A federal appeals court threw out a climate cultist’s 25-year prison term after he was convicted of firing on energy facilities in the Dakotas, ruling that the trial judge wrongly lengthened the sentence by treating the attacks as driven by a terrorist motive.

According to the Williston-Herald, three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit threw out Cameron Smith’s 25-year prison term and sent the case back to federal district court in North Dakota for a new sentence. The judges concluded that the trial court wrongly raised his punishment by treating the crimes as motivated by terrorism.

A desire for public attention does not without more establish a motive to intimidate or coerce those who reach or watch the news, the judges concluded. The government suggested at oral argument that Smith hoped for others to ‘rise up’ and join his climate activism, but a motive to recruit followers is not a motive to intimidate and coerce.

Smith, a Canadian citizen, pleaded guilty in September 2024 to two counts of destroying an energy facility. In July 2022 he shot a transformer and pump station on the Keystone Pipeline in South Dakota; in May 2023 he fired a high-powered rifle into equipment at the Wheelock electrical substation near Ray, North Dakota. Each attack caused more than $100,000 in damage and interrupted operations. Investigators later linked him to the North Dakota shooting after finding a nearby vehicle and two duffel bags with firearms and ammunition matching casings at the scene.

In March 2025, U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor, a Trump appointee, imposed consecutive 150-month terms—25 years total—after concluding the offenses met the legal definition of terrorism. He relied in part on evidence that Smith wanted media coverage and had associated himself with Extinction Rebellion, which an investigator called a climate-activist group. Prosecutors said Smith sprayed environmental symbols and targeted the sites to pressure people in the Dakotas over climate change and to reach a wider audience through news reports.

The Eighth Circuit panel—Chief Judge Steven Colloton and Judge Raymond Gruender (both George W. Bush appointees) and Judge Jonathan A. Kobes (a Trump appointee)—held that the district court miscalculated the advisory sentencing guidelines. Wanting publicity or hoping others would join a climate campaign, the court said, does not by itself prove an intent to intimidate or coerce the public. The case now returns to the district court for resentencing without that enhancement.

Cameron Smith shot up an electric facilities with a rifle and possessed bags of guns and ammunition hoping to pressure people in the Dakota region into addressing climate change. If that doesn’t rise to the level of eco-terrorism, I don’t know what does. It doesn’t help matters when liberal judges enable terrorism literally assuming violence is another form of free expression.