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People v. Cromwell

Filing Date: 2015
Case Categories:
  • Climate Change Protesters and Scientists
    • Protesters
Principal Laws:
Necessity/Justification Defense
Description: Prosecution of protester who obstructed entry to a power plant construction site.
  • People v. Cromwell
    Docket number(s): 2017-1310 OR CR
    Court/Admin Entity: N.Y. App. Term.
    Case Documents:
    Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary
    06/13/2019 Order Convictions affirmed. New York Appellate Court Rejected Necessity Defense for Power Plant Protesters. A New York appellate court affirmed a defendant’s convictions for disorderly conduct in connection with his obstructing vehicles from entering a power plant construction site. The appellate court agreed with the trial court that the defendant failed to meet the requirements to establish the justification by necessity defense. In particular, the appellate court agreed that the defendant’s actions, “planned in advance with the stated intention of drawing attention to the issue of global warming, cannot be considered to have been reasonably calculated to actually prevent any harm presented merely by the construction of the power plant.” The court also rejected the defendant’s definition of “imminent” as extending beyond immediacy to refer to harms that are certain to occur. The court said caselaw did not support such a definition. The appellate court noted that it did not reach the issue of whether “the threat of global warming was of such gravity that the desirability and urgency of avoiding this threat outweighed the injury sought to be prevented by the disorderly conduct statute.” The court also affirmed the disorderly conduct convictions of five other defendants.

© 2022 · Sabin Center for Climate Change Law · U.S. Litigation Chart made in collaboration with Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP

The materials on this website are intended to provide a general summary of the law and do not constitute legal advice. You should consult with counsel to determine applicable legal requirements in a specific fact situation.