A protest banner on a gantry over the motorway at Bolton Street in Wellington on 10 October. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
After two days of deliberations, a jury has retired for the weekend without reaching a verdict in the trial of Restore Passenger Rail protesters.
Jurors have been asked to judge the reasonableness of climate change protests that brought rush-hour traffic to a halt on Wellington highways on three days in October 2022.
Four members of the group have pleaded not guilty to charges of endangering transport, which carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.
Jurors have been instructed not to discuss the case and will resume their deliberations in Wellington District Court on Monday.
Michael Apathy, Thomas Taptiklis, Te Wehi Ratana and Andrew Sutherland were charged with endangering transport - which carries a maximum 14-year jail term - for their actions.
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 2022 and from gantries over 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 companies' 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.
