Jury Finds Unite The Right Rally Organizers Responsible for Charlottesville Violence

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA — White supremacists Richard Spencer, Jason Kessler and Christopher Cantwell and others engaged in a conspiracy under Virginia law in advance of the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017, a federal jury ruled Tuesday.

After a nearly monthlong civil trial, a jury in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville deadlocked on two key claims but found the white nationalists liable on several other counts Tuesday. The civil verdict carries sizable financial penalties.

The jury deadlocked on a civil lawsuit’s claim that the defendants conspired to commit racially motivated violence. The jury also could not reach a verdict on the claim pertaining to whether the defendants had knowledge of a conspiracy for racially motivated violence and failed to prevent it.

The jury awarded $500,000 in punitive damages against all 12 individual defendants, and $1 million against five white nationalist organizations on the conspiracy count, according to the Washington Post.

Attorney Roberta Kaplan said the plaintiffs' lawyers plan to refile the lawsuit so a new jury can decide the two claims this jury could not reach a verdict on, according to The Associated Press. On the punitive damages, though, she said the amount awarded by this jury "sends a loud message.”

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring said Tuesday that "no dollar amount can ever bring back those we lost or repair a community that is still mourning, but my hope is that today's verdict brings some sense of justice to the families and loved ones who were affected by the hate these individuals brought to Charlottesville."

The lawsuit, Sines v. Kessler, was filed in the U.S. District for the Western District of Virginia in October 2017 by a group of Charlottesville-area residents against organizers and key participants of the rally.

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The white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups used the city of Charlottesville's efforts to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee to organize white nationalists across the country for the rally. In July, almost four years after the deadly rally, Charlottesville finally removed the Lee statue.

Hundreds of white nationalists descended on Charlottesville for the Unite the Right rally on Aug. 11 and 12, 2017. During a march on the University of Virginia campus, white nationalists chanted “Jews will not replace us,” surrounded counterprotesters and threw tiki torches at them.

On Aug. 12, a participant in the rally rammed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing one woman and injuring dozens more.

The driver of the car, James Alex Fields Jr., is serving life in prison for murder and hate crimes. Fields is one of 24 defendants named in the lawsuit funded by Integrity First for America, a nonprofit civil rights organization formed in response to the violence in Charlottesville.

In three counts against the defendants, the jury was asked whether damages should be assessed against Fields. The jury found that Fields was not liable for racial, religious or ethnic harassment in one count.

But on a claim by six plaintiffs for assault and battery, and a separate claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress, the jury found Fields liable both times, and imposed punitive damages of $6 million on each count. The jury also awarded compensatory damages against Fields for more than $803,000 for assault and battery and more than $701,000 for emotional distress.

The full total awarded against Fields was more than $13.5 million, according to the Washington Post.

The jury found five other defendants — Jason Kessler, Richard Spencer, Elliott Kline, Robert Ray and Christopher Cantwell — were liable for violating Virginia law on racial, religious or ethnic harassment or violence. The jury ordered the five to pay $500,000 in compensatory damages to two of the plaintiffs, and then imposed another $200,000 on each defendant for punitive damages.

The lawsuit was funded by Integrity First for America, a nonprofit civil rights group.

“This case has sent a clear message: violent hate won’t go unanswered. There will be accountability," Integrity First for America Executive Director Amy Spitalnick said in a statement Tuesday.

"These judgments underscore the major financial, legal, and operational consequences for violent hate — even beyond the significant impacts this case has already had," Spitalnick said. "And at a moment of rising extremism, major threats to our democracy, and far too little justice, this case has provided a model for accountability."

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