Appeals for three pipeline protesters underway

By: 
Erin Sommers Graphic-Advocate Editor

Three Dakota Access pipeline protesters who were convicted of trespassing on that company’s easement in Calhoun County are appealing their convictions.
Emma Schmit, of Rockwell City, and Tosun Mahmud Fitil, of Omaha, were convicted of trespassing last month. Their sentencing hearing is set for this week, but their attorney has appealed the conviction on the misdemeanor conviction.
Channing Dutton raised several issues he argued during the trial, including that the state didn’t establish that Schmit and Fitil were trespassing.
“Specifically, the state has failed to specify what ‘property’ these defendants actually were on,” Dutton wrote in his Oct. 26 appeal. “As the court will remember, the only witness for the state, retired Sheriff (Bill) Davis, testified he would have to engage in ‘wild speculation’ to even state what the pipeline actually was in terms of easement distances and measurements.”
Read more in the Nov. 15 edition. 

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