Judge limits information to Indian activist in riot trial

Source: Associated Press


Blake Nicholson, Associated Press
Updated 6:47 pm, Wednesday, April 4, 2018

MANDAN, N.D. (AP) — A North Dakota judge on Wednesday limited the amount of information the governor's office can be asked to give attorneys for an American Indian activist accused of inciting a riot during protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline.

Judge Lee Christofferson also said he plans to deny a defense motion to force prosecutors to obtain and turn over evidence from private security firms, after Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier testified that the two did not work together.
 
The decisions could deal a blow to the efforts of Chase Iron Eyes to prove what he believes was a conspiracy by law enforcement in concert with private security to portray pipeline opponents as terrorists and violate their civil rights. Iron Eyes hopes to show that civil disobedience was his only option to resist a pipeline's incursion on his ancestral lands and to prevent the conspiracy.

Iron Eyes is a member of the Standing Rock Sioux, the tribe leading the legal fight against the $3.8 billion pipeline because it fears a leak would contaminate its water source. The pipeline has been moving North Dakota oil through South Dakota and Iowa to Illinois since last June.

Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/Judge-limits-information-to-Indian-activist-in-12806448.php