Domestic crimes may be considered 'terrorist' acts, rules 7th Circuit.

Byline: David Ziemer

Radical environmentalists may not see themselves as terrorists, but asked whether a terrorism enhancement applies to their sentences for destroying government property, the Seventh Circuit found the issue clear cut.

On Nov. 9, the court affirmed application of U.S.S.G. 3A1.4 to members of the Earth Liberation Front who destroyed several research projects at a U.S. Forest Service facility in Rhinelander.

In 2000, the defendants, Katherine Christianson and Bryan Rivera, and two others entered the facility and damaged or destroyed more than 500 trees that were part of a genetic engineering experiment, either by cutting them down or girdling them. (Girdling consists of removing a strip of bark from around a tree's entire circumstance, causing eventual death.)

Christianson and Rivera were implicated in 2007, when one of the other conspirators was arrested for the attempted bombing of the Michigan Tech University campus.

They pleaded guilty to willfully injuring property belonging to the United States; at sentencing, U.S. District Judge Barbara B. Crabb applied the terrorism enhancement.

Although the resulting guideline range for both was 151-188 months, Rivera was sentenced to only 36 months in prison, and Christenson was sentenced to only 24. Nevertheless, the government did not appeal the sentences. The defendants did.

But in an opinion by Judge Daniel A. Manion, the Seventh Circuit affirmed.

Before addressing the merits, Judge Manion cautioned, ELF and its members are not to be confused with the typical environmental protestor denouncing and peacefully demonstrating against such things as nuclear power, strip coal mining, cutting old-growth timber, offshore drilling, damming wild rivers, and so on.

Instead, Manion observed, ELF's members take their activism to unconscionable levels: since ELF's inception in 1987, its members have been responsible...