PEACE ACTIVIST DELIVERS A GENTLE SERMON ON HER WAY TO JAIL
By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 30, 1988
; Page C01
Once, years ago, she had so lost patience with the arms race that she took
a page from Isaiah and tried to hammer missiles into ploughshares. For
destruction of property -- aboard a Trident nuclear submarine in Connecticut
-- she served four months in jail.
It was not Marcia Ann Timmel's first conviction, nor her last. In September
she took her hammer to a six-foot-tall, $12,000 model of the MX missile at an
arms show in the District, and in November she was found guilty of that crime.
When Timmel stood up to be sentenced yesterday, she had herself and her
morality for a client. In a firm, clear voice before a courtroom full of
family and supporters, she delivered a gentle lecture to the judge.
The funny thing was, the judge agreed with her -- to a point. Then he
sentenced her to 90 days in jail, all but a week of it suspended.
It was one of those awkward, illuminating encounters that appear from time
to time in D.C. Superior Court: the defendant rejecting a legal norm in
pursuit of a higher calling, and the judge, sympathizing, reasserting the
primacy of law.
"I would like you to to take into consideration," Timmel told Judge Eric H.
Holder Jr., "whether what I did was right or wrong, good or bad, moral or
immoral."
"The reason you're a judge," she told Holder, who is black, "is that 20
years ago your parents . . . were able to look at a law and say it was
oppressive and they broke it, and because they broke it, it got fixed.
"The laws that I was convicted under are there to protect nuclear weapons .
. . . I think if you really pray and examine your conscience you can tell that
preparing to slaughter innocent people is wrong."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mitchell Ballweg, replying, had no wish to argue
about nuclear war.
"No one," he said simply, "has the right to go around destroying the
property of others."
Holder, 37, the city's newest and youngest trial judge, decided to address
Timmel's arguments more directly.
"She is dedicated in a way that perhaps more of us need to be," he began,
to a chorus of "Amen!" and "Hallelujah!" in the court.
"You're right," he said, turning to Timmel. "I sit here today as a result
of people like" the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who were "willing to go to
jail" to protest unjust racial laws.
"The essence of civil disobedience in its purest form," he said, "is a
willingness to accept the consequences . . . . I feel that it is my obligation
to impose a jail sentence here."
"MX missiles are not dear to my heart," he said, but Timmel would spend
seven days in jail beginning Jan. 9.
After a brief outburst from a supporter, Timmel, 36, of Northwest
Washington, stood again.
"I would request," she said, "that during those seven days you seriously
consider . . . the state of the world, and in order to help you do that I'm
going to send you some books."
Holder, showing no affront, asked Timmel to "understand, whether you agree
with the sentence or not, this was a considered decision."
Timmel had one last thing on her mind.
"I'd like to have my hammer back," she said.
Holder, taking that request under advisement, called the next case and
returned to more conventional misdemeanors. Timmel and her supporters,
embracing and singing, filed slowly out of the room.
Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington
Post and may not include subsequent corrections.
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