Is there anything you’re so committed to that you’d break laws and go to jail in order to protect it?

For Tim DeChristopher, a student at University of Utah, there is.

According to a New York Times article, he was so concerned about the impact of global warming that he went to a federal oil and gas lease auction and bid on contracts located near national parks with no intent to pay. In fact, DeChristopher didn’t even have the money.

Now he’s being charged with two felony counts for interfering with an auction and making false statements on bidding documents, explained the article. He could end up in prison for several years and face hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.

Some people think he shouldn’t be charged because he was trying to fight an injustice. According to the article, his lawyer will try to argue he faced “‘a choice of evils’ that justified breaking the law.”

My initial impulse is to support him. He is fighting for a cause that means a lot to me. But what if he had broken the law for a cause that I thought was malevolent?

It is important to remember that people who participate in this kind of civil disobedience, often referred to as “monkey wrenching,” do so because they’ve tried to fix the perceived evil through legal channels but have failed. Often, they’ve failed over and over again.

We all know the system is a little corrupt. We also know, often, the voices with less money aren’t heard as loudly and the government isn’t always in the business of listening.

So what do you do when the system works against you?

You take matters into your own hands.

It makes sense. If you’re fighting injustice and the health of the whole world is at stake, wouldn’t you feel morally reprehensible if you didn’t attempt more than litigation and lobbying to stop it?

Maybe.

But simply perceiving something as immoral doesn’t excuse someone from the law. Moreover, thinking something is wrong doesn’t mean that it is wrong.

Some people think the practice of abortion is literally murdering millions of innocent humans. I would expect that at least a few people who hold this belief would try to do anything to stop people from having an abortion, even if it meant breaking the law.

I understand the way those people feel because there are things that elicit that passion in me as well. But I don’t agree with their stance and I would expect a court of law to prosecute them for whatever transgressions they made.

Unfortunately, this leads me to not supporting DeChristopher’s “not guilty” plea. I’m sure the government doesn’t agree with him in the same way that I don’t agree with anti-abortionists. It would be inconsistent for me to support his innocence while asserting the anti-abortionists’ guilt.

If his breaking the law isn’t reason enough to consider him guilty, a point which many would argue, the issue of fair judgment is perhaps more crucial. I think it would be nearly impossible for courts to consistently decide what kinds of injustices exist that rightfully impassion someone and that merit breaking the law. Why should DeChristopher be excused and an anti-abortionist not?

He shouldn’t be. But I wish I could think of a reason why he should.

Reach Becky at rrubens1@asu.edu.