A federal jury in Virginia has awarded millions of dollars in damages to plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the organizers of the 2017 “Unite the Right” white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Good.
It’s a start.
I just love this. Love it.
I suspect we’ll see a similar civil case against Kyle Rittenhouse. There will be better lawyers for the plaintiffs and probably a different judge, and of course, a lower evidentiary threshold.
There’s a blood out of a stone issue here but you can get plenty of blood out of a stomach ulcer…and this decision is sure to create a few of those. They don’t have it but like all judgements they’ll have nothing until they satisfy it. Fuck em.
With today’s subpoenas of the Proud Boys and the Oathkeepers plus the Charlottesville civil suit jury award we’re not quite at Judgement at Nuremberg yet.
Unite the Right: “Our Reich will last a Thousand Years!”
Plaintiffs: “I find that hard to believe.”
Unite the Right: “Would you believe through the Charlottesville Oktoberfest and Dixie Polka Party?”
Plaintiffs: “I don’t think so.”
Unite the Right: “How about until they repossess the air mattress in my mom’s basement?”
Fine, but let’s have some critical analysis of whether and how they’d appeal this decision, and the likelihood of changes to the award upon appeal.
Hooray! Bankrupt the bastards!
When Richard Spencer was cold cocked on the street the day after TFG was inaugurated, he should have heeded the message. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Do these guys have any assets?
Not any more.
Based on CNN’s description of the verdict, this is a pretty big loss for the good guys. The jury couldn’t agree on the first two charges, the punitive damages on count 3 are going to get reduced to maybe $100 because they only awarded $7 in compensatory damages, The punitives for counts 5 and 6 are going to get vastly reduced for much the same reason. So it looks to me like the only count that’s going to stand up is count 4, with only $500k in compensatory damages and $200k each against 5 of the individual defendants.
Retrial on the conspiracy claims?
ETA: If CNN’s description of the verdict is accurate, and applying a conservative multiple of 2x compensatory damages for capping punitives (which is not hard and fast, but it’s in the ballpark of what’s allowable), I’d estimate the forthcoming judgement at:
So ballpark the total award at $6 million.
Thank god then that the media in general isn’t reporting it that way and instead are reporting it as the alt-right being liable in the Charlottesville trial.
I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but these are sums that they might actually be able to raise from their supporters. I hope we learn what went wrong on the first two counts.
Civil suits are the best way to go after these sorts of folks and organizations: 1. The burden of proof is a ‘preponderance of the evidence’ (i.e. Just over 50%), not ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ as in criminal cases, and 2. The penalty is financial.
In that way bad actors and organizations can be bankrupted thus halting their activities.
It was how Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center defeated the Aryan Nations.
Missed it by that much.
These things will only be resolved through civil courts. Criminal trials, especially in certain states, will continue to have difficulty finding juries with enough impartial members to get meet the standard for conviction in criminal cases. It only take a couple folks to hang a jury and the desire to get home and not be harassed by journalists and extremist ammo-sexuals for not voting to acquit is probably pretty strong in most members
So “fine people” is using the verb form. Ah.