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It started on<\/span> President Donald Trump\u2019s very first day in office in 2017. Over 200 Inauguration Day protesters were mass arrested and charged<\/a> with hefty riot and conspiracy felonies for simply being present and wearing black at a rowdy demonstration. <\/p>\n Since then, the government has sought and failed to convict left-wing activists on thin, unconstitutional claims of collective guilt.<\/p>\n Just as the J20 prosecutions, as the inauguration cases were known, fell apart<\/a>, so too did cases<\/a> accusing dozens of participants in the Atlanta-based Stop Cop City<\/a> movement of domestic terrorism, racketeering<\/a>, <\/a>and conspiracy.<\/p>\n It became a pattern of sorts. Prosecutors on both the federal and state level<\/a> throwing extreme and overreaching<\/a> charges at leftists, based on infirm theories of collective liability, aiming to paint antifascist, anti-racist movements as criminal terrorist networks. The evidence marshaled in these cases was consistently no more than typical First Amendment-protected activity, like making protest signs, raising bail funds<\/a>, or being present<\/a> at a demonstration. The cases drained movement energies and resources.<\/p>\n Again and again, though, they failed.<\/p>\n This was the pattern repeated in the malign, overreaching cases against protesters in Fort Worth, Texas. The anti-ICE activists had mounted a demonstration at a U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement jail in nearby Alvarado.<\/p>\n There were consistencies with other anti-protest cases. There had been some illegal activity outside the Prairieland Detention Facility last July, and a police officer was shot. The government latched onto these circumstances to build its strategy of criminalizing dissent through guilt by association.<\/p>\n Even in conservative Texas, I didn\u2019t think a jury would buy the government\u2019s case that these defendants were \u201cNorth Texas Antifa Cell operatives\u201d \u2014 an organization fabricated whole cloth by the Trump administration \u2014 who had orchestrated an elaborate ambush of the ICE facility.<\/p>\n Last week, a jury found eight of the defendants guilty of terrorism charges<\/a> for simply being present and wearing black<\/a> at the protest. The government scored a resounding victory: A few of the protesters, none of whom had fired any weapons, were acquitted of attempted murder charges, but the Justice Department won on almost all the other charges.<\/p>\n \u201cMost people looking at this case are still stuck on the shooting aspect, but the jury decided the shooting was beside the point,\u201d a member of a support group<\/a> for the defendants told me. \u201cThe verdict is that a normal noise demo deserves to be called terrorism and people should spend potentially the rest of their lives in prison. The implications of this are obvious, and people should know that the DOJ is going to try this again.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The convictions mark a number of grim precedents. It was the first successful effort in court to paint anti-ICE, antifascist protest activity as not only criminal but also terroristic; the first time federal terrorism charges have been deployed in association with the \u201cantifa<\/a>\u201d label; and the first time the Trump government\u2019s collective guilt strategy won in court.<\/p>\n The terrorism-related charges in the case were filed just a month<\/a> after Trump announced that he was designating antifa, which is not an organization, a \u201cmajor terrorist organization\u201d \u2014 a designation that does not exist under law for domestic groups<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s little wonder that the Justice Department is celebrating<\/a> the convictions. Trump\u2019s Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement that the \u201cverdict on terrorism charges will not be the last as the Trump administration systematically dismantles Antifa and finally halts their violence on America\u2019s streets.\u201d<\/p>\n The prosecution\u2019s case was extraordinarily weak \u2014 all they really proved was that the activists, some of whom knew each other, planned and attended a late-night demonstration during which certain illegal acts took place.<\/p>\n If that can be sold to juries as the work of an organized terrorist cell, deserving of decades in prison, then Trump\u2019s fantasy of rounding up and imprisoning leftists en masse becomes a reality. This was entirely the idea behind Trump\u2019s National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, or NSPM-7, released last September, which directs<\/a> federal law enforcement agencies to target left-leaning groups and activities<\/a>. One of the defense attorneys involved in the Prairieland cases told<\/a> news outlet NOTUS that it \u201cwouldn\u2019t be a terrorism case if it weren\u2019t for that memo.\u201d<\/p>\n The prosecution treated it as a given that antifascist, anti-government, left-wing sentiment was itself evidence of criminal conspiracy.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Throughout the trial, the prosecution treated it as a given that antifascist, anti-government, left-wing sentiment was itself evidence of criminal conspiracy. As The Intercept\u2019s Matt Sledge reported<\/a>, \u201cprosecutors bombarded jurors with images of radical zines<\/a>\u201d and \u201canti-government internet memes, drawings of burning cop cars, and a video of an unidentified street brawl between far-left and far-right protesters.\u201d<\/p>\n The fact that demonstrators wore black and covered their faces \u2014 a reasonable tactic in an era when federal forces<\/a> are filming<\/a> and openly harassing<\/a> legal observers and anti-ICE protesters \u2014 was presented as material support for terrorism, for which the jury convicted eight defendants.<\/p>\n Another defendant<\/a> was convicted for the crime of moving a box of zines <\/a>and pamphlets.<\/p>\n What should have at most been individualized cases relating to a shooting and minor property damage were instead spun by the government<\/a> into a delusional story of a planned ambush involving \u201cexplosives\u201d \u2014 protesters set off retail fireworks \u2014 and \u201cterroristic acts,\u201d according to a Justice Department statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n Whether certain illegal activity took place outside the Prairieland Detention Facility last July 4 was never up for debate in this case. Protesters spray-painted vehicles in the parking lot, and a police officer was shot in the neck by one protester, Benjamin Song. (Song was convicted of one count of attempted murder and could face up to life in prison.)<\/p>\n The material support for terrorism and related convictions must be challenged in appeal. They are unconstitutional and were obtained in a trial riddled with irregularities. <\/p>\n For one, the Trump-appointed judge, U.S. District Court Judge Mark Pittman, abruptly declared a mistrial<\/a> during jury selection based on the initial jury pool reportedly showing too little sympathy for ICE.<\/p>\n When the trial restarted, the judge himself took charge of jury selection \u2014 a highly unusual move. Pittman also barred Song from presenting a self-defense argument. Access to the court for supporters, observers, and the media was also extremely limited.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the odds were stacked against the defendants from the start,\u201d Xavier T. de Janon, a defense attorney representing one of the defendants, told<\/a> Unicorn Riot. \u201cThe rulings of the judge, the way the courtroom was closed, the fact that the first jury was declared a mistrial, where this was happening, the very strict rules on who can even take these cases in north Texas, the sanctions that the judge imposed on defense attorneys for filing very normal motions \u2014 all of this piled up to end in this result.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\nGrim Precedents<\/h2>\n
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Keep Up the Fight<\/h2>\n