THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 2, 1994 TAG: 9408020345
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
A Baltimore man who was arrested on assault charges during a chaotic peace demonstration in federal court last winter is expected to plead guilty to a lesser charge today, his lawyer said.
David Sawyer, 43, shouted at and struggled with several U.S. marshals who were trying to corral demonstrators after U.S. District Judge Terrence W. Boyle ordered the courtroom cleared in the Feb. 15 mistrial of four peace activists.
Sawyer was charged with assaulting a federal officer after being pulled from the courtroom. He spent more than two weeks in North Carolina jails before being released on bond in early March.
In a plea agreement with prosecutors, Sawyer plans to plead guilty to a misdemeanor contempt charge and have the other charge dismissed, his Chapel Hill lawyer, Jeffrey Starkweather, said Monday.
Sawyer will ask that his time served be taken into account and that he not be returned to jail, Starkweather said.
``His life has been centered around non-violence and peace,'' said Starkweather, adding that Sawyer would not agree to plead to a charge implying violence.
The plea acknowledges Sawyer's ``standing up in the courtroom with everyone else and turning his back on the court,'' Starkweather said.
Sawyer was among more than 20 activists, including actor Martin Sheen, who rose in unison, faced the court's back wall and began reciting the Lord's Prayer during opening statements in the February trial.
The demonstration, which was pre-planned, had been encouraged by the defendants. All four - longtime activist Philip Berrigan, Elizabeth City native John Dear, Lynn Fredriksson and Bruce Friedrich - were convicted in April of damaging government property.
The activists, part of a group called Plowshares whose members have engaged in dozens of similar antiwar acts, hammered and spilled blood on a jet plane at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro on Dec. 7.
Supporters have said that Sawyer, an activist folk singer and college lecturer on civil rights and labor issues, was not involved in Plowshares activities. He had come to the trial as a supporter of Fredriksson.
``He has never been convicted of any crime, and he has been doing this for over 20 years,'' Starkweather said.
A support committee is helping Sawyer pay his legal fees, Starkweather said, and a city councilman in Takoma Park, Md., put up his house to bail Sawyer out.
Accounts vary over the scuffle between Sawyer and marshals. U.S. officials have said he resisted their efforts to restore order. Other activists in the room accused the marshals of provoking and abusing Sawyer. Some said he was singled out because he was one of the few black men in the courtroom.
The confrontation moved seven of the demonstrators, including two Norfolk women, to remain in court and face contempt charges from Boyle. Six spent several weeks in jail.
Assistant U.S. Attorney William Webb, who prosecuted the Plowshares case and is scheduled to prosecute Sawyer, told Boyle during the contempt hearings that marshals had used appropriate force to restrain Sawyer. Webb told the judge that race played no role in the incident.
Webb could not be reached for comment Monday.
KEYWORDS: VANDALISM ARREST TRIAL PEACE
ACTIVISTS by CNB