USA: Jury Indemnifies $ 25 Million for Unite the Right Violence | Court News

Leaders and white nationalist groups were ordered to pay damages for the deadly violence at a 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

A U.S. jury has ordered more than $ 25 million in compensation to white patriotic leaders and organizations for the violence sparked by the death. 2017 United Right Rally Charlottesvillen, Virginian.

After almost a long month civil trial, on Tuesday, a U.S. National Court jury found four white nationalists responsible for four of the six crimes in a lawsuit filed by nine people who suffered physical or emotional injuries during two days of protest.

Attorney Roberta Kaplan said the plaintiffs’ attorneys intend to reopen the case so that a new jury can decide a verdict that the jury could not. He described the amount of damages awarded in other accounts as “openable”.

“That sends a loud message,” Kaplan said.

The verdict is a rebuke to the white nationalist movement, especially for orchestrating violence against African Americans, Jews and others in a carefully planned conspiracy against two dozen people and organizations accused of a federal lawsuit.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers enacted a 150-year law passed after the Civil War to protect freed slaves from violence and to protect civil rights.

Known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, the law contains a rarely used provision that allows private citizens to sue other citizens for violating their civil rights.

Hundreds of white patriots marched on Charlottesville on August 11 and 12, 2017 to protest the Batu the Right to protest the city’s plans. remove a statue From the public square of Confederate General Robert E Lee.

During a march on the campus of the University of Virginia, white patriots shouted “Jews will not represent us,” surrounded the counter-protesters, and threw torches at them. The next day, a declared admirer of Adolf Hitler hit his car against counter-protesters, killing one woman and injuring dozens.

Then President Donald Trump touched a political fire when he did not immediately denounce the white patriots, saying that there were “very fine people on both sides” of the event.

Car driver, James Alex Fields Jr, is serving a life sentence for murder and hate crimes. Fields was one of 24 defendants named in the case funded by Integrity First for America in response to the Charlottesville violence.

James Alex Fields Jr. is serving a life sentence in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia on charges of murder and hate crimes for entering a car with counter-protesters. [File: Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail via AP]

The lawsuit accused the country’s most notorious white nationalists of planning violence, including Jason Kessler, the main organizer of the rally; Richard Spencer, coined the term “alt-right” to describe a white nationalist, neo-Nazi, and other group; and Christopher Cantwell, a white supremacist known as the “weeping Nazi,” for posting a tearful video when he was ordered to be arrested.

At trial there were emotional testimonies from people who beat Fields ’cars or witnessed the attacks, as well as those who were beaten or subjected to racist taunts.

Melissa Blair, when Fields ’car collided with the crowd, was thrown out of the way, described her fear of seeing her boyfriend bleeding on the sidewalk and then found out about her friend, 32 years old. Heather Heyer, they killed.

“I was confused. I was scared. I was worried about all the people who were there. It was a whole scene of horror. There was blood everywhere. I was terrified, ”Blair said, weeping several times in his testimony.

In their testimony, some of the defendants used racial epithets and challenged them in favor of white supremacy.

They blamed each other or the Antifa fascist political movement for the violence that erupted that weekend. Others testified that they had resorted to violence themselves or their members after being attacked by opposing protesters.

“We used to come to the rescue of our friends and allies who were being beaten by the Communists,” said Michael Tubbs, chief of staff for the nationalist white organization in the Southern League.

Prior to the trial, Judge Norman Moon handed down his own verdicts against seven other defendants who refused to respond to the case. The court will decide the damages against these defendants.