After 993 days , Steven Donziger is finally spare .
On Monday , the embattled lawyer , who has been targeted by Chevron for years in a convoluted courtyard struggle , complete a six - calendar month sentence , which came on the heels of more than two geezerhood under house catch in his Manhattan flat . The ending of the saga is not without mixed emotion for Donziger .
Read More : Chevron Is Trying to Crush a Prominent Climate Lawyer — and perhaps the World
Donziger in the window of his Manhattan apartment in August 2021.Photo: RW/MediaPunch (AP)
“ I am exhilarate to be capable to live fully again , passing excited to be able to make the normal choices people in a free order get to make , ” he tell me by phone on Monday . “ I ’m also stunned that I just spent two years and seven months of my life history in detention in retaliation for my body of work in the climate justice field . ”
Donziger’sstorybegins in 1993 in the Ecuadorian Amazon , when he began representing a group of 30,000 autochthonous multitude and farmers in a cause against Texaco . The oil monster had set up workshop drilling for vulgar oil in the region in the 1970s , and over the next two decades spilled 16 million gallons of crude ( around 80 time what was spilled in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster ) as well as lodge billion of Imperial gallon of toxic waste in unlined pits , turning the arena into an oil - pooled waste and poison soil and local pee supplies . Texaco pass on the region — and its hatful — behind in 1992 when its contract expire , and local decided to file a causa .
The case dragged on for 18 year , through Chevron ’s 2000 leverage of Texaco , a dealings that made it the key defendant , until 2011 , when an Ecuadorian court ordered Chevron to pay off $ 18 billion in compensation ( later trim back to $ 9.5 billion ) . Chevron , which still has not paid a centime of this fine , instantly began agitate the ruling . A key cornerstone of its endeavour : to “ demonize Donziger , ” internal emails from Chevron sent in 2009read . In 2012 , Chevron launched a racketeering suit against Donziger and two other plaintiff .
The abuses of baron enacted in this grammatical case are so far - fetched as to be almost unconvincing . in short before tryout , Chevron dropped any pecuniary claim it was making , which deprive Donziger and the other defendants of the right to a jury visitation . Presiding over the case was New York U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan , who in the courtroomcalledChevron “ a company of considerable grandness to our economy ” andbannedDonziger and the other defendants from play up Chevron ’s defilement in the Amazon during the trial . The oil colour giant ’s primary evidence relied on the testimony of a demean Ecuadorian justice , Alberto Guerra , who had acceptedhundreds of thousands of dollarsfrom Chevron and met with Chevron ’s lawyer a whopping 53 times before the trial . ( Guerra lateradmitted he liedin his testimony . ) Kaplan detect Donziger and other suspect guilty in 2014 .
The saga did n’t finish there — and somehow find even more twisted . In 2019 , Kaplan asked Union prosecutors tobring contempt of courtroom chargesagainst Donziger for refusing to hand over his electronic gadget and passports during the trial run . ( Donziger said commit his electronics to the court would betray secret client information . ) After public prosecutors decline to agitate charges , Kaplan pull theunprecedented moveof assigning a squad of private prosecutors to pursue Donziger — the first fourth dimension this had befall in U.S. judicial history . The squad Kaplan opt was led by an attorney who at the time work for a constabulary firm with a account of represent Chevron . Kaplan again went against usual procedure for these cases and also handpicked the judge , Loretta Preska , who has ahistoryofpositiverulingsin favor of vigour companies and serves as anadvisorto the Federalist Society , a pro - business radical that hasbenefitedfrom donation from Chevron . Preska put Donzigerunder house arrestbefore the visitation , claim he exemplify a flight endangerment .
While the case is certainly a wild example of justice consort murderously , it has chilling implications for what could be possible for a individual ship’s company looking to apply the courts to silence critics . “ What happen to me goes right smart beyond just me , ” Donziger said . “ It was part of a design by the dodo fuel industry and some of its richly - priced lawyers to create a playbook to silence those who recommend efficaciously and successfully against major polluters who are ruin the planet . ”
Last July , Preskafound Donziger guiltyof misdemeanor charge of vicious contempt . In November , the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights , the worldly concern ’s top human right field consistency , ruledthat Donziger ’s household check was illegal under international law and send for on the U.S. to release him . Six international justice that made up the UN body said in a brief that they were “ appalled by uncontested allegations in this vitrine , ” adding that Donziger ’s reprehensible thrill and collar “ [ seem ] to be revenge for his body of work as a legal congresswoman of autochthonal communities . ” Despite the UN opinion , Judge Preska sentenced Donziger to six calendar month in prison , the maximal judgment of conviction , a day after the UN issued its legal brief . ( Donziger wasreturned to house arrestin December 2021 under a pandemic former - release syllabus . )
Despite the injustices foisted on him for the preceding few years , Donziger sees a especial victory against Chevron in the newfound attention to his case and Chevron ’s pollution in the Amazon . “ They tried to work me into a symbol as part of this intimidation hunting expedition , ” he said . “ I would argue that what ended up happening was the opposite of what they intended . They think they could crush me , but they created a position where I now have a platform and a vox . I retrieve they have a real problem now . ”
The struggle is n’t over now that his time is done . Donzinger and his supporters — which includeleading organizationslike Amnesty International , as well asseverallawmakersin Washington — are work to secure apardon for Donzigerfrom President Biden . A pardon , he explained , would n’t lay a legal precedent to forestall a case like his from encounter again , but it could warn other judges from essay out the same tactics on the next person who make bold stand up to Big Oil .
“ What Chevron and the diligence want to do is make this the new normal , ” he allege . “ This will happen again unless people heat up and turn back it from happening again . ”
AmazonBidenChevron CorporationCompaniesLaw , CrimeOil troupe
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