With Last Charges Against J20 Protesters Dropped, Defendants Seek Accountability For Prosecutors

Last Friday afternoon, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia dismissed charges against the 39 remaining J20 Inauguration Day protesters under indictment, bringing a close to a year-and-a-half-long saga marked by police aggression, prosecutorial overreach, and heartening displays of solidarity by the defendants and their supporters.

“I was sitting in the front row of a civil court proceeding when I heard,” said Ella Fassler, a 25-year-old defendant from New York, whose charges were dropped last week. “I had to hold back a yelp of disbelief. I walked out as quickly as I could and met up with a co-defendant; we hugged, danced around, and called our loved ones. Radical leftists don’t win all that often, so we have to pause and soak in the victory when we do.”

While the U.S. government may be finished with the J20 prosecutions, however, J20 defendants are not done with the prosecutors. Amid the celebrations, the defendants and advocates are turning to a new task: holding prosecutors accountable for their conduct at trial — and for the unnecessary anxiety and ambient trauma suffered by the defendants.

Source

It took a year and a half but the charges against all of the J20 defendants have been dropped. For anyone that has followed this case this should not come as a surprise. It should also not come as a surprise that the former defendants are now seeking to hold Assistant US Attorney Jennifer Kerkhoff accountable.

Throughout this case Kerkhoff and the government made a complete mockery of due process. While this case had been marred with controversy almost from the start the depths the government were willing to go to to win this case did not become known until recently.

What started as a Brady violation stemming from the fact that the prosecution had edited out a section of the video that was their key piece of evidence soon revealed that the prosecution was withholding 70+ pieces of evidence that could help exonerate the defendants. When asked why this evidence was not provided to the defense the prosecution responded that they could not answer the question at that time.

This is what forms the basis for the case that is now being built against Kerkhoff with the desired goal of getting her disbarred. Unfortunately it is rare for a prosecutor to receive any kind of substantive punishment from a Brady violation. What makes this case different is that, while she did her best to avoid outright lying to judge, Kerkhoff did lie to the judge when she said that the prosecution was not withholding evidence. This could lead to a contempt charge for Kerkhoff which will mean she's in much deeper trouble.

The backlash against Kerkhoff is just the beginning though. The ACLU has filed charges against Metropolitan Police for their role played in this whole charade. Meanwhile other groups have filed FOIA requests trying to find out how much cooperation was actually going on between police, prosecution, and far Right groups like Project Veritas to bring down the J20 protesters.

This case has shone a disturbing light on the US legal system. This was a high profile case with a lot of eyes on it. If the US government is willing to cheat to win in this case what does that mean for all the cases that don't receive nationwide coverage?

She gonna be Nifonged? Or did they get Nifonged?? Forget how it works.

That's rich.

Absolutely no protestor was held accountable for their conduct.

a reply to: neo96

Blame it on Kerkhoff. She's the one that went for a ridiculous charge and then cheated to try to make it stick. If she had actually gone after the real vandals and charged them appropriately you might have seen a conviction.

Instead she went after 200+ people that were already in the cauldron when the worst of the vandalism happened.

You shouldn't be mad that a lot of innocent people got off. You should be mad that the government violated the Constitution in order to send innocent people to jail.

We can’t allow illegal assembly to go unpunished. This is a victory for criminals. When protests turn violent and unruly jail time should be mandatory.

originally posted by: neo96
That's rich.

Absolutely no protestor was held accountable for their conduct.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office has only itself to blame. This is a textbook case of prosecutorial misconduct, with evidence tampering and discovery violation.

a reply to: Metallicus

For people that aren't violent or destructive and are already in police custody before things actually pop off?

Even journalists just covering the story were being threatened with 70+ years of jail time.

That's pretty much the definition of fascism.