Updated: 10/24/19 - 10:30 A.M.
BRUNSWICK, GA - Clare Grady, an activist from Ithaca, is facing 25 years in prison after breaking into a naval base in Southern Georgia to protest nuclear weapons.
In the early morning hours of April 5th 2018, Grady and six other activists broke into the Kings Bay nuclear submarine base.
The seven are Catholic Workers.* They're part of the plowshares movement to aggressively demonstrate against war. While on the base they graffitied statues of missiles, splattered human blood on signs and left biblical messages.
In pre-trial hearings the federal judge for the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Georgia, Judge Lisa Godbey Wood, indicated that she wouldn’t allow either side to implicate religion or international law in their arguments. However, during the last few days in court, both religion and the legality of nuclear weapons, have come up frequently.
Grady didn’t think she’d be able to use her faith in the courtroom, and she’s happy she’s been able to heading into the last day of trial.
"I think the first thing would be grateful,” said Grady said outside of court on Wednesday. “Because we anticipated having even more restrictions than we did."
The government and defense are making their closing arguments Thursday with a verdict expected to be handed down in the afternoon or early Friday
*Updated to address grammatical error