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Appeals court reverses ecoterror conviction

The Columbian
Published: September 15, 2010, 12:00am

SEATTLE (AP) — A federal appeals court has ordered a new trial for a woman convicted of helping to carry out a 2001 ecoterror attack that destroyed the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture.

Briana Waters was convicted of arson for allegedly serving as a lookout during Earth Liberation Front attack. She was sentenced to six years in prison.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that U.S. District Judge Franklin Burgess made several errors that raised questions about the fairness of her trial. The panel said the judge should not have admitted certain articles advocating violence as evidence, and should have done more to ensure that news coverage of an unrelated arson did not influence the jury.

Prosecutors argued that Waters was connected to a cell of radical environmentalists who carried out attacks throughout the West from 1996-2001.

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