Jury selection has begun in a civil trial against the men and groups who organized a deadly white supremacist rally in Virginia four years ago. The case, brought by nine plaintiffs, argues that the organizers of the August 2017 Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville conspired to commit violence. “After four long years of litigating this lawsuit, our plaintiffs, our team, are finally going to court to seek the accountability and justice that has been so sorely lacking in recent years when it comes to the extremism we saw in Charlottesville, and frankly, the broader rise in extremism we’ve seen in this country,” Amy Spitalnick, executive director of the non-profit Integrity First For America, which is funding the lawsuit, told As It Happens guest host Peter Armstrong. The federal lawsuit seeks monetary damages against 14 men and 10 organizations in connection with the 2017 rally, as well as a judgment that the defendants violated the constitutional rights of the plaintiffs who were physically injured or emotionally scarred. The allegations in the lawsuit have not been proven in court. The defendants deny instigating the violence at the rally, and cite their First Amendment right to free speech. (…) The plaintiffs in the suit are Charlottesville community members who say they were harmed or injured during the rally. Some of them “were kicked, punched, beaten, had fuel and lit torches thrown at them,” alleges Spitalnick. Four were among those injured when Fields drove his vehicle into the crowd. The defendants, she said, are “a who’s who of the violent white supremacist movement in America.” They include the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina; the East Coast Knights of the Ku Klux Klan; Jason Kessler, who took out the permit for the event; Andrew Anglin, founder of the far-right website the Daily Stormer; and Richard B. Spencer, president of the National Policy Institute, which the lawsuit says is a white nationalist think-tank.
via cbc; Organizers of deadly 2017 Charlottesville, Va., rally on trial in civil lawsuit
siehe auch: Rachel Maddow laughs at white supremacists whining about money woes before Charlottesville trial. Out MSNBC host Rachel Maddow laughed at complaints from white supremacists about their upcoming trial for inciting violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. Maddow also mocked the white, straight, cisgender men at their choice to represent themselves after their lawyers quit the case, saying “couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.” Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, one of the main instigators of the racist riot, has complained that the trial has taken “a toll” on him, in a piece for USA Today. “Along with the constant stress,” he whined, “the lawsuit cost thousands of dollars to defend.” Unable to pay a private lawyer, Spencer was left with two options: let the court appoint a public defender at no cost to himself or represent himself. He chose the latter. “You say he’s representing himself?” asked Maddow. “Serving as his own lawyer? You don’t say. Whatever else has happened in your life today, I bequeath you this, little warm fuzziness, the Nazis are representing themselves in court, acting as their own lawyers. That always works out great. Good for them. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch.” But Spencer isn’t the only defendant who has chosen to argue his own case. Another white supremacist’s lawyers quit after he started screaming anti-Semitic slurs at one of the opposing team’s lawyers.