A group of civil society organizations is urging President Joe Biden to issue a pardon for environmental and human rights lawyer Steven Donziger, saying that the “scorched-earth” campaign against him pursued by Chevron is a “stain” on the U.S. legal system.
The groups said that Donziger has been the subject of a series of abuses of the U.S. court system, pointing out that a UN working group has previously found that his nearly three years in detention were carried out in violation of international law.
“Mr. Donziger’s case is a stain on our nation’s justice system and casts a chill on advocates for human rights and environmental justice,” the groups said in the letter, sent on Monday.
The letter was signed by 16 groups, including environmental groups like Greenpeace and other advocacy groups like Veterans for Peace and the National Lawyers Guild. The letter effort was spearheaded by Defending Rights & Dissent.
Donziger has become a well-known figure in the environmental movement for a lawsuit he led with Indigenous communities against Texaco, now owned by Chevron, for illegal dumping of waste in Ecuador — and the legal firestorm that followed. Documents and testimonies found that Chevon had collaborated with a law firm to pursue charges that advocates have said were frivolous and meant to serve as a deterrent to environmental activists wishing to take on Big Oil.
Others, including Amnesty International, have also called for Biden to pardon Donziger.
“What happened to me is a major breach of the right to a fair trial,” Donziger recently told Amnesty International in an interview. “And I think the only way to really correct this as a country is for President Biden to pardon me and to make a strong statement to remedy the human rights violations in my case.”
A pardon “would send a signal that President Biden, who claims to be a climate president and a rule of law president, can walk the walk, not just do the talk. And it would be a really important opportunity for him to stand up for the principles that he purports,” Donziger went on.
After Donziger obtained a landmark win in Ecuadorian court against Chevron, Chevron filed a lawsuit slapping him with Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) charges.
In a highly abnormal move, the judge in the suit ordered Donziger to turn over his communications, including his electronic case files, as part of the trial. The judge held him in contempt of court when he refused, then appointed a private law firm that had previously worked for Chevron to prosecute him. Donziger was sentenced to pre-trial arrest, and then sentenced to prison, where he served nearly 1,000 days — making him the only known case of a lawyer being held in detention for misdemeanor contempt charges.
Legal experts have noted that Donziger’s case was “rigged” against him, showing the vast power that major oil and gas companies hold against environmental and climate advocates in the U.S.
In the letter to Biden, the civil society groups pointed out that reports have shown that Chevron covertly met with the law firm appointed to prosecute Donziger 32 times over the course of his case.
“The coordination between Chevron and the private law firm prosecuting Mr. Donziger illustrates the irregularities in the case,” the groups said. “The irregularities of the proceedings against Mr. Donziger and unusual harshness of his treatment constitute a grave injustice and threaten free speech protections in our society.”
“[I]t is clear this was an abuse of the legal system by Chevron to punish Mr. Donziger. This corporate hijacking of the legal system not only visited a severe injustice upon Mr. Donziger, it sent a chilling message to other human rights and environmental advocates,” said Chip Gibbons, policy director for Defending Rights & Dissent. “Pardoning Mr. Donziger is not only necessary to right the wrong that has been personally done to him, but to help undo the broad chill to free expression rights this case has done.”
Last month, a group of 34 lawmakers, led by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts), also wrote a letter to Biden asking him to issue a pardon for the lawyer.
“Pardoning Mr. Donziger would instead send a powerful message to the world that billion-dollar corporations cannot act with impunity against lawyers and their clients who defend the public interest,” the letter said.
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