Closing arguments are expected Monday in the nation’s capital for a Northampton social activist charged with disorderly conduct for allegedly disrupting a U.S. Senate hearing earlier this year.
Over the course of the day Thursday, Patricia “Paki” Wieland presented her case and listened to prosecutors as part of a bench trial in the District of Columbia Superior Court.
“I think the trial is going well,” Wieland said by phone on Sunday. “The prosecution is not very strong in that it hasn’t been able to persuade the judge that in fact, I willfully disturbed or disrupted or … interrupted the proceedings.”
Wieland, 73, was arrested Feb. 1 at a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting, in which legislators sent the name of then-Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions to the full Senate as their nominee for U.S. attorney general.
Following the party-line vote, Wieland spoke out about shouting “Shame! Shame! Shame!”
In a video of the incident, Wieland can be seen being removed from the chambers in her pink smock that read, “Say No to Islamaphobia.” Wieland attended the hearing with other activists with Code Pink, a national network of primarily women anti-war activists advocating that tax dollars be redirected from the military to health care, the environment, education and other causes.
As a result of the incident, she was charged with disorderly and disruptive conduct on U.S. Capitol grounds.
The trial is scheduled to resume 10:30 a.m. Monday for closing statements.
“I am feeling hopeful that the judge really did hear what happened. That my state of mind was not to interrupt but to express both great sadness over this and anger,” Wieland said. “That is actually what my intention was. It was already over. There was nothing to try to interrupt.”
Emily Cutts can be reached at ecutts@gazettenet.com.