First Cop City RICO Trial Begins Monday, December 11, After Defendant is Granted Speedy Trial Demand

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 8, 2023

First Cop City RICO Trial Begins Monday, December 11, After Defendant is Granted Speedy Trial Demand

Attorney General Attempts to Prevent Defense from Using Selective Prosecution to Show How State is Criminalizing Defendants’ Political Beliefs

ATLANTA, GA — The first trial in a sweeping Georgia RICO indictment against 61 #StopCopCity activists is scheduled to begin with jury selection on Monday, December 11 at 9am in Fulton County Superior Court. Ayla King, 18, is the only defendant so far to be granted their demand for a speedy trial which is supposed to conclude four months after arraignment. King was indicted in August and arraigned last month, on November 6, along with dozens of other RICO co-defendants. Presiding Superior Court Judge Kimberly Adams has set a deadline of December 29 to seat the jury, and just last week imposed a gag order on the trial parties, preventing them from communicating publicly about the proceedings.

What: Trial against first #StopCopCity activist indicted on Georgia RICO charges

When: Jury selection begins on Monday, December 11 at 9AM

Where: Fulton County Superior Court, 136 Pryor St. SW, Courtroom 4E

“Ayla King and others have pursued speedy trials in order to turn the tables on Attorney General Carr and show the world that the State of Georgia has no evidence to back up its outlandish claims,” said #StopCopCity activist Keyanna Jones “The RICO charges are a bold-faced attempt to criminalize a powerful movement in order to ram through an over-budget police training facility that the majority of Atlantans clearly don’t even want.”

King is one of more than 20 people indiscriminately arrested at the South River Music Festival on March 5, 2023. On the same day that King and numerous others were arrested, roughly a mile away from the music festival, a spontaneously-organized group of people destroyed property at the construction site, burning equipment and trailers. Overwhelmed by the action, police resorted to invading the nearby music festival about an hour later, claiming that having muddy clothing was evidence of guilt.

King and the others were arrested that day on domestic terrorism charges, simply for being in the Weelaunee Forest. In an attempt to show that opposition to Cop City is limited to so-called “outside agitators,” the police separated protesters that day by their state of residence, choosing to arrest those detained who resided outside of Georgia and releasing most others with local residences.

Many of the March arrestees spent three months in the infamous Dekalb County Jail, the maximum time the state can imprison arrestees without an indictment. These arrestees have never been indicted on domestic terrorism charges, leaving many to believe that the charges were a publicity stunt aimed at suppressing the #StopCopCity movement. One indigenous activist, who does not have formal citizenship in the United States, remains in indefinite ICE custody. Activists and their supporters accuse Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr of using the RICO indictment to criminalize the rapidly growing movement against Cop City by categorizing it as a “criminal enterprise.”

The state has encountered several setbacks in its prosecution of Cop City dissidents. This year, Dekalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston formally recused herself from the ongoing domestic terrorism cases in her jurisdiction, citing differences in “prosecutorial philosophy” from Carr, especially his decision to pursue domestic terrorism charges against an active-duty legal observer from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

More recently, Georgia Deputy Attorney General John Fowler was admonished in court for his motion to admit a document claimed to be the personal writings of Tortuguita, the forest defender murdered in a police raid on January 18, 2023, as primary evidence of a criminal conspiracy. Activists say that Fowler made the unusual decision to include the entire unauthenticated document as part of the motion in order to prompt coverage by news outlets. The document was later sealed in court with a forthcoming ruling expected on its admissibility in the RICO trials.

More recently, the state filed a motion in limine to prevent the defense from arguing that their clients are being selectively prosecuted for their political beliefs. This state motion follows a RICO indictment that includes many pages detailing the Attorney General’s interpretation of Cop City opponents’ political beliefs as evidence of their involvement in a criminal conspiracy. A ruling is expected on this motion in the coming days.

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