Biography
Mark Peter Colville, KBP7 defendant; 18 months federal prison. Mark Colville is an American social justice and Catholic Worker activist. He is the founder of the Amistad Catholic Worker community in New Haven, Connecticut, which works on issues including homelessness, housing justice, and anti-war organizing.
Colville has been involved in anti-military activism for years, including protests outside U.S. drone bases. In April 2018, he was one of the seven members of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 who entered the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base to symbolically protest nuclear weapons. For this action he was convicted on federal charges alongside his co-defendants, and he chose not to seek bail on conscience grounds.
Colville has also been recognised locally for his activism and community work, including as a New Haven Register “Persons of the Year.” The Prince of Peace Plowshares was a six-person nonviolent direct-disarmament action at Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine on February 14, 1997. Philip Berrigan, Susan Crane, Stephen Kelly S.J., Mark Colville, Steve Baggarly, and Tom Lewis-Borbely entered the shipyard and hammered on, and poured blood on, the Tomahawk cruise-missile vertical launching system installed on the destroyer USS The Sullivans (DDG-68) under construction. They were charged in U.S. District Court for the District of Maine with conspiracy and damage to government property, with prosecutors alleging $28,000 in damage. All six were convicted; in addition to prison, each received two years of supervised release and a $4,000 restitution fine.
The November 12, 2019 NYC Anarchist Black Cross compilation reproduces reporting on the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 jury verdict of October 24, 2019: conspiracy, destruction of property on a naval installation, depredation of government property and trespass. It describes the defendants other than Stephen Kelly as free at home awaiting sentencing, while Kelly remained jailed. The reported twenty- or twenty-five-year maximum was a possible penalty, not an imposed term or actual service. Later dispositions remain separately recorded. Source: https://nycabc.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/updates-12-nov-2019-1.pdf#page=2
Initial Hancock custody, October 25, 2012
The Upstate Coalition statement dated October 25, 2012 named Mark Colville among thirteen people still held in jail late that afternoon after a blockade of Hancock Field near Syracuse. The statement reported trespass and disorderly-conduct charges and bail between $250 and $1,000. Four other named participants had already been released on their own recognizance. It does not establish the physical release day for the thirteen still held. This initial October 2012 custody must not be extended through later 2014 sentencing or conflated with other protest cases. No new release date or measured days imprisoned are inferred from this report.
The Nuclear Resister individually names Mark Colville among eleven people detained on August 14, 2023 after blocking the construction gate at Büchel air base in Germany, opposing U.S. nuclear bombs. Police took their identification, imposed a one-day ban and bar order, transported them in police vans and released them in Müllenbach. The one-day ban is not a prison sentence; no individual criminal charge, jail admission or completed confinement duration is established. Contemporary Nuclear Resister action report.
The Nuclear Resister individually names Mark Colville among ten people taken into custody on August 8, 2023 after entering Volkel Air Base in the Netherlands, where U.S. nuclear bombs are stockpiled, and kneeling on the runway during an anti-nuclear action. The participants were later released with a small fine, which none paid. No exact fine amount, individual statutory charge, jail admission or completed confinement duration is established. Contemporary Nuclear Resister action report.
Paul Elie’s November 2019 account reports that all seven Kings Bay defendants pleaded not guilty at their October 21 trial, arguing that the action sought to prevent nuclear destruction. The jury convicted them three days later. The plea records their position at trial, separately from the verdict and later sentencing.
Paul Elie, The New Yorker, November 19, 2019, reproduced by The Nuclear Resister.
The Nuclear Resister individually names Mark Colville 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.
The April 9, 2021 sentencing report records a $310 special assessment, three years of supervised release and joint restitution of $33,503.51 to the U.S. Navy, in addition to Colville’s 21-month sentence. He appeared by video from New Haven with standby counsel Matt Daloisio. His request for placement at Danbury was a preference passed to the Bureau of Prisons, not a completed transfer. The report’s expectation of roughly four more months in prison is not a measured custody total; the later documented Brooklyn confinement and September 10 release remain separate from that forecast.
The Nuclear Resister sentencing report and reproduced contemporary coverage, April 11, 2021.
In January 2022, Colville described a dispute over drug testing and financial disclosure during supervised release. A Hartford compliance hearing before Judge Michael P. Shea had been postponed to February 4 after Colville declined a video appearance. The accompanying New Haven Register report confirms his September 10, 2021 departure from the Brooklyn jail. A possible return to prison was a risk discussed before the hearing, not a completed new incarceration or a finding about its eventual outcome.
On August 26, 2019, Judge Lisa Godbey Wood denied the Kings Bay defendants’ pretrial motions to dismiss, including their Religious Freedom Restoration Act defense. The contemporary account reports that the court accepted the sincerity of their religious beliefs and found prosecution burdened their religious exercise, but held that the government’s security interests justified applying the criminal laws. The following day the jury trial was scheduled for October 21. These were pretrial rulings, separate from the later verdict and sentence; they did not establish a new jail admission.
In his August 7, 2019 oral argument before Judge Lisa Godbey Wood, Colville described sixteen months at Glynn County Detention Center and the practical obstacles to acting as his own lawyer: no computer, email or internet access, limited law-library access, monitored calls and postcard correspondence. He said he had been unable to meet his codefendants and their lawyers for more than nine months and had been denied regular participation in Catholic Mass. These are his attributed descriptions of pretrial conditions and defense preparation, not a new custody interval or an additional sentence.
The Kings Bay Plowshares’ March 28, 2022 update reports that the Hartford federal judge agreed Mark Colville no longer had to disclose financial information after the collective restitution was satisfied and allowed him to forgo drug testing because drugs were not part of the offense. The report supplies neither the judge’s name nor an exact modification day, and does not establish another physical detention.
The December 2018 Kings Bay support updates clarify that Mark Colville was released on bond in early September 2018 and actually returned to Glynn County jail on December 11. His December 8 statement announced a future surrender; the December 22 follow-up confirms that it occurred. Curfew and ankle-monitor restrictions during the intervening period are not treated as physical jail time. This documents an interruption in his pretrial detention, not one continuous April-to-December custody span or an additional measured service total.
The contemporaneous hearing reports also place his Religious Freedom Restoration Act testimony on November 19, following the November 7 hearing before Magistrate Judge Benjamin Cheesbro. The later support update still described the motions as undecided, with recommendations to go to District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood. Those hearings were not sentencing or acquittal.
December support update; Colville’s announced surrender; November hearing reports.
The October 25, 2012 Hancock report individually names Mark Colville among thirteen protesters still being held in jail late that afternoon after arrests at the air base gates and hearings in DeWitt Town Court. All seventeen arrestees were charged with trespass and disorderly conduct and served with protection orders concerning Earl A. Evans; four others were released on their own recognizance. The report does not give this person’s exact release day or a completed custody duration. Bail amounts are not treated as proof of release.
Bill Quigley’s report of the August 2, 2018 Kings Bay hearing identifies Stan Baker as the magistrate hearing dismissal motions, Lisa Godbey Wood as the district judge who would ultimately decide them, and Karl Knoche as the assistant U.S. attorney opposing dismissal. Those procedural roles and pending motions are distinct from a later trial verdict or sentencing disposition. Contemporary report, The Nuclear Resister.
The April 2018 report describes the Kings Bay defendants’ April 6 first appearance before Chief Magistrate Jennifer E. Lewis on the initial Georgia state allegations, with bail denied and detention at Camden County Public Safety Complex. This initial state-court phase is distinct from the later federal prosecution; the report’s April 5 arrest account does not resolve every conflicting legacy profile date. Contemporary report, The Nuclear Resister.
The prisoner list in issue 4 of the Danish peace newsletter Fred og frihed/Ikkevold for 1997 reports a 13-month imposed prison term for Mark Colville after the Maine Tomahawk-launcher Plowshares action. The list also reports two years of supervised release and a $4,000 financial penalty for each of the six defendants. These are the penalties reported at the time, rather than a measurement of completed imprisonment. Fred og frihed/Ikkevold, 1997 compilation, issue 4 prisoner list.
