BECKLEY, W.Va. — Raleigh County Circuit Judge John A. Hutchison might not see the protesters in his courtroom again, but environmental activists seem unlikely to halt their peaceful actions against Massey Energy anytime soon.
As the Gazette reported earlier, Hutchison agreed yesterday morning to consolidate Massey’s court actions against the protesters and ship the cases over to his fellow Raleigh Circuit Judge, Robert A. Burnside. But first, Hutchison extended his previous temporary restraining order for a couple more weeks.
Hutchison also made it abundantly clear that he means his TRO (and Burnside’s) to be very broad, and to help Massey try to fend off anyone who seeks to use peaceful civil disobedience tactics against the company’s mountaintop removal operations in Southern West Virginia. Apparently, Burnside had expanded his TRO to include anyone “associated with” previous protesters or “acting in concert” with those already named in the Massey court actions.
One protester, Rory McIlmoil, questioned that, saying that people “associated” with the activists “could be thousands of people.”
Hutchison snapped:
Then it enjoins thousands of people. Everyone is enjoined from interfering with the processes at these facilities.
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