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Line 3 protester convicted of felony granted new trial because of prosecutorial misconduct • Minnesota Reformer [1]
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Date: 2025-08-19
An anti-pipeline demonstrator convicted of a felony is entitled to a new trial after the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled Monday that the prosecutor’s repeated misconduct robbed her of a fair trial.
A jury in Aitkin County found Mylene Vialard, 56, guilty of felony obstruction of legal process for tying herself to another demonstrator in a 25-foot structure to protest the Enbridge Line 3 replacement pipeline in 2021. The appeals court ruled the jury’s decision may have been tainted by the prosecutor’s “pervasive” misconduct, including telling the jury to weigh facts not in evidence.
“It is rare for the system to hold prosecutors accountable, even though the system is all about accountability,” Vialard’s attorney Claire Glenn said. “We’re hopeful this will be the end of the road for Mylene’s case.”
The decision is the latest rebuke of Garrett Slyva, a former Aitkin County assistant attorney who oversaw numerous since-dismissed prosecutions of Line 3 protesters including prominent Ojibwe activist Winona LaDuke.
Slyva left the Aitkin County Attorney’s Office in April 2024, according to his LinkedIn page, just before he was suspended from practicing law by the Minnesota Supreme Court for 30 days. The suspension stemmed from misconduct in North Dakota, where Slyva sexually harassed two jailed female defendants while working for the Fargo Public Defender Office, the court found. He was fired and reprimanded by the North Dakota Supreme Court and then suspended in Minnesota.
The Aitkin County Attorney’s Office and Slyva did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Enbridge’s Line 3 replacement pipeline stretching across northern Minnesota was the source of widespread protests led by Indigenous activists during its planning and construction, leading to hundreds of arrests and charges.
The criminal proceedings have carried on for years after the protests ended and the pipeline began carrying millions of gallons of oil from Alberta, Canada to Superior, Wisconsin. Activists have accused local prosecutors of weaponizing the justice system, using felony charges to crack down on free speech.
In August 2021, Vialard and another protester installed themselves in hammocks suspended from a bamboo structure on an access road that led to the Line 3 pump station.
As law enforcement approached them in a bucket truck to remove them, Vialard and the other protester locked their arms to one another through a pipe in a maneuver called a “sleeping dragon.” The officers initially tried to remove them together, but the other protester removed his arm from the device, allowing officers to extract them separately.
The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office represented the state on the appeal and conceded to five of the 20 instances of Slyva’s alleged misconduct.
The misconduct includes attempting to bolster one of the law enforcement witness’ testimony by asking him about his lack of ethical violations and asking a second law enforcement witness if he had sustained injuries responding to Line 3 protests that were unrelated to Vialard’s case.
Slyva also improperly suggested that Vialard would have pleaded guilty if there was better video evidence and invited the jury to “draw reasonable inferences off of what’s not in evidence.”
“It is extremely troubling that the prosecutor made explicit arguments during the state’s closing and rebuttal encouraging the jury to base its verdict on facts outside the record,” Judge Jeanne Cochran wrote for the court.
The court also held that Slyva was wrong to say the sheriff was elected to protect “our” community, which aligned the state with the jury and may have “inflamed the passions of the jury by creating an ‘us versus them’ scenario” since Vialard is a Colorado resident who speaks with a French accent.
Vialard also argued the appeals court should reverse the jury’s verdict because there wasn’t enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she intentionally locked herself into the sleeping dragon to obstruct law enforcement. She said she locked herself in the device to protest Line 3.
The appeals court found the jury did have sufficient evidence for the conviction, although it noted the evidence wasn’t particularly strong because the state’s witnesses’ accounts were inconsistent at times.
Vialard said in a statement that she was glad the appellate court recognized the prosecutor’s misconduct, but that a larger fight against Enbridge remains.
“The disregard for the territories and rights of the Anishinaabe people and the paid-for-by-Enbridge police violence against them and their allies is an issue that has yet to be addressed by the justice system,” she said.
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[1] Url:
https://minnesotareformer.com/2025/08/19/line-3-protester-convicted-of-felony-granted-new-trial-because-of-prosecutorial-misconduct/
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