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Defense attorneys for Tim DeChristopher, a climate activist sentenced to two years in prison for interfering in an oil and gas lease auction three years ago, have filed an appeal of his conviction in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.
At a December 2008 auction, DeChristopher bid up the prices on some parcels and won $1.8 million in leases with no intention of paying to protest sales of federally owned resources in Utah.
In March, a federal jury deliberated nearly five hours before convicting him of making false representations. DeChristopher was sentenced on July 26.
His attorneys are appealing the conviction, arguing the judge violated DeChristopher's constitutional right to defend himself.
"By thwarting the auction, he was trying to stop [federal government employees] from breaking the law and to stop the harms flowing from the illegal auction," the appeal states.
But the judge's pretrial ruling prevented DeChristopher from using this "necessity" argument to defend himself.
His attorneys argue that had he been allowed to use this defense during trial, DeChristopher would have shown that auction employees were violating the law designed to bring integrity to the process of leasing public lands.
Defense attorneys were barred by the judge from questioning the auction's legality by presenting allegations that former President George W. Bush's administration rushed environmental reviews. Also they were not allowed to explain in court that DeChristopher's environmental convictions and fears of a climate crisis motivated his actions.
Not being allowed to bring up that evidence meant "jurors were left to deliberate with significantly misleading and distorted evidence to the effect that in interfering with the auction, DeChristopher had seriously harmed them and other taxpayers for no ostensible reason," states the appeal filed Friday.
The appeal states that the evidence DeChristopher sought to present "was essential because it would have corrected the distorted picture jurors were otherwise left with."
At the auction in 2008, DeChristopher had signed a form that explained possible criminal sanctions for bad-faith bidding, and a BLM employee gave him a placard designating him as bidder No. 70. The defense argued that he signed in as a bidder only because he thought he would otherwise be barred from attendance and that, at that point, he had no criminal intent.
Only later, he and his attorneys said, was he moved to jack up the prices and take 14 leases off the market by bidding.
In previous auctions, others didn't honor bids on federal leases but were never prosecuted, DeChristopher's defense attorneys write in the appeal. They argue that DeChristopher was singled out for prosecution because he publicly discussed actions and motivations "after his alleged offenses."