CPTnet
11 September 2006

ARIZONA: Charges against No More Deaths volunteers dropped

On 7 September 2005, CPTers Scott Kerr and Rick and Kitty Ufford-Chase
participated in a press conference in which their colleagues from No More
Deaths--Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz--spoke about a court decision to
drop charges against them.

District Judge Raner C. Collins dropped all charges against No More Deaths
(NMD) volunteers on 1 September, declaring that the U.S. Attorney did not
have a credible enough case against the two young volunteers to go to trial.

In July of 2005, Sellz and Strauss were transporting three Mexican men to
medical care from a desert location about eighty miles southwest of Tucson.
The three were in advanced stages of heat stroke and dehydration, evidenced
by clammy skin, vomiting, and bloody diarrhea. En route, the authorities
apprehended and arrested the NMD volunteers, with whom members of the
Christian Peacemaker Teams Arizona Borderlands Project had worked closely.

At the press conference held in Tucson, Sellz expressed gratitude to the
entire No More Deaths community in Arizona and across the country. She said
that while they never would have invited the charges to be placed against
them, she views the last year as a great gift. "When I called my mom from
the Border Patrol station," Shanti said, "her first words were 'I'm so proud
of you.'" The full sanctuary at Southside Presbyterian Church in Tuscon
offered a standing ovation when members heard of the arrests.

Retired Chief Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court Stanley Feldman, who
volunteered his services with the pro-bono legal team that mounted the
defense for Strauss and Sellz, explained the ruling to those present. "While
there is a great deal to give thanks for in this decision," he said, "we
should be clear that this decision was based on Judge Collin's assessment
that Daniel and Shanti were acting on their belief that the Border Patrol
had either explicitly--or implicitly--approved of the protocol developed by
Samaritans and No More Deaths volunteers over the previous three summers,
which called for medical transport in cases of extreme medical danger."

Justice Feldman explained that this decision clearly stopped short of ruling
on the assertion that "Humanitarian Aid is Never a Crime."

"That assertion" Collins wrote in his opinion, "will have to be left for
another day--There must be some way, that both the government and the aid
organizations can meet their obligations."

One hundred seventy-one people lost their lives in the U.S./Mexico
borderlands between October and the end of July 2006. Ufford-Chase will
continue to coordinate a continuing presence of CPT delegations and
reservists in the Arizona borderlands.