After her arrest, Miller and her co-defendants mounted a defence which consisted of necessity and Colour of right. In a 2004 interview, Miller explained: "How much do we tolerate direct action as a society? And that was our big defence. What do we tolerate? We’re going to get so upset about people taking over an abandoned house and using it, and in the same blink of an eye, we tolerate how many homeless people sleeping in our streets every night?"