Fwd From VFP Board: peace felon report

Now some may remember the name Mike Ferner, for it was recently in the news about his Wearing A Veterans For Peace T-Shirt outside a VA Medical Center in Chicago!
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friends:
the two articles below describe my day in court yesterday, plus an unusual editorial that appeared in today's paper, by toledo blade editor and vice pres., tom walton.
if this story touches your heart, write me if you must, but better yet, do something for peace today that you never thought you could do. you will have my heartfelt thanks and the thanks of those people who desperately need your committment.
be well. raise some hell.
mike
Mike Ferner


Article published Thursday, July 20, 2006

ANTI-WAR GRAFFITI
Ferner is guilty of vandalism on Sylvania Township bridge
By MARK REITER
BLADE STAFF WRITER

Peace activist and former Toledo mayoral candidate Mike Ferner was convicted yesterday in Lucas County Common Pleas Court of defacing a state highway bridge with anti-war graffiti.
A jury took less than 20 minutes to find Ferner guilty of felony vandalism and possession of criminal tools for spray painting "Troops Out Now!" on the Central Avenue overpass on I-475/U.S. 23 in Sylvania Township on New Year's Day.
Judge Charles Wittenberg will sentence Ferner, 55, of 2975 113th St., on Aug. 4.

Article published Thursday, July 20, 2006

Ferner jury didn't know it could acquit

By TOM WALTON Editor and Vice President of The Blade

OF THIS there can be no doubt: Mike Ferner believes passionately that America's war in Iraq is morally wrong. Disagree if you wish with his tactics for demonstrating his displeasure; defacing public property is not something we defend or recommend. But give the man his due: he feels as strongly about war - he hates it - as he did when he served as a Navy corpsman in Vietnam more than three decades ago.
He believes it enough to have engaged in a destructive act of vandalism that yesterday produced the predictable result: conviction on two low-level felony counts by a jury.
Whether it was a jury of his peers we do not know. We don't know because the jury was not advised of an enduring principle in jurisprudence known as jury nullification.

Available September 2006



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