Victims of violence from 2017 march in Virginia are awarded more than $25 million
A federal jury in Virginia awarded victims of violence stemming from a 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Va., more than $25 million on Tuesday, after finding a group of prominent white-supremacist leaders and groups liable under state law for injuries suffered during a torchlight march and Unite the Right event.
The jury deadlocked on two federal conspiracy counts.
The events on Aug. 11 and 12, 2017, were attended by hundreds of members of white-nationalist, neo-Nazi and militia groups from around the U.S. Throughout the weekend, violent clashes with counterprotesters left dozens injured and one woman dead, after a white-nationalist demonstrator drove his car into a crowd.
The lawsuit, filed in October 2017 by several people who were injured that weekend, used a Reconstruction-Era law to attempt to hold liable the leaders and organizers who planned the violence and others who carried it out.
Among the individual and organizational defendants found liable were Jason Kessler, the primary organizer of the Unite the Right rally; Richard B. Spencer, considered a founder of the insurgent white-supremacist movement known as the alt-right; and James Fields Jr., who was sentenced to life in prison for killing a woman when he drove into a crowd of counterprotesters.
The jury also held responsible several other white-supremacist groups whose members promoted and participated in the rallies, including the National Socialist Movement, Vanguard America and League of the South.
The jury found the defendants liable under state law for injuries suffered. It deadlocked on two federal conspiracy counts.
Throughout the monthlong trial, jurors heard testimony from at least two dozen witnesses, including many of the defendants.
The two counts that the jury deadlocked on used a Reconstruction Era law—the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871—which allows victims of racially-motivated violence to sue the people who conspired to attack them.
Jurors deliberated for nearly three days before returning the verdict Tuesday afternoon, holding all defendants responsible for conspiracy under Virginia state law.
The jury also found Mr. Fields liable for claims of assault or battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. On those counts, jurors awarded the plaintiffs $13.5 million in damages, including $12 million in punitive damages.
A lawyer for Mr. Fields previously said that his client was already spending his life in federal prison. “To the extent that you’re asked to punish Mr. Fields, I submit that he’s been punished,” he said to the jury.
During the trial, other defendants attempted to distance themselves from Mr. Fields, and therefore weren’t legally responsible for his actions.
Mr. Kessler’s attorney argued that Mr. James acted alone. “Bringing the Nazis to town, and all the damage that happened in the wake of that, was not foreseeable to Jason Kessler,” he said.
Mr. Spencer, who represented himself, told jurors that he was a “scapegoat” and urged them “to give a bad guy a fair shake.”
Neither Mr. Kessler’s attorney nor Mr. Spencer responded to requests for comment Tuesday.
Co-lead counsels for the plaintiffs, Roberta Kaplan and Karen Dunn, said, in a statement Tuesday, “The laws of 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.”
