was a representative on the premises telling us it was CP&L property," she said.

But CP&L spokesman Mike Hughes offered a different explanation for the decision to dismiss the charges.

"We agreed with the district attorney's decision to dismiss the charges," he said. "We draw a clear distinction between what happened in October and activities that would pose immediate safety threats at one of our facilities."

Hughes denied that the dismissals were an effort to deny CP&L's opponents another chance to air their grievances. "Express their grievances to whom?" he asked. "They would have been on trial for criminal trespass charges."

Denying CP&L's critics a jury trial would not have prevented them from getting their message to the public, he said. "If that had been our goal, we certainly would have failed," Hughes said.

"If there's one thing N.C. WARN is good at, it's generating soap box events. It's never mattered what the truth has been."

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