Jury finds Idaho faith leader guilty of trespassing in protest of anti-trans bills
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Kyle Pfannenstiel, Idaho Capital Sun
BOISE (Idaho Capital Sun) — Months after protestors wouldn’t leave the lobby of the Idaho governor’s office in an attempt to meet with him over anti-transgender bills, a jury on Tuesday found a local minister guilty on a misdemeanor trespassing charge.
The jury found the Rev. Sara LaWall — who wore a clerical collar under a rainbow speckled blazer as she sat in court — guilty of trespassing after prosecutors said she remained in the governor’s office after being warned it was closed for the night during a protest of anti-trans bills this spring.
After the jury delivered the verdict, LaWall, the minister for the Boise Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, told reporters that the possible prison sentence she could face would be less time than judges can dole out for violations of Idaho’s new criminal transgender bathroom ban.
“That just feels wholly unfair and outsized and ridiculous,” LaWall told reporters after her trial. “… The jury found me guilty of staying in the governor’s office after being told to leave. I didn’t dispute those facts. But someone going to the bathroom now has a higher sentence, and that just feels so disproportionate and so wrong.”
Under state law, her trespassing charge is punishable by up to six months in prison. The state’s bathroom ban allows for up to a year in prison on a first offense and up to five years on repeat offenses.
Minutes after the nearly full-day trial finished Tuesday, the jury reached its verdict.
LaWall will be sentenced on the charge later. Idaho 4th District Judge Adam Kimball scheduled her sentencing for Sept. 17. LaWall’s attorney requested her sentencing be delayed instead of issued Tuesday evening. She hopes at her sentencing she can share more about why she was at the governor’s office.
“I have really mixed feelings,” LaWall said of the verdict. “It’s hard not to feel a little emotional about the verdict, but I don’t — I’m not entirely surprised. I took the stand and said as much as the judge allowed me to say about why we were there, which wasn’t very much, and that was disappointing to me to not be able to tell more of the story about why we were there.”
LaWall was one of nine protestors who were arrested on trespassing charges at the April 1 protest. At the protest, LaWall and others waited in the lobby in the governor’s office for more than three hours.
The protest came a day after Gov. Brad Little signed into law what advocates call the most extreme criminal transgender bathroom ban in the nation. Protestors were also attempting to meet with him and urge him to veto a bill that requires teachers and doctors to out transgender minors to their parents, or face lawsuits. The governor later signed the bill. LaWall said the governor didn’t meet with her.
Minister takes the stand in her own trial: ‘We were waiting to talk to the governor’
LaWall’s trial is the first of three criminal cases stemming from the protest that are headed to trial. She briefly took the stand, waiving her right to remain silent in her criminal trial.
An attorney with the Ada County Prosecutor’s Office, Michael Hawkins, focused on establishing key facts in the trespassing case — like the several warnings that LaWall received before she was arrested.
“This is a case about what the defendant did, not about why she did it,” he said in closing arguments.
He presented body camera footage that depicts some of the several warnings that LaWall received that the office was closing.
LaWall’s defense attorney, Katelyn Enterkine, had argued that it wasn’t clear that the governor’s office actually owned his own office, which is in a public building. And she argued that the governor’s staffer and an Idaho State Police trooper who asked her to leave didn’t have the proper authority. But LaWall’s attorney didn’t dispute many of the facts presented by the prosecution.
Asked if the governor himself asked her to leave, LaWall said he did not come to talk to the protestors. She acknowledged that she was repeatedly asked to leave, but said: “We were waiting to talk to the governor.”
But in her court testimony, LaWall didn’t speak to why she and more than a dozen others protested at the governor’s office that day. The judge said he had restricted trial testimony related to the reason for the protest.
LaWall told reporters that she’d hoped to talk about how she and other community members were hoping for a meeting with the governor.
“They’re criminalizing trans people. They’re forcibly outing trans kids,” she told reporters. “And the governor, nor any of the legislators, have taken any time to really listen to the stories of (the) community and the impact that those laws are now having. And I wanted to be able to say that.”
More than a dozen people attended her one-day trial — including some who were at the protest.
What evidence did the jury consider?
Only three people testified to the court: an Idaho State Police trooper who arrested LaWall, a front desk worker for the governor’s office, and LaWall herself.
Prosecuting attorneys with the Ada County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office presented body camera footage from the arresting Idaho State Police trooper, Sgt. Jason Cagle. The footage depicted him warning LaWall at least three times that she would be arrested if she didn’t leave the governor’s office once it had closed for the day. He issued the first warning around 4:45 p.m., and again around 5:02 p.m. after the office had closed and troopers had locked the front door, according to video clips shown in court.
“Just so everybody knows, your voice has been heard. We’ve heard you. We’ve seen you. We’ve passed your notes, your letters, along to the governor’s office. Getting arrested really isn’t going to do you any good,” Cagle said to a crowd of protestors in the governor’s office.
Then another video clip, around 5:12 p.m., depicted him giving a final warning — directing the crowd to leave the governor’s office, or be arrested and charged with trespassing.
“All right, reverend, since you’re … the leader, you are the first one. Are you going to leave?” Cagle asks.
“No,” LaWall replies.
“You’re under arrest,” Cagle says. “Please stand up here.”