Steve Russell: Legal encounters and the Dakota Access Pipeline


#NoDAPL resisters in North Dakota. Photo by Red Warrior Camp

Steve Russell, a member of the Cherokee Nation, offers the second installment in his series about the law and the #NoDAPL fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline:
My first arrest in Austin (not to be confused with first arrest ever) was over my violation of a city ordinance regulating parades. People opposed to the Vietnam War had applied for a parade permit and had the permit denied because the city council was loath to issue a permit for an anti-war demonstration.

The organization denied the permit determined to walk on the sidewalks and obey traffic signals so as to not need a permit, but I was one of about 20 people who would not stand for the denial. We walked right down the middle of Austin’s main drag, Congress Avenue, as if we had a permit. That got us a quick ride in the paddy wagon.

I won’t bore you with how the prosecutors kept trying to gin up something we had done against the law that could be tried without opening up an argument that what the city council had done was against the law.

Constitutional law trumps city ordinances, state laws, or even acts of Congress. But when there is a law on the books, the presumption is that it’s a valid law and the trial is merely a legal encounter of the first kind. Taking on the law itself creates a legal encounter of the second kind and takes lots of players in the system—including judges---outside their comfort zone.

Read More on the Story:
Dakota Access Pipeline, Part 2: Legal Encounters of the Second Kind (Indian Country Today 9/9)

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