## Facts

- Anti-nuclear protestors demonstrated at General Dynamics (a private defense contractor) and at the U.S. Navy Submarine Base at Ballast Point in San Diego.
- The demonstrations involved conduct leading to misdemeanor charges for trespass and obstruction of a street and/or sidewalk.
- Defendants claimed their conduct was motivated by sincere moral and political opposition to nuclear weapons and a desire to publicize perceived dangers.
- Defendants knowingly and intelligently elected self-representation at trial.
- After conviction, the trial court imposed custodial sentences with partial suspensions; one defendant also received community service.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court erred by refusing to permit a necessity defense to protest-related trespass and obstruction charges based on asserted efforts to prevent harms associated with nuclear weapons.
2. Whether the trial court was required to instruct the jury on international law as a basis to justify or excuse the charged conduct.
3. Whether the trial court was required, sua sponte, to instruct that defendants’ good-faith beliefs about nuclear weapons could negate the “malice” element of the offenses.

## Decision

- The appellate department consolidated the appeals and affirmed all convictions.
- The trial court properly refused to allow a necessity defense on the facts presented.
- The trial court had no duty to instruct the jury on international law in this prosecution.
- The trial court did not err by failing to instruct sua sponte that defendants’ good-faith political or moral beliefs could negate malice.

## Legal Principles

- A necessity defense requires a sufficiently direct and imminent threatened harm and a reasonable causal relationship between the illegal act and avoidance of that harm; generalized, speculative, or attenuated harms do not satisfy the defense.
- Political or moral opposition to government policy does not, by itself, justify criminal trespass or obstruction of public ways.
- International law principles generally do not supply a defense to local trespass/obstruction charges where the requested instructions would shift the jury’s focus from statutory elements to broad foreign-policy disputes.
- “Malice” for trespass/obstruction purposes is not negated merely because a defendant acted from sincere moral or political motives when the defendant knowingly committed the prohibited act.

## Conclusion

The court upheld protest-related trespass and obstruction convictions, holding that broad objections to nuclear policy could not support a necessity defense, did not require international-law jury instructions, and did not obligate the trial court to give a sua sponte good-faith instruction to negate malice.


People v. Weber, 162 Cal. App. 3d Supp. 1, 208 Cal. Rptr. 719 (App. Dep’t Super. Ct. San Diego Cnty. 1984)