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(Salt Lake City-AP) -- A group of war protesters arrested during a demonstration at the Salt Lake City federal building got no sympathy from a judge yesterday.
U-S Magistrate Judge David Nuffer ordered a July trial date for eight people on charges of loitering and disorderly conduct.
The protesters' attorney had argued that the demonstration -- where the eight blocked the entrance to the federal building -- was the only way they could have their voices heard by elected officials.
Ron Yengich says his clients can't afford one-hundred-dollar-per-plate dinners with the politicians -- so they had to take their anti-war message to the street.
But Nuffer didn't buy the so-called "necessity defense." Such and argument would work for a prisoner who escapes from a burning jail, for example, but not here.
He says war with Iraq wasn't going to be averted no matter what the protesters did that day.
The trial is July tenth.
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
