Salinas resident will be sentenced in Santa Barbara.

Peace activist MacGregor Eddy will be sentenced on June 15 for trespassing on Vandenberg Air Force Base, an act of civil disobedience she committed in October, 2005. She faces up to six months in jail.

She was arrested while attending a Keep Space for Peace rally, protesting the Star Wars program, at Vandenberg. It was Eddy’s second arrest at the base, a major US missile site.

 Immediately before Eddy’s sentencing, which takes place at 1:30pm in  a Santa Barbara courthouse, other peace activists will hold a rally and press conference.

US Magistrate Rita Federman convicted Eddy, 57, in February of misdemeanor trespassing.

“We are the ones in noncompliance with the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. We need to stand up as citizens.”

“I’m a pretty law abiding person,” Eddy says. “I wear my seatbelt. My city councilman, Robert Ocampo, sent a letter to the judge magistrate on my behalf.”

Although the prosecutor is pushing for the maximum sentence—six months in federal prison—the probation department has recommended a five-year probation, along with a $2,500 fine and 100 hours of community service.

Eddy says she’s hoping for a much shorter probation.

“My husband’s not sure I could comply with a whole five years probation, nor am I,” she says. “Five years is a long time. Look what’s happened to our civil rights in the last five years.”

So Eddy says she’s prepared to make a deal with the US government. “If they would refrain from waging any illegal wars of aggression against another county that hasn’t attacked us first, then I’ll comply with my probation for five years.”

Eddy, a Salinas resident, was arrested when she went on to the base to offer military staff a pamphlet on nonviolence and ask them to stop violating international law.

“I tried to deliver copies of the Nuremberg principles, and when the officials would not take them, I read them aloud and was arrested for trespassing,” she says.

At the February trial, Federman ruled that Eddy could not present a “defense of necessity.” Eddy’s attorney argued that Eddy felt compelled to violate a minor law—trespassing—because of her moral obligation to try to stop a much greater harm—the war in Iraq.

Eddy has been protesting at the base since 2002. She says that  her most recent arrest and impending sentencing won’t slow her down.

“We must work for peace,” she says. “And now, our government is doing it again with Iran, when we are the ones in noncompliance with the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. They are acting menacing again and we need to stand up as citizens and stop them.”

Eddy has asked that anyone wishing to carpool to the sentencing hearing call her at 206-5043 or e-mail mindful@redshift.com.