Biography
Art Laffin was a Dorothy Day Catholic Worker in New Haven and a chronicler of the movement.
Dorothy Day/New Haven Catholic Worker and chronicler of the movement. He took part in the 1982 Trident Nein action (USS Florida, Electric Boat, Groton, CT) and the 1989 Thames River Plowshares (New London, CT).
Art Laffin is the principal chronicler of the Plowshares movement, co-editor with Sr. Anne Montgomery of two editions of "Swords Into Plowshares: Nonviolent Direct Action for Disarmament" (Harper & Row 1987; Fortkamp 1996). He was a member of the Covenant Peace Community in New Haven from 1978 to 1990 before joining the Olive Branch Catholic Worker in DC in 1990 and the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker in 1994, where he still lives with his wife and son. He is the author of a new edition of "The Risk of the Cross: Living Gospel Nonviolence in the Nuclear Age" and has been imprisoned for two Plowshares actions.
Calculated release date for the stay beginning September 28, 2000: September 29, 2000. The recorded overnight detention places release on the next calendar day; it does not assert twenty-four full hours of confinement. This is a calculated date from the recorded admission and duration, not a separately documented physical-discharge date.
Calculated release date
Calculated release date for the stay beginning September 28, 2000: September 29, 2000. The recorded overnight detention places release on the next calendar day; it does not assert twenty-four full hours of confinement. This is a calculated date from the recorded admission and duration, not a separately documented physical-discharge date.
Thames River custody episodes
Laffin's participant-authored chronology establishes September 4–5, 1989 overnight detention, followed by a separate March 6, 1990 sixty-day sentence. The September 5 release is not the end of the later prison term; those custody endpoints remain unknown.
Source: Arthur J. Laffin, Plowshares chronology, Thames River section.
Trident Nein dates and separate proceedings
Participant Art Laffin dates the action and arrests to July 5, 1982. The contemporary sentencing report dates the original disposition to November 9, 1982. A sentence is not treated as a verified prison-admission date.
Sources: Art Laffin, July 2022 eyewitness retrospective; Revolutionary Worker, November 12, 1982, pages 1–2.
Existing individually documented custody periods and May 27, 1983 release have been preserved; the sentencing date does not overwrite those interrupted stays.
Original archival custody and release evidence
The Nuclear Resister issue 12 names all nine participants and reports seven weeks in jail followed by August 26, 1982 recognizance release. Initial custody is July 5–August 26, not an uninterrupted stay through 1983.
Issue 13 records the November 9 sentence as suspended to time served. Issue 15 documents February 2, 1983 revocation and renewed imprisonment. The intervening recognizance period is excluded from time imprisoned.
Actual later prison release: 1983-05-27. This is not the end of the entire sentence.
Sources: issue 12, October 18, 1982, printed page 4 (PDF page 6); issue 13, November 30, 1982, page 4; issue 14, January 14, 1983, page 3; issue 15, March 9, 1983, printed page 6 (PDF page 8); issue 16, April 17, 1983, printed page 10 (PDF page 11); issue 17, June 6, 1983, page 5.
Earlier November 1981 Groton proceeding and intervening bail
Original page 3 names Dean Hammer, Ann Montgomery, Art Laffin, Chris Grannis, Elin Schade and Judy Beaumont as out on bail after the November 9, 1981 Electric Boat administration-building blood-and-ashes action in Groton. It reports denial of pretrial motions and the judge’s recusal on December 2, with trial delayed. This is a distinct earlier proceeding, not the July 5, 1982 Trident Nein detention or the original Plowshares Eight case. Being out on bail is not continuous imprisonment; the article supplies no exact initial physical-jail receipt, release day or actual custody total. No additional imprisonment counter or speculative discrete jail interval is created.
National No-Nukes Prison Support Collective newsletter No. 9, December 12, 1981, original page 3.
Contemporary anti-nuclear custody report
The Groton update concerns the November 1981 blood-and-ashes protest at Electric Boat, not the later July 1982 Trident Nein action. It says charges against Judy Beaumont, Christopher Grannis, Dean Hammer, Ann Montgomery and Elin Schade were dropped at the January 28, 1982 appearance, while Art Laffin still awaited trial. It does not supply an actual jail-admission or release day; dismissed charges are not a custody endpoint.
National No-Nukes Prison Support Collective newsletter No. 11, April 15, 1982, original pages 3.
Separate February 1985 missile-silo vigil detention
The report individually names Art Laffin, Father Larry Rosebaugh and Patrick Mulvehill as arrested for state trespass after crossing the field fence near the N-5 silo during a February 18, 1985 support vigil. All three remained in jail pending a March 1 hearing, unlike Miriam Olsen and Bobbie Plante, who posted bond. This establishes a distinct actual multi-night 1985 custody episode for Art Laffin, not an extension of a previous Pantex, Fort Benning, Trident Nein or 1983 workhouse stay. The future hearing is not actual release, and no final duration is inferred. Larry is the source’s familiar name for the existing Lawrence Rosebaugh; no new person is created.
The Nuclear Resister No.29, February 27, 1985, original PDF pages 2,4,6.
Contemporary1985 custody follow-up
The April16 follow-up explicitly says this individually named supporter remained jailed and fasted eleven days before the March1,1985 bench trial, which ended in conviction and a time-served sentence. The issue lists the person recently released. Eleven is actual reported confinement, not the nominal sentence or a duration copied from another case. The hearing/time-served date is not automatically treated as the exact physical-release day.
The May 9, 1981 newsletter individually names this person among five anti-nuclear protesters held over the weekend after the April 25 demonstration at Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut, where the submarine Corpus Christi was launched. They refused to supply their ages. On Monday they still declined to cooperate, and New London Superior Court Judge Francis Quinn initially imposed fifty days for contempt. After discussion, the five were released on their own recognizance pending trial. The fifty-day term was not fifty days actually served. The source establishes weekend custody but does not print the exact release date; no calendar-relative endpoint or total is invented.
National No-Nukes Prison Support Collective newsletter No. 5, May 9, 1981.
Laffin was tried July 20, 1982 for the November 9, 1981 Electric Boat action. Criminal mischief was dropped and the jury acquitted him of trespass; this is distinct from the July 1982 Trident Nein prosecution.
In his July 2022 retrospective, participant Art Laffin names all nine Trident Nein participants and reports that, after their July 5, 1982 Electric Boat action, the group was convicted of criminal mischief, conspiracy and criminal trespass and ordered to pay $1,386.67 in restitution to the Navy. This is an attributed account of the group order, not a claim that each participant separately owed that amount. The source’s collective statement of jail sentences of up to one year does not replace the independently documented individual custody periods or establish additional time served.
Source: Art Laffin, The nuclear threat remains; the resistance continues, Pax Christi USA, July 4, 2022.
The Nuclear Resister individually names Art Laffin among nine people arrested on November 13, 2023 during a blockade of the General Dynamics–Electric Boat engineering complex in New London, Connecticut. The report gives charges of criminal trespass, criminal mischief and breach of the peace. It states that those arrested were processed at the New London police station for up to seven hours and then released; that group maximum is not assigned as this person’s individual completed duration. The November 27 arraignment was prospective, not a documented outcome. No overnight jail admission or imprisonment-day total is inferred. The Nuclear Resister, November 14, 2023.
Art Laffin’s participant report individually names Art Laffin among fourteen people arrested during the May 17, 2013 White House sidewalk vigil calling for Guantanamo’s closure. Park Police took the group to the Anacostia Park Police station and charged them with disobeying a lawful order. The report does not give an actual release day or establish jail admission or completed custody duration. The group’s return instructions for an arraignment date are not a completed court outcome. The Nuclear Resister, May 19, 2013.
Art Laffin’s contemporary account individually names Art Laffin among seven people arrested during the December 28, 2015 Holy Innocents witness at the Pentagon. They were taken to the Pentagon Police Center, cited for violation of a lawful order and released, with a February 4, 2016 court date announced. The calendar day of physical release, separate jail admission, outcome and completed custody duration are not supplied. Contemporary report, The Nuclear Resister.
The August 2012 compilation individually names Art Laffin among six people arrested at the Pentagon on August 6 and charged with violating a lawful order. The October court report records a no-contest plea, an $85 fine and Magistrate Judge Buchanan at the October 19 hearing. The earlier report describes release after processing; no separate prison admission or completed duration is established. Any later arrest on another warrant is a separate episode.
Art Laffin’s first-person report identifies his March 19, 2011 arrest with the veteran-led antiwar protest in front of the White House. He reports that all 113 arrestees were charged with failure to obey a lawful order. The April court appearances were still prospective; the account supplies no individual jail admission, physical-release date or completed jail duration.
Sources: https://www.nukeresister.org/2011/03/24/invasion-anniversary-actions-lead-to-arrests/
Art Laffin’s account individually names this participant among eleven people arrested on the Pentagon sidewalk during the 2012 Good Friday witness after three warnings to leave. It reports a failure-to-comply-with-a-lawful-order charge and a then-future May 18 court date. The Holy Thursday Israeli Embassy witness and the later White House witness are described separately. Contemporary source.
The September 26, 2016 Pentagon account names this activist among twenty-one people arrested for violating a lawful order while demanding accountability for war crimes. All were reported released with a future November 3 court date. That scheduled hearing does not establish a later verdict or an additional custody interval. Contemporary report, The Nuclear Resister.
The report individually names Art Laffin among fifteen people arrested at the White House on September 22, 2015. Joy First’s participant account describes arrest at about 2:15 p.m. and release at 9 p.m. that day. Her account distinguishes a blocking-passage charge form from others described as disorderly conduct, and says no actual citation was supplied. The intended future not-guilty response is not a recorded accepted plea; the several-hour detention is not counted as a whole prison day.
Sources: Contemporary report.
The April 2015 U.S. Mission to the United Nations report names Art Laffin among twenty-two people arrested, processed at the Seventeenth Precinct and released by early afternoon. Its introductory April 27 date conflicts with Art Laffin’s participant account and John LaForge’s separate first-person account, both dating the action April 28. Accounts also differ in their descriptions of summons charges. These differences are preserved rather than silently replacing existing case dates or charges; the planned June 24 hearing is not an eventual court outcome.
Sources: Contemporary report; Contemporary report.
The Good Friday report names Art Laffin among seven people arrested at the Pentagon on April 3, 2015 and processed and released several hours later. The reported charge was failure to comply with a lawful order, with a June 4 court appearance still prospective. The symbolic crucifixion script and its named historical victims are separate from the seven-person arrest roster.
Sources: Contemporary report.
Art Laffin’s participant account names Bill Frankel Streit, Art Laffin and Nancy Gowen as arrested at the Pentagon on August 6, 2013 after kneeling outside the designated protest area. They were charged with disobeying a lawful order, processed and released several hours later. The announced October 4 trial was still prospective. The Nuclear Resister, contemporary source report 632.
Laffin’s own September 2011 Kansas City courtroom report describes his prosecution following the May 2 protest at the new nuclear-weapons-parts plant. He states that he and Greg Boertje-Obed represented themselves, while Ruth O’Neill and Henry Stoever represented the other defendants. The trial narrative names Judge Ardie Bland; the reproduced closing statement spells the name Brand. The Nuclear Resister, contemporary source report 840.
