Klamath Treesitters in Jail for Thanksgiving

Two treesitters will be spending Thanksgiving in jail. After being arrested last June for defending old-growth trees in the Klamath National Forest, and after court procedures that resembled a witch burning more than a trial, Amelia Vasquez and Kristi Sanchez were handcuffed by the very officers who had testified to torturing them by denying food, water and sleep during their treesits.

The Klamath River was site of the largest environmental disaster in the Western United States last year when 33,000 salmon died due to excessive water diversion.

Outside the courthouse, citizens displayed a banner reading “No Jury, No Judge, No Justice” to draw attention to the treesitters being denied their constitutional right to be tried by a judge and jury, rather than by the magistrate Craig Kellison, who claims the right to a jury trial was revoked in 1998. The banner was quickly confiscated.

As supporters for the two women waited inside the court, they learned their cars were being inspected. A woman, who was not uniformed and would not identify herself, had been examining and attempting to enter the vehicles, reporting her findings over a cell phone. Upon the treesitters being handcuffed and brought out to the parking lot, this same woman patted them down before transporting them to jail.

Tuesday would have marked day-two of this charade of a trial, but negotiations for another “deal” began instead. The two had turned down previous so-called deals offered by the Forest (Dis)Service, which had included undefined amounts of jail time, probation and fines. This time, an agreement was eventually reached. In exchange to pleading “no contest” to one misdemeanor charge of violating a closure order, the women would have their gear returned, but receive five days in jail and two years probation. Upon arriving at a Shasta county jail, they learned they would be transferred to a federal prison in Sacramento.

However, due to the length of their sentences, they were transferred again, this time to Sacramento County jail.