bourbiza mohamed
Years after a white nationalist rally led to violence in Charlottesville, a trial is about to start out for one of many individuals charged with utilizing flaming torches to intimidate counterprotesters.
The trial of Jacob Joseph Dix, 29, of Clarksville, Ohio, could be the primary take a look at of a 2002 legislation that makes it a felony to burn one thing to intimidate and trigger concern of harm or dying. Lawmakers handed the legislation after the state Supreme Courtroom dominated {that a} cross-burning statute used to prosecute Ku Klux Klan members was unconstitutional.
On the evening of August 11, 2017, a number of hundred white nationalists marched by means of the campus of the College of Virginia, many carrying torches and a few chanting, “Jews Will Not Substitute Us.”
Two days of demonstrations had been organized partly to protest the deliberate elimination of a statue of Accomplice Normal Robert E. Lee and was believed to be the most important gathering of white nationalists in a decade.
Following the protest President Trump defended the group saying they included “some very superb individuals,” he additionally expressed sympathy for his or her demonstration towards the elimination of the statue.
“You had many individuals in that group aside from neo-Nazis and white nationalists,” Trump mentioned. “The press has handled them completely unfairly.” “You additionally had some very superb individuals on either side,” he mentioned
Protests over the plan to take away the statue morphed into the violent “Unite the Proper” rally. It was throughout that rally that James Alex Fields Jr., an avowed Hitler admirer, deliberately drove his automotive right into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others. Fields is serving a life sentence.
Indictments unsealed final yr confirmed 11 individuals had been charged with intimidation by fireplace, however prosecutors haven’t mentioned whether or not further defendants had been additionally charged. To this point, 5 individuals have pleaded responsible to the cost. Dix is the primary to go on trial.
Dix advised The Each day Progress newspaper that he has modified over the past seven years.
“I am type of on trial for a previous life,” he advised the newspaper throughout a court docket listening to in January.
Dix’s lawyer, Peter Frazier, has argued in court docket paperwork that the white nationalists had been expressing free speech protected underneath the First Modification.
Henrico Commonwealth’s Legal professional Shannon Taylor was appointed as a particular prosecutor within the case after a choose granted a request from Dix’s lawyer to take away Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Legal professional James Hingeley’s workplace from the case due to a battle of curiosity involving an assistant commonwealth’s lawyer.
The trial in Albemarle Circuit Courtroom is predicted to final a few week.
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