Okay dudes and dudettes - here's something to raise your glasses to over Thanksgiving dinner !
~ From CNN: With video & related links, don't miss:
Jury Finds Unite the Right Defendants Liable For More than $26 Million in Damages
Updated 6:27 PM ET, Tue November 23, 2021
"Charlottesville, Virginia (CNN)A jury has awarded more than $26 million in damages after finding the White nationalists who organized and participated in a violent 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, liable on a state conspiracy claim and other claims.
The jury in the federal civil trial said Tuesday it could not reach a verdict on two federal conspiracy claims.
The violence during the Unite the Right rally turned the Virginia city into another battleground in America's culture wars and highlighted growing polarization. It was also an event that empowered White supremacists and nationalists to demonstrate their beliefs in public rather than just online.
The first federal conspiracy claim was the most prominent against the defendants because it alleged the defendants conspired to commit racially motivated violence while the second alleged the defendants had knowledge of a conspiracy and failed to prevent it.
"We are thrilled that the jury has delivered a verdict in favor of our plaintiffs, finally giving them the justice they deserve after the horrific weekend of violence and intimidation in August 2017," plaintiffs' attorneys Roberta Kaplan and Karen Dunn said.
"Today's verdict sends a loud and clear message that facts matter, the law matters, and that the laws of this this country will not tolerate the use of violence to deprive racial and religious minorities of the basic right we all share to live as free and equal citizens."
One defense attorney called the verdict a win.
"It's a politically charged situation. It's going to be hard to get 11 people to agree," said attorney Joshua Smith, who represented three defendants. "I consider a hung jury to be a win, considering a disparity of resources."
The events surrounding August 11-12, 2017, saw White nationalists and supremacists marching through Charlottesville and the University of Virginia campus chanting, "Jews will not replace us," "You will not replace us" and "Blood and soil," a phrase evoking Nazi philosophy on ethnic identity.
The violence -- which enveloped the rally to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee -- reached a crescendo when James Alex Fields Jr., who was protesting the statue's removal, sped his car through a crowd of counterprotesters, injuring dozens and killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
Some of the most prominent figures of the alt-right -- Jason Kessler, Matthew Heimbach, Richard Spencer and Christopher Cantwell -- were among the defendants.
Despite the large jury award, there's the question of whether the plaintiffs will see much of that money. Fields, who was found liable for nearly half of the $26 million, is serving multiple life sentences. Some of the other defendants -- individuals and White supremacist organizations -- have indicated they are financially stressed.
Millions in damages awarded
A jury awarded the plaintiffs $11 million in punitive damages on a Virginia conspiracy claim. Each defendant is liable for $500,000 each. Five organizations are liable for $1 million each.
The jury only awarded $7 to the plaintiffs in compensatory damages.
In general, compensatory damages compensate (or make whole) the injured party for their loss or injury. Punitive damages are considered punishment when the defendant's behavior is found to be particularly harmful, such as if the defendant intentionally engaged in willful misconduct.
For claim four, defendants Kessler, Spencer, Cantwell, Elliott Kline and Robert "Azzmador" Ray were found liable for punitive damages each of $200,000. Plaintiffs Natalie Romero and Devin Willis were awarded $250,000 each in compensatory damages.
In the same claim, the jury also found Fields liable, but did not award any damages.
It also found Fields liable for $12 million in punitive damages total for claims five and six. Jurors awarded $803,277 in compensatory damages to five plaintiffs for the assault or battery claim. On the other claim the jury awarded $701,459 in compensatory damages.
Fields, who is serving multiple life sentences in prison, didn't testify in the trial, but was represented by an attorney.
A few criminal cases resulted from the events surrounding the rally -- including state and federal convictions of Fields, who is serving multiple life sentences for killing Heyer -- but there were no large-scale trials of organizers from the Justice Department under the Trump or Biden administrations.
Lawsuit sought long-awaited consequences
The civil lawsuit in federal court sought to impose consequences on those who planned the rally and Fields for the people he injured or traumatized when he ran his Dodge Challenger into the crowd.
But even before the trial, the plaintiffs had won in some ways due to the national outrage over the violence. Richard Spencer stopped his public speaking tour and has called the case "financially crippling." Jeff Schoep and Heimbach renounced White supremacy and stopped organizing White power activity in public.
Schoep gave the group he led for more than two decades, the National Socialist Movement, to a Black civil rights activist who died shortly thereafter. Identity Evropa, one of the groups named in the suit, rebranded under a new name twice before disbanding.
Fourteen people and 10 White supremacist and nationalist organizations were named in the lawsuit that prompted the trial, but a few were not involved in the verdicts because they didn't show up for court and were the subjects of default judgments.
In closing arguments last week, attorneys representing the plaintiffs told the jury that the defendants prepared for the "Battle of Charlottesville" and messages sent between them and their actions after the violence were proof of a conspiracy.
Defense attorneys and two high-profile defendants who are representing themselves countered that none of the plaintiffs had proven the defendants had organized racial violence.
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