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A Fulton County judge says he will toss the racketeering charges against 61 people who were arrested in connection with the protests against the construction of the Atlanta police training facility, commonly known as “Cop City.”
The Associated Press (AP) reports that Fulton County Judge Kevin Farmer said Republican Attorney General Chris Carr needed to obtain Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s (R) permission to pursue the prosecutions, which he did not do.
“It would have been real easy to just ask the governor, ‘Let me do this, give me a letter,’” Farmer said, as per the AP. “The steps just weren’t followed.”
Many observers have decried the charges as politically motivated and designed to crush opposition to construction of the police facility. Of the 61 charged with racketeering, also known as RICO, five were also charged with arson and domestic terrorism.
Farmer said Carr did not have the authority to charge the defendants with arson, according to AP’s report. Deputy Attorney General John Fowler told the judge that his decision is “wholly incorrect.”
“Farmer said he plans to file a formal order soon and is not sure whether he would quash the entire indictment or let the domestic terrorism charge stand, though he said he expects the prosecution to appeal regardless,” the news outlet reported.
Defense attorney Xavier de Janon said “this is a win and hopefully many more will come,” as per AP’s report.
“The prosecutions haven’t ended against this movement, and I hope that people continue to pay attention to how the state is dealing with protests and activism, because it hasn’t ended,” de Janon said.
The charges, filed in 2023, were part of a yearslong crackdown on Cop City protesters waged by local officials and prosecutors. Construction of Cop City in the South River Forest was eventually completed despite widespread protests.
If convicted, the protesters faced decades in prison. Atlanta Community Press Collective (ACPC) reported at the time that the RICO indictment “contains dozens of allegations for acts ranging from throwing Molotov cocktails to an individual signing their name as ‘ACAB,’” noting that “prosecutors have provided no evidence of these charges in an open court.”
One of the people charged in the RICO conspiracy was a legal observer at a Stop Cop City music festival. ACPC reported that Thomas Jurgens, who was a staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center at the time, was wearing a bright yellow hat marking him as a legal observer when he was arrested.
In August, a judge dismissed a state domestic terrorism charge against Cop City protester Jamie Marsicano, who is also one of the RICO defendants. Marsicano and almost two dozen other protesters were arrested in 2023 at the music festival and charged with terrorism.
“Since Defendant’s bond hearing, there has been no further progression or prosecution of this individual case other than bond modifications made at Defendant’s request,” Superior Court Judge Gregory A. Adams wrote in his ruling, noting that the attorney general “appears to have delayed this matter in order to gain tactical advantage over the defense.”
In addition to dozens of arrests, in 2023, six law enforcement officers shot and killed a protester, Manuel Paez Terán, known as Tortuguita, during a raid on protesters who were camping in the forest, the planned site of the training facility. Terán suffered more than 50 bullet wounds. The Guardian reported that a planning document for the raid called the protesters “domestic terrorists.”
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