Judge Martina Peterson had seemed 'very accommodating,' when the defendants met with her earlier, Stoever told his supporters the night before the scheduled trial. Stoever, the attorney who also heads PeaceWorks Kansas City, had been granted a waiver to represent both himself and three other defendants at trial, while Terrell chose to represent himself. Some among the dozens who showed up to support the protesters speculated that traffic tie-ups and road closings resulting from a presidential visit to Kansas City on the same afternoon as the trial may have detained the witness, although it had been mentioned at a gathering of supporters the night before the trial that they had been unable to reach the witness recently. In light of the witness' absence, the judge dismissed the charges. The court's plans changed unexpectedly when the National Nuclear Security Administration official involved in the arrests did not arrive in court at the scheduled time. They decided to plead not guilty in order to go to trial and increase publicity. Those who were arrested were released after half an hour and charged with trespassing.

The five were among a group of 65 who marched on May 28 about a mile from the Bannister Federal Complex, a boarded-up site where nonnuclear parts of nuclear weapons were produced from 1949 to 2014, to the National Security Campus for a rally and 'die-in.' The campus has taken over production of more than 85 percent of the nonnuclear components for U.S.

Nuke free trial