A local district attorney in Massachusetts surprised parties on all sides on Monday after he sided with two climate justice activists who employed a “necessity defense” to justify their use of a small lobster boat to block the path of an enormous coal freighter trying to dock at the Brayton Point Power Station in the town of Somerset last year.

“I do believe they’re right, that we’re at a crisis point with climate change.” —Bristol County DA Sam Sutter

Several serious charges were brought against two men, Jay O’Hara and Ken Ward, for their attempt to wedge their boat, the Henry David T., between the dock and an approaching coal freighter, the Energy Enterprise, on May 13, 2013. (Read Common Dreams original reporting on the action here.)

For the brazen act of civil disobedience both O’Hara and Ward faced many thousands of dollars in fines and as much as two years in jail, but it was Bristol County DA Sam Sutter who decided that all charges in the case would be dropped after he determined that their expressed purpose—to put an end to the carbon-spewing pollution directly related to the current climate change crisis—was an adequate and defensible position.  Sutter dropped all charges against the two.

And he did more than that. Following an agreement between his office and O’Hara and Ward which would see the most serious charges—including conspiracy—dropped and fines replaced with orders of restitution (both men agreed to pay $2,000), Sutter emerged from the local court house to express why he thought the two activists were ultimately justified in their creative protest.

“Because of my sympathy with their position, I was in a dilemma,” Sutter told the crowd of approximately 100 people outside. “I have a duty to go forward to some extent with this case and to follow the applicable case law, but they were looking for a forum to present their very compelling case about climate change.”

He added: “I do believe they’re right, that we’re at a crisis point with climate change.”

Journalist and climate activist Wen Stephenson, who was present when Sutter stepped onto the courthouse steps, described the DA’s delivery of his remarks and their possible implications as “truly remarkable.” In a piece for The Nation, Stephenson first quoted Sutter at length, who said:

The crowd “went wild,” Stephenson reports and then describes how the moment “got better,” adding:

In an interview with the Boston Globe following the news, Bill McKibben himself also called Sutter’s stance simply “remarkable.”

“I was moved in a way that I can’t remember being moved by a public official in a long time,” McKibben said. “It’s easy to get cynical about politicians, and then one of them shows a real maturity and grace.”

For their part, both Ward and O’Hara expressed being pleased by the outcome but acknowledged that their victory is only a small sliver of what must be done to truly avert the climate crisis that compelled them to take action in the first place.

As Boston Magazine reports: