A friend's daughter was convicted after leaving food and water in desert for migrants
Brave women.. This is insane..
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/19/arizona-four-women-convicted-after-leaving-food-and-water-in-desert-for-migrants?CMP=share_btn_fb
Arizona: Four women convicted after leaving food and water in desert for migrants
Federal judge finds activists guilty of entering a national wildlife refuge without a permit to give aid to migrants
Associated Press
Sat 19 Jan 2019 00.29 EST
A federal judge has found four women guilty of entering a national wildlife refuge without a permit as they sought to place food and water in the Arizona desert for migrants.
US magistrate Judge Bernardo Velasco’s ruling on Friday marked the first conviction against humanitarian aid volunteers in a decade.
The four found guilty of misdemeanours in the recent case were volunteers for No More Deaths, which said in a statement the group had been providing life-saving aid to migrants.
The volunteers include Natalie Hoffman, Oona Holcomb, Madeline Huse and Zaachila Orozco-McCormick.
Hoffman was found guilty of operating a vehicle inside Cabeza Prieta national wildlife refuge, entering the federally protected area without a permit, and leaving water jugs and cans of beans there in August 2017.
The others were found guilty of entering without a permit and leaving behind personal property.A friends daughter
= new reply since forum marked as read
And rightly so. What a kind, compassionate, brave thing to do. 
Laws like this have been a cornerstone of the environmental movement for decades. And I don't see how you can keep protecting fragile desert habitat without such laws in place. It sounds like, from a legal standpoint, the prosecution had them dead-to-rights and they really had no defense other that their hearts being in the right place. Morally, they were innocent. Legally, they were guilty 
Does a judge have discretion in such a situation to void the charges, or does he only have the discretion to give them the minimum punishment? A symbolic $1 fine?
