Man Who Sailed Into H-Test Zone Sentenced

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28987, 31 August 1959, Page 11

Man Who Sailed Into H-Test Zone Sentenced

(Rec. 10 p.m.) HONOLULU, August 29. Judge John Ross sentenced a former schoolteacher, Earle Reynolds, to two years’ imprisonment but suspended 18 months of the sentence yesterday after a jury found him guilty of having violated a United States Atomic Energy Commission ban by sailing his yacht Phoenix into the Eniwetok nuclear test zone. Judge Ross placed Reynolds on probation for five years. Immediately after the sentence, Reynolds’s lawyer, Mr John Silard, filed notice of appeal and Judge Ross released Reynolds on bail of 500 dollars pending the result of the appeal. The maximum penalty for the offence is a fine of 5000 dollars and two years’ imprisonment. Judge Ross did not fine Reynolds The A.E.C. declared the area prohibited to shipping before an H-bomb test. At his trial, Reynolds said that he had deliberately sailed into the area on July 1, 1958, but not with the intention of defying the commission. He said he had wanted to protest against the testing of nuclear weapons. The trial that ended yesterday

was Reynolds’s second on the same charge. An Appeals Court on June 1 this year declared his first trial on August 26 last year —when he received a six months’ gaol term —a mistrial, declaring that the the Judge at that hearing erred in not having allowed Reynolds to conduct his own defence. The jury yesterday took two hours to find Reynolds guilty. Told by Reynolds that he was “going broke” in Honolulu. Judge Ross said he was sympathetic, but added: “Although I don’t like to say it, there are two sides to this coin. If one decides to be a martyr, one must embark on it with the knowledge that he must endure hardship. This Court has a great deal of respect for you, but does not go along with the philosophy you have sacrificed yourself for." Judge Ross denied Reynolds’s request that he might be permitted to go to Japan while waiting the result of the appeal to resume his work in studying the effects of radiation on the children of Hiroshima.

He also denied Reynolds’s request to make a statement to the Court, tell him: “This Court is not a sounding board. All the shouting and tumullr is ended.”