A protest banner on a gantry over the motorway at Bolton Street in Wellington, on 10 October 2022. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The jury has been unable to reach a verdict in a trial of members of climate activist group Restore Passenger Rail.
Four members of the group were charged with endangering transport, related to protests that brought rush-hour traffic to a halt in Wellington, in October 2022.
On Monday the jury found Andrew Sutherland not guilty, but after more than three days of deliberations jurors were unable to reach a verdict for Michael Apathy, Thomas Taptiklis and Te Wehi Ratana.
The jurors have been discharged and a retrial ordered.
The remaining defendants have been granted bail.
All four defendants faced charges of endangering transport - which carries a maximum 14-year jail term - related to three protests in October 2022 that called for passenger rail services to be restored.
Protest banners were strung above rush-hour traffic on Wellington's State Highway 1 at the mouth of the Mt Victoria Tunnel on 18 October, and from gantries above the motorway at Bolton Street on 10 October and Johnsonville on 27 October.
Apathy, Ratana, and Sutherland pleaded not guilty to one charge, while Taptiklis pleaded not guilty to two charges.
Police told the jury the danger posed by the protesters forced them to stop traffic.
The jury also heard uncontested evidence from two climate scientists, who outlined the emissions-driven climate crisis and the fossil fuel industry's decades-long misinformation campaign denying it.
In his summary of the case Judge Stephen Harrop instructed jurors to put aside their sympathies and weigh whether the climate change protests were reasonable.
He said while New Zealand protected the right to free speech, that did not grant protesters immunity from prosecution.
The Crown submitted that there was no social utility in the protesters' actions and no reasonable person would "dangle themselves deliberately, like a circus act" above rush-hour traffic.
Prosecutors said the protests were objectively reckless and therefore criminal.
The defence said the existential threat of the climate crisis meant that their actions were entirely justified - they were not protesting the size of coffee servings.
The defence counsel maintained that any danger posed by the protesters' actions was far outweighed by the social utility of drawing people's attention to the political inaction on climate change.
The trial began on 26 February and jurors retired on 6 March to consider their verdicts.
During deliberations the jury sought direction from the judge on two matters and asked to re-watch social media footage of one of the protests.
Before discharging the jury, the judge thanked jurors for their time and effort, acknowledging the difficulty of the task they were given.
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