Published: Aug 16, 2008
The News and Observer, Raleigh NC
"A gentle Garner dissident is jailed, unbowed, Execution protester
gets a 15-day term"
By Yonat Shimron, Staff WriterComment on this story
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1180159.html
RALEIGH - Among the women confined at the jail on Hammond Road are
prostitutes, crack users and an occasional domestic aggressor. Then
there's Mary Rider, a 48-year-old mother of eight, with a master's
degree in social work from UNC-Chapel Hill.
For a jailbird, Rider, who lives in Garner, is not typical, but
neither was her sentence.
Two years ago, on the night the state executed death row inmate Sammy
Flippen, she and three others were arrested outside Central Prison
when they walked a few yards onto the prison driveway and knelt in
prayer. They were charged with second-degree trespassing – a misdemeanor.
For that act of civil disobedience, Wake County Superior Court Judge
Michael Morgan last week sentenced Rider to 15 days in jail.
Three of her fellow protesters paid a fine. Rider, who was found
guilty by a lower court, appealed her verdict and got a jury trial. A
Roman Catholic who opposes the death penalty -- along with abortion,
euthanasia and war -- Rider purposely risked arrest and jail time to
stand by her convictions. It's a position she had taken many times as
a champion of sanctity-of-life issues.
But the judge didn't want to hear about it.
"Every step of the way the worst-case scenario had happened," said
Rider, who didn't expect such a long jail sentence.
Rider built her defense around First Amendment, free speech and
religious freedom claims and brought in two high-powered witnesses to
testify on her behalf. But Morgan ruled that the testimony of UNC-CH
constitutional law professor Dan Pollitt was inadmissable, and
strictly limited the testimony of Duke University theologian Stanley Hauerwas.
"We wanted to establish to the jury what Mary's motives were," said
Tim Vanderweert, Rider's attorney. "This wasn't simply a trespassing
case. But the judge took away Mary's defense."
Morgan was on vacation this week and couldn't be reached.
Had constitutional expert Pollitt been given a chance, he said, he
would have explained to the jury that there were at least three cases
in which the Supreme Court upheld the First Amendment right of free
speech over state laws.
"In most First Amendment cases someone violates a local law, whether
it's disturbing the peace, trespassing or inciting a riot," Pollitt said.
Hauerwas was ready to point out that Rider's action was not the
irresponsible act of an individual, but part of a larger tradition of
civil disobedience rooted, in this case, in Catholic obligation to
resist what it believes is evil, such as the death penalty.
Instead, a jury of 12 found Rider guilty. Morgan gave Rider a
suspended sentence of 15 days in jail and one year of unsupervised
probation. He also asked her to pay court costs totaling $235.
Rider, however, refused to pay the court costs.
"I cannot in good conscience give my money to a system that doesn't
provide justice," she told the judge, referring both to her own case
and to a system that sentences people to death by execution.
Instead, she offered to do community service. But Morgan told her she
could not pick her own sentence and ordered her taken into custody immediately.
Beliefs hold firm
Rider does not regret her action. She and her husband, writer and
social activist Patrick O'Neill, are steadfast in their beliefs. The
two run the Father Charlie Mulholland Catholic Worker House in Garner,
where they welcome people with no place to stay. They hold vigils
outside Central Prison each time there is an execution. They were
among a group that protested Aero Contractors, a flight company based
at the Johnston County Airport , that they say transported terrorism
suspects to countries where they can be tortured.
"In a round-about way, the judge did me a favor," said Rider. "Because
he gave me the harshest possible sentence, people say I inspired them
to work harder to end the death penalty."
That doesn't mean Rider relishes the jail time. This week she missed
her daughter Veronica's first day at Exploris Middle School . On
Thursday night she missed seeing four of her children perform in the
play "Honk" at the Garner Towne Players. And this weekend, her oldest
daughter will go back to UNC-Wilmington without her mother to see her off.
Perhaps most of all, she is needed at home because her youngest child,
Mary Evelyn, 3, has Down syndrome, and this week had surgery to put
tubes in her ears.
Friends, however, have offered to help and have come by with food. One
woman volunteered to fold laundry.
Meanwhile, Rider, who has one more week in jail, said she's using the
time to listen to the women around her -- something she said she was
trained to do.
She said she used to drive down Garner Road and see prostitutes
waiting for rides and wonder what she could do to help them. Now she's
beginning to see a bit more of what they go through. That she said is
not only an opportunity -- it's a gift.
yonat.shimron@newsobserver. com; (919) 829-4891
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